Archives for June 2008

Earlier this morning, Postman wrote:

I was talking to a smart friend over the weekend who bemoaned the oh-so-careful approach Gov. Chris Gregoire is taking to governing. He’s a supporter. But he worries that out of fear of alienating someone, somewhere, Gregoire has traded activism for near-paralysis.

The topic of that post had nothing to do with drug policy, but with the deadline for having the State Department of Health establish the 60-day supply limits for medical marijuana patients coming up tomorrow, I find myself in the same boat as Postman’s unnamed friend – if not even more critical of the Governor.

As of my typing this, I still have no idea what the released limits will be. Earlier this year, it was revealed that preliminary numbers of 35 ounces and a 100 sq ft growing area caused the Governor to get more involved in the process and demand more feedback from law enforcement and medical professionals. Many patients and advocates within the medical marijuana community saw this as an attempt by the Governor to derail the process in support of the state’s law enforcement union, while the Governor’s dishonesty about why the process was derailed didn’t exactly convince people that she was acting in good faith.

At the follow-up meeting (which the DOH attempted to keep closed to the public, but failed), the two parties who the Governor claimed were underrepresented in the initial round of workshops were in attendance. The law enforcement officials again iterated that the decision should be left up the medical professionals, and the one medical professional who showed up said that 35 ounces might be too low of a limit for some patients who ingest it within food. Law enforcement officials also asserted that the limit shouldn’t be so high that criminals could hide behind it, but believing that someone with a small growing area in their basement could launch a massive criminal enterprise is more than a little absurd, considering that marijuana is already the most lucrative cash crop in the state of Washington.

The released limits tomorrow (if they’re even released) will go a long way towards showing whether or not Governor Gregoire is someone who can put politics and special interests aside and do what’s right for the citizens of this state.

Earlier this month, I visited a partially disabled medical marijuana patient in Tacoma who spent over a week in jail this winter. She was kept from receiving the special liquid meals she requires for nearly the entire time. In her mid-40s, she was a former nurse who told me she was staunchly anti-drug before discovering that marijuana worked best for her illnesses. She and her husband then became active in helping other registered patients learn how to grow for themselves.

Stories like that one are common. The list of other patients being hauled into court across the state has been growing. At Drinking Liberally and other events, I occasionally talk to people close to the Governor, and they rarely seem to understand that this is more than just a number. It could be the difference that causes someone to lose their house, their livelihood, or what’s left of their health, should they be sent to jail without adequate medical needs being met. Hopefully, the Governor herself doesn’t suffer from her own paralysis on this one.

This is what we’re stuck with:

Despite heavy criticism, Gen. Wesley Clark is standing by his statement this weekend that Sen. John MCain’s military experience doesn’t qualify him to be commander-in-chief.

“I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war,” Clark said of McCain on Sunday. “But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall.”

That statement from Clark has come under withering criticism from McCain’s campaign and was rejected by Sen. Barack Obama, both of whom (along with the media) distorted Clark’s words by painting them as an attack on McCain’s military service.

Clark is a retired four star general, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. If he can’t call bullshit on the lionization of Saint McCain, no one can.

Surrogates say the things candidates can’t say. That’s Clark’s job. For Obama to go out of his way to reinforce the “McCain has foreign policy experience” is political malpractice.

Obama should pick a vice president who will tell him not to do this again. That seems to be the most important criteria for VP selection at the moment.

Only four more hours to donate to Darcy Burner before the all important end of quarter deadline.  And while you’re at it, why not throw a little change to George Fearing running against the execrable Doc Hastings out in WA-04?

The immigration issue can be complicated, but one part of it that should be simple is that it benefits us to have hard working immigrants come here and raise families.

A friend of mine just sent me a petition for Anuj Garg, a friend and co-worker of hers who’s close to facing deportation due to delays and understaffing in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) office. He owns a home here and has a three-month old son. You can sign a petition supporting him and his family here. Their story is probably just one of many right now, especially considering he works for a large company and even that hasn’t been enough to get his visa extended.

