Washblog

I utterly oppose Initiative 26. From its website:

King County Initiative 26 would make the offices of King County Executive, King County Assessor, and King County Council Non-partisan. This allows voters to choose between all candidates in the primary without having to "pick-a-party," while making county government accountable to the people, not political parties.

Nice spin. With non-partisan races, meaning candidates won't have party support, only well-funded candidates win be able to win local office. And that means Republican candidates, in fact, if not in name.

More...

Wow. This is about the coolest thing I've ever seen.

There were ~250 candidates to represent Barack Obama at the 7th CD caucus. (Sat May 17, 2008 @ 10:00am. More info on the King Co Democrats website. [Corrected the date. -- zappini])

More...

[Front paged: NM]

It has been the practice of your friendly fake consultant to keep my personal life separate from the stories you see in this space; and where exceptions have been made it has been because I felt it necessary to tell a larger story.

The story we will begin to tell today must be offered with my own life deeply intertwined in the narrative.

Sadly, it will not just be me that will be affected by the events we will here discuss. Instead, the list of victims will include some of Washington State’s most vulnerable citizens-- those developmentally disabled individuals who reside in the State’s Residential Habilitation Centers - and the workers who care for them…one of whom is my very own spouse.

We have within the tale all the usual suspects: a lack of safety equipment, managers who fail to do their jobs, a system that’s failing to protect either its own or those who can’t care for themselves -- and now, just to give things a twist, pharmaceutical soap, little orange pills, and color-safe bleach.

---

"After American corrections has set world records in the numbers of persons incarcerated and placed on probation and parole, some criminal justice professionals believe the field needs to get serious about its $60 billion a year industry and produce a better product."
How much risk can we take? The misuse of risk assessment in corrections.  Federal Probation, 9/06, 70(2): 58, James Austin.

"Most Americans remain ignorant ... that they live in a country that holds hostage behind bars another populous country of their fellow citizens."
Jimmy Santiago Baca, "Past Present" 363 quoted in Total Confinement: Madness and reason in the maximum security prison, Lorna A. Rhodes, 2004

---

With 1 in 100 Americans currently behind bars, (1)   1 in 10 American children with a parent incarcerated or under community supervision, (2)  , and a massive re-direction of national wealth and talent into criminal justice policies that don't work, it is past time for a national consensus that we're locking up too many people.  Mass incarceration is having profoundly destructive impacts on public safety, human rights, and democratic institutions at a time that we cannot afford the social destabilization that this brings.

Reform of Washington State's 3-Strikes law has national significance in relation to these developments.

[Front paged: NM]

Last night, the Washington State Democratic Central Committee Executive Board met and affirmed the rules for a candidate to gain party approval to claim to be a Democrat in the 2008 election cycle under I-872.

In the end, the E-Board had almost no leeway in this. Another clause in the rules

V.B.10.    These rules are mandatory and are not amendable by any party organization other than the Washington State Democratic Central Committee or the State Convention.  

requires a meeting of the full body of the WSDCC to amend these rules.

Briefly: Democratic legislative district caucuses are tomorrow, Sat 4/5. Details on King County Dems.

I missed the precinct caucuses (sister's wedding). I plan to attend my 46 LD, just to feel the buzz.

Just a quick word on the primary (below the fold)...

Forty years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. Just the night before he was shot to death outside his motel room, he delivered a prophetic speech to a crowd of people who had come to hear him speak in support of striking sanitation workers in that city. Our good friend Luis Moscoso forwarded me a reminder of that speech ( "I've Been to the Mountain Top") yesterday. I have to admit that I needed the memory jolt. Not that I haven't been thinking about the current state of racism in our country.

In fact, not since the days of Richard Nixon and his so-called "Southern Strategy" has there been such overt reference to racism in a presidential election cycle. Under the convenient title of "Immigration Reform" the Republicans spent much of their early campaigns spewing their particular brand of racial venom that covered the bases from pitting blacks against browns in the battle for jobs to equating Mexicans with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. However, with the recent obsession over Barrack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and certain statements made from his pulpit; the issue of racism has been brought back into the public arena in a way that it has not been in many years. In one of the best pieces done on these pages in recent times, diarist "fake consultant" wrote "On Truth, Or, An Open Letter To A Reverend" Most recently I have been following a column from David Sirota and some of the responses that to that column from folks in my neck of the woods in Snohomish County.

[Front paged: NM]

In December, I posted a diary about Lewis County.  The King County Democrats are planning a work party on April 26th to help some of the farms and community members recover from this disaster.  But Suzie let me know about something that I had missed.  Did you hear about the fire?

