Washblog

By Theodore Rhone with input from Frank Banks, Spencer Carter, and Anthony Jones.

---

Editor's note: This story is the 6th in a series written by Washington 3-Strikers as part of a campaign of the criminal justice reform organization, Justice Works! to build grassroots support for reforming Washington's 3-Strikes law. Voters approved this law by Initiative 593 in 1994 after an intensive PR campaign promised that it would protect society from those who commit the "most violent" crimes. But two Class B felonies associated with youth, poverty, and addiction -- Robbery 2 and Assault 2 -- are the most common triggers for life sentences under this law. Please consider joining our Rapid Response list so that you can receive notice of new stories in the series and, most importantly, key times to contact legislators.

---

In light of the Judicial System and all it holds for the prisoner, family and friends, and taxpayers, we must as a society strengthen and straighten its feeble cords. It has become injustice for a targeted race of people - and a criminal felony act against society as a whole with no sign of remorse in sight, leaving America to believe that justice has been properly, legally, and evenly propagated. Until injustice by your judicial system happens to you.

Your support is needed. People who are incarcerated are not regarded as citizens and have few rights and, therefore, we do not have the ear of those in power.

---

Photo above: Theodore Rhone

---

John Dean writes in Conservatives Without Conscience how the co-founder of the National Review, James Burnham, in a 1959 attempt to blend real-world politics with intellectual conservatism, distilled a 13-statement list of point-by-point comparatives to liberal positions that differentiate between the two.

Of his list, Burnham declared,  

"Whether the cause of this linkage - which is not absolute, of course - is metaphysical, social or psychological, we do not need to decide in order to observe that it exists." (Dean, page 9)

Metaphysical, social or psychological?
How about 50 years later we use the words supernatural, socio-pathic, psycho-pathic or just plain Left Behind?

On Saturday morning Jason Osgood got up early and made the drive to Everett to give his very first "stump speech" as a Democratic candidate for Washington Secretary of State. His efforts were rewarded with the endorsement of the Snohomish County Democrats.

More below...

---

Reverend Rich Lang, above, speaking at the 2007 Lora Lake Service of Lamentation for the expected tear-down of moderate-income housing. Related story.

---

From: Rich Lang
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 8:52 AM
Subject: Rich Lang to be arrested

Hi folks,

In all probability I will be arrested Monday morning, June 9th for an act of civil disobedience protesting the current Mayor's policy of sweeping the greenbelts of homeless encampments. Below is the letter I've written my congregation. I ask that you give the Mayor's Office a call 206-684-4000 asking him to support the Real Change Organizing Project.

How could Congress have been so wrong as to buy into giving this President the authorization to invade Iraq.  What many of us, who are not wizened Congress persons could see through, many of elected officials whom we trusted with our votes to represent us in Congress   --- how could so many exercise such a devastating failure to lead.....

 news today from McClatchey Washington Bureau---

 Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't true

---

AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination

---

I preferred Kucinich; I preferred Edwards.  But during this campaign I believe Obama has shown himself to be the leader we keenly need to get past the politics of fear and division, to heal and begin again to sustain this democracy.  It strikes me as the most rare and felicitous stroke of luck that a "real leader" has stepped forward just when we most need leadership.  Can Obama really help awaken that can-do American magic, help us pull together through the interlocking crises of climate change, economic vulnerability, eroded civil rights, and weakened physical security? Maybe.  And that's enough to make me cry with happiness and pride.  

We made the right choice.  Democrats, Republicans, independents - everyone. We did good.

June 2, 2008: A hundred or so disgruntled HIghland Park neighbors assembled for Round Two of opposition to Seattle's proposal for a City Jail in either of two sites on the edge of our neighborhood. JAIL PROPOSAL COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Valient representatives from our County Council and Legislative District arrived ready to do battle with the city of Seattle.

More pictures and story below:

Hi all. Today I filed as the Democratic candidate for Washington's Secretary of State.  The Democratic Party has embraced me with open arms; I am honored.

Seattle Times' David Postman did a great write up.

My election integrity platform is simple and familiar:

 - Protect voter privacy

 - Ensure the public vote count

 - Open government

This is all new to me, and I have deadlines at my day job that cannot be ignored, so I beg everyone's forgiveness as I figure out how to get my campaign started.