It’s really disheartening to see how we’ve gone from being a country that welcomed my great-grandparents off of boats in New York a century ago (some of whom were teenagers who spoke no English) to one that sends back hard-working people who’ve been here for years, hold good jobs, and own their own homes.

Kudos to Seattle Times reporter Emily Heffter for giving a little space to the well documented thesis that Rep. Dave Reichert has been manipulating his voting record to appear more moderate than he is:

Often, he votes with Republicans on procedural motions, then switches sides and votes with Democrats in the final roll call.

For example, on an energy bill last year, Reichert voted with his fellow Republicans several times — against Democratic motions to close the bill to amendments and bring it to a vote. But in the final vote, he sided with Democrats to pass the bill.

“How can you end up on both sides of the vote?” asked Sandeep Kaushik, Burner’s spokesman.

Kaushik says Reichert in fact is trying to manipulate his image to ensure his re-election. Reichert rarely casts the deciding vote when going against his party on an important issue, Kaushik says, and he joins the Democrats when they are going to win anyway.

Sure the refutation doesn’t come until more than halfway through Heffter’s 1200 word piece, and well away from the prime front page real estate on which the article starts, but no reporter has given more thought or space to exploring beneath the surface of Reichert’s actual voting record, despite the fact that his tactics are both common and, well, obvious. How common?

Reichert wouldn’t be the first to use that strategy, said Matt Barreto, a UW political-science professor.

“It is a common thing that you see a lot that allows a politician to portray themselves a moderate,” he said.

And how obvious? Well, listen to Reichert explain his voting record before a gathering of Republicans back in 2006 (courtesy of TVW’s new player widget):

“So when the leadership comes to me and says , Dave you have to vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority, I do it.”

That’s Dave Reichert, “conscience driven independent,” in his own damn words… words backed up by Dan Kirkdorffer’s meticulous fisking of Reichert’s voting record, but words which the media have for the most part ignored when addressing the issue of Reichert’s alleged political moderation.  Reichert explains “how things work” back in the other Washington, political science professors validate it and his own voting record demonstrates it.  And yet our local news media, desperately longing for that mythical creature known as the modern moderate Republican, have been complicit in presenting this pro-war, pro-Bush, anti-choice congressman as somehow a perfect fit for his suburban swing district.

Darcy Burner, on the other hand, has somehow been given the label of being too progressive for her district, though on what specific issues the gatekeepers of conventional wisdom never bother to tell us.  On the war?  You can read her Responsible Plan on ending the war for yourself, and see if it’s out of step with the voters in WA-08.  Too progressive on reproductive rights?  On FISA?  On the economy?

Heffter’s piece is a great first step toward setting the record straight on Reichert’s record, but we can’t rely on our local media to tell the whole story.  Darcy is going to have to do that herself, and it’s going to cost a lot of money.  That’s why she needs your help.

Today is the last day of the fundraising quarter, and heading into the homestretch, pundits and big donors are going to size up the competitiveness of the various races based on its outcome.  So please give today and help Darcy hit her end of quarter target.  That’s the only way we’re going to dispel the Reichert myth.

This post is dedicated to the folks at Crosscut.

Stephen McDonald is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, for allegedly burning a doormat at a Mount Vernon, WA motel. As the trial appeals judge snidely remarks in the transcript: “Prisoners now have two rights, the right to go to jail and the right to stay there until their term is up.”

Regardless of whether McDonald actually committed the crime (and McDonald effectively argues that he was railroaded), a sentence of life in prison without parole is ridiculous, immoral, and an unjustifiable expense of taxpayer dollars for a minor property crime, regardless of his prior record. But then “Three Strikes and You’re Out” is a popular string of rhetorical bullshit with both the political and media establishments, so good luck Mr. McDonald in finding a politician or journalist to champion your cause.

Noemie has much more at WashBlog.

Chuck Taylor of Crosscut:

When we launched Crosscut, my fantasy was to require full, real names of commenters. Our goal is to run a site where ideas were fair game but individuals are not, where civility would be imposed by the power of shame. We didn’t want this to turn into the island in Lord of the Flies or, worse, Slog.