[WA state issue worth front page attention - LR] The announcement this month that a Washington State National Guard unit back will redeploy Iraq did not occasion much comment, though it coincided with the fifth anniversary of the invasion.  This piece reviews a few news articles about the redeployment and connects the news to a number of discussions of the use and misuse of National Guard troops over the past several years, including a recent book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and the October 2006 law giving the president the authority to commandeer National Guard troops over the wishes of the state governor to respond to "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe," vague language that could cover almost any circumstance.[1]  Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007), warned last year about the latter change in an article entitled "Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps."  Given this background, the low-key treatment that the mainstream media gave to the news of the National Guard redeployment may be a bad omen.  

[Front paged: NM]

A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by an alternate delegate to the county and district caucuses for Senator Clinton.  She wasn't just wavering, she had changed her mind completely and wanted to support Senator Obama.

She was talking to me because I'm a delegate to county and district for Senator Obama, and wanted my advice.

At the time, my advice was that she had given her word to her friends and neighbors, the folks that had elected her as a delegate, that she would support Senator Clinton in the upcoming caucus/convention, and should keep her word to them, although she was free to help the Obama campaign in other ways.

What a surprise to find that Senator Clinton is telling me that my advice to her was dead wrong.  My friend is free to support Senator Obama!

---

Ron Peters, sentenced to life under Washington's 3-Strikes law for a Robbery 2, a Robbery 1, and a Burglary, contributes this guest post.  

Washington was the first state in the nation to pass a 3-Strikes law and ours is the harshest.  Voters approved I-593 in 1993 on the basis of this description in the voter's pamphlet: "By aiming at 3-time violent offenders, (593) targets the `worst of the worst' criminals." Few people would consider robbery 2, which is by definition, committed without use of a deadly weapon, to be a "worst of the worst" crime.  Washington's Sentencing Guidelines Commission recommended removing it from the list of 3-Strikes offenses in 2001. Efforts to do this are defeated in the legislature every year. This story is part of this series. For notification of upcoming stories write noemie(at)washblog.com or contact Justice Works!.

---

I am 43 years old and I have been incarcerated more than 12 years under Washington's 3-Strikes, you're out! law.  I was born in Tacoma and raised in the projects of East Tacoma where as a fat, introverted kid, I endured constant jibes by other children of the neighborhood. All I wanted was to be accepted and liked so this hurt me deeply. I was often upset to the point of physical confrontation.

My mother took very good care of my brother and me. She provided a good home for us, taught us right-from-wrong and without any assistance whatsoever.  We were made to go to school during the week and to church on Sundays. However, drinking and drugging were accepted behaviors in our neighborhood when growing up. I was exposed to alcohol and drugs at a very early age.

On March 19th, the Fifth stinking rotten Anniversary of the Iraq Invasion, a small assortment of diehard Seattle antiwar insurgents endured hours of miserably cold rain to make yet another statement of solidarity. The protester above remains hopeful in spite of all, it seems.

Here's my report of the Fourth Anniversary Protest March last year. That was HUGE. What happened?

Continued below:

[Front paged: NM]

Originally posted Here

Apparently Snohomish City Council members Swede Johnson and Doug Thorndike aren't able to distinguish between legitimate city business and their personal anti-immigrant biases. According to reports that first appeared in the Snohomish County Tribune on March 3rd and the Everett Herald just this morning, the two elected officials, supposedly in the context of a debate over a proposal for new "gateway signs" intended to welcome visitors to their city, decided to take the opportunity to express their perceptually discriminatory views on immigration.

[Front Paged: NM]

If you listened to the papers, you would believe that the Supreme Court ruled the top two primary constitutional, and it will be just like the old open primary. Neither is true. In this post I take a common sense view of what the ruling means and its practical application.

[The questions raised in this article including the attempted rebuttal by the candidate's staffer are worth looking at. A.R.]

The dictionary defines sleazy as: "Dishonest or corrupt; disreputable; Made of low-quality materials; cheap or shoddy".

The Olympian today reports that Kelly Steele of the democratic party has called Rossi's politics sleazy, not Dino himself. Well, good for Kelly for holding back. The funny thing about this story involves Rossi campaign operative Jill Strait's over reaction. In reference to the use of the word sleazy in connection with Rossi, Strait says:

 "That goes beyond the political difference. There is a line that is drawn when you talk about issues, as opposed to personal attacks. Calling a person 'sleazy' is personal and has nothing to do with policies"