Thank you to everyone, especially Noemie and Brian, for your support. WashBlog has been a great home.

For the duration, I'll retire my zappini name. That will be weird. I'll point to my new home page the moment it's ready.

Be the change that you want to see.

Originally posted here

Democracy for Snohomish County (DFSC) Vice-Chair and Peak Oil Advocate, Jackie Minchew, submitted the following letter (re-printed here at the request of the author) to the readership of the Everett Herald:

Published: Monday, June 2, 2008

"Since the first of the year, the price of crude oil has risen by more than 30 percent (after a 60 percent increase in 2007.) The question of how best to respond to this precipitous rise in energy costs is not a simple one. We could look for someone to blame, I suppose. (Big Oil? Congress?) There is surely some degree of market manipulation and exploitation taking place. But from an economic system that is driven by the twin demons of fear and greed, while completely lacking a moral compass to guide it, what should we expect?

More below the fold:

An interesting idea from Vermont

[Front paged: NM]

Thanks to Naomi for suggesting I post this.
Previously posted at DailyKos

I write this for the benefit of those who, by the good fortune of geography and decent Congressional representation, are spared exposure to the nakedness of "changing" Republicans in their mailboxes.

I knew I'd be seeing it up close and personal at some point, living, as I do, in the district that threw out Speaker Tom Foley, had the 5-term- term-limited-turned lobbyist, George Nethercutt, and currently enjoys the "service" of our very own cute (39 year old) Cathy McMorris Rodgers.  I have now received a fourth glossy  mailer from my misRep since the announcement of her re-election campaign around St. Patrick's Day 2008.  And with that the new "Agenda"!

So below the fold ...behold!

SHOWDOWN ON MAY 19th
About 70 Highland Park neighbors showed up at a community meeting, having heard tell of a new CITY JAIL planned on the gateway of their neighborhood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Highland Park is an unpretentious, obscure neighborhood in the southeast corner of West Seattle -- the OPPOSITE end of West Seattle from the upscale Admiral area where Mayor Nickels lives. Just on the other side of the city line is White Center, which is even LESS pretentious.

It is not without its charm to us residents, though. You may recall my previous diaries about last spring's HP Summit and HP Arts.

Highland Park Action Committee monthly meetings usually draw 5-10 core supporters and the occasional disgruntled resident who wants to gripe about neighborhood annoyances like graffiti and uprooted sidewalks.
But this was different!

Continued below...

[Front paged: NM]

Last night, I attended a meeting at the Northgate Community Center.  The city is considering changing the zoning in the Northgate area to allow taller buildings along 5th avenue and other areas.  Northgate has been going through a lot of changes lately, with the major development south of the Mall, and the new building going up at the corner of 5th and Northgate Way.  It's great to see.

I'm trying to find the information I saw last night online.  On Seattle.gov, the link to the Northgate plan from the main Neighborhood Planning page, www.seattle.gov/dpd/..., is a broken link.  It currently goes to www.seattle.gov/dclu/....  it is supposed to be going to www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/....

There is no mention of the meeting last night on the Northgate page.  In fact, there is no calendar at all.  I had to go to the Northgate Activist website to find out that the original comment period ended on May 16th, was extended to this meeting.  At the meeting, they extended the comment period again to June 17th.  Northgate Activist had a link to the EIS proposal.  Finally!

Atop one of the bookshelves in another room in my home sits the triangularly-folded American Flag given me at the gravesite of my father back in 1993.

Dad's death came upon us quite suddenly. We had long anticipated his passing as the years wore on - our unspoken suspicion that it would be liver failure that would get him.

We were right.

[Front paged, NM. This is an important resource. To use it, log in to M3047's Political Matchmaker. Create an account or, if you already have one, sign in. From homepage, click to Matchmaker and then click on "Most Recent Questions". A link there takes you to the selection set.]

Having now been collecting precinct-level election results (the canvass) in King County and publishing various products based on it as a public service since 2003, and additionally having added results for Snohomish County from the 2007 general election (with more hopefully to come)... there's a lot of data!

To help people tailor the products more to their needs and hopefully improve the signal-to-noise ratio (and load times, especially for those who are syndicating the products) I have implemented user-defined Selection Sets for precincts and races.