Yeah, because who wants to be like SLOG, what with their huge traffic and what not?

I was once in the audience for one of those “New Media: What Does It All Mean?” things at the downtown library. Michael Hood asked the panel, “what are you doing to reach out to young readers?”

The guy from the Times was very funny: he admitted that anything the Times does to woo young folks comes off as “uncool.” Josh Feit mentioned that The Stranger does really well in this area. Chuck Taylor’s answer was, basically, “we don’t think we have to.”

I think that’s why Ted Van Dyk is Crosscut’s sex advice columnist…

The solemn defenders of public civility at the Seattle Times editorial board spank the WA Dems today, arguing that “Ethnic slurs have no place in political advertising in our state.”

I don’t really disagree, and had the Dems called Dino Rossi a wop or a dago or a greaseball or a guinea or a spaghetti nigger, well, that would have been offensive, and clearly out of bounds. But they didn’t. They merely soundtracked a web video with the theme song to The Sopranos—a critically acclaimed TV show—because the tune was catchy, energetic and a well-paced fit to the accompanying footage… and I can only assume, because they wanted to highlight the fact that the political thugs at the BIAW are about as close as we come to mobsters in this state, at least in attitude, short of the actual Colacurcio crime family and their consiglieri (and proud Italian Club of Seattle member) Albert Rosellini.

Oops! Did I cross a line there by suggesting that former Gov. Rosellini has known mob connections? Does that constitute an ethnic slur, despite the supporting evidence, simply because Rosellini is Italian? (Apparently yes, judging from the way our local media gingerly dances around Rosellini’s connections to the Colacurcios and their mob activities out of fear of offending Italian-Americans… or, perhaps, getting whacked.)

Indeed, the very same day the Dems released their video, Rossi gave a stump speech in which he directly compared Gov. Gregoire’s policies to that of Tony Soprano, by name, and yet the Times didn’t find that slur “sleazy” because, I guess, Gregoire is of Irish descent. So by the Times’ standards, it is acceptable public discourse to groundlessly accuse Rossi of being a whiskey swilling drunk, but not Gregoire, whereas mob related epithets are okay when launched at our Irish-American governor, but not Rossi, or even actual Italian-American mobsters like the Colacurcios.

No really… I want to get this stuff straight, because after 16 years out here I’m still trying to wrap my mind around West Coast etiquette, and I wouldn’t want to offend anyone to the point where I’m beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat. (Though if I were, no doubt the genteel folks at the Times would write an editorial cheering my attacker.)

Clearly, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why, when complaining about “sleaze,” the Times sees fit to devote an entire Sunday editorial to attacking the Dems’ Sopranos reference yet don’t see the need to even mention Rossi’s. And, I don’t get why the Times’ editors think it’s so sleazy to highlight Rossi’s cozy relationship with BIAW along with that organization’s actual positions on actual issues, while totally ignoring BIAW’s insane rants linking environmentalism to Hitler, and equating BIAW’s own suffering under DOE’s stormwater regulations with that of the millions of Jews exterminated in Nazi death camps.

The Anti-Defamation League complained just as vociferously as the Italian Club of Seattle, so where was the editorial decrying that outrage, Mr. Blethen? I guess I must have missed it.

Jesus Christ, this isn’t some tawdry little blog here. The editors at the Times have the most widely read op/ed page in the state at their disposal, and this is what they choose to write about this Sunday? Not our collapsing economy or the Bush administration’s warmongering with Iran or illegal Justice Department hiring practices? Not an honest explication of the Spokane gaming compact and how they and the rest of the media got the story entirely backwards? No, Jim Vesely and his crew determined that the most important issues facing Seattle’s citizenry today are the declining standards of a college football team, and a four-day-old manufactroversy over a measly web video for chrissakes, and the failure of a political hack to apologize in strong enough terms.

(See Kelly, this is why I urged you not to back down over what was never intended to be an ethnic slur… because no matter how sincerely expiatory your apology, those goddamn Rossi-loving bastards at the Times were never going to give you any credit. Pussy.)

Of course on the bright side, the R’s mock outrage has clearly backfired, leading to over 12,000 views of a video that would have been seen no more than a few hundred times if not for the controversy. And yes, this is a good thing for the Dems, because whatever you think of the choice of music, the content of the video itself is compelling (and totally accurate) on its own. Go see for yourself here. Or check out my genuinely (and intentionally) offensive ethnic remixes here and here.

And as a final middle finger in the face of Seattle’s morbidly polite society, here’s yet another remix, this time with a tune that in no way references either organized crime or Rossi’s half-Italian heritage, yet somehow manages to be entirely appropriate to the video’s protagonists… not to mention the editors at the Times. Enjoy.

Elway has just released their June poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 405 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire leading Dino Rossi 47% to 39%.

The 8% spread found by Elway is the largest of the three June polls in this race. An early June SurveyUSA poll found Gregoire leading by +3.5%, and an early June Rasmussen poll found Gregoire up by +7%.

As usual, I use a Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the probability that Gregoire would win if the election were held now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 405 voters each, where each person had a 47% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 39% chance of voting for Rossi and a 14% chance of voting for neither.

Gregoire won 965,619 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 3,852 times. This suggests that Gregoire has something approaching a 96.9% chance of beating Rossi (if the election were held now). A statistician would simply point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is outside the margin of error.

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections:

The area to the right of the red line are wins for Gregoire; those to the left are wins for Rossi.

This current poll makes the eighth consecutive poll in a row in which Gregoire has led Rossi. At this point in the election season, Gregoire holds a commanding lead over Rossi.

During my time at KIRO I think I only had one extended conversation with conservative host Michael Medved, and surprisingly it was on a subject on which we both agreed, the animated children’s film Happy Feet. We both hated it.

Medved, who made his name as a movie reviewer, hated the film because of its preachy environmental message. He went on a bit about a lack of consensus on global warming, the film’s manipulative storyline and its many allegedly factual and scientific errors. I, who made my name as a purely political blogger and talker, hated the film because it had a sucky script. It was visually beautiful and all that, but it was godawful boring. It was a bad, forgettable, waste of a theater ticket and a bag of popcorn.

Well, my daughter and I just returned from an opening day matinée of Pixar’s Wall-E, and I’m afraid this instant classic is going to pose a tough dilemma for conservative critics like Medved, who are no doubt going to hate the film’s environmental, political and social message, but are going to have a tough time panning what is possibly the best feature length animated film ever.

Oh, it’s certainly not the funniest animated film ever made, or even the most entertaining; I can think of a couple of Pixar films that beat it in both categories. And while Pixar’s animation is of course stunning, the visuals are at times so bleak that it’s breathtaking beauty goes by unnoticed. Indeed, the very fact that it is animated at all often goes by unnoticed, an amazing feat for a film that features two anthropomorphized robots.

How perfect is this film? Perfect enough, I’m not ashamed to admit, that this 45-year-old cynic, sitting in a darkened theater on a Friday afternoon, had tears well up in his eyes at the sight of two robots just, well, holding hands.

Wall-E isn’t a mere cartoon, it is a work of art, a G-rated animated film that transcends the genre of G-rated animated films, and sets new standards for what is possible in the medium. It is a love story. It is a comedy. But it is also a morality tale that directly challenges the consumer culture that defines our nation, and the irresponsible environmental stewardship that threatens our planet.

Judged solely on its merits, and not its message, it is difficult to imagine anybody with a passion for cinema giving Wall-E a bad review. It will be interesting to see if critics like Medved are willing and able to rise to that daunting challenge.

The deadline for turning in signatures for the Death with Dignity Initiative 1000 is next week. Supporters turned in the first batch of signatures yesterday. There will be a press conference on Wednesday, July 2 at 1PM when the remaining signatures are turned in.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down another 100+ points again today at 11,346.51, just 759 points above where it stood the day President Bush took office.  That’s an annualized return of under one percent, but then it’s still better than Herbert Hoover, so who’s complaining?