US Remake

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It’s used too easily and too often: “Do it for the children.”

Variations are: “Think of the children; It’s for the children; For our children’s sake.”

A favorite response to proposed expenditures for domestic improvement is often met with “They’re bankrupting our children’s future.”

It’s getting to be as old and tired as “Thoughts and prayers” after a school shooting.

Here’s a reality check on the “for the children” cliché.

The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued reports on the effects of climate change over a period of several years, each reporting the need for drastic action to prevent irreversible climate damage. The most recent describes irreversible damage that has already occurred and the dire consequences of not making immediate radical changes. 

For several years, the IPCC has stated that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45% of 2010 levels to prevent irreparable damage to the climate, damage that could become catastrophic. They’re climbing, not falling.

At the rate we are going, the children have no future or at least not a pleasant one.

Anybody paying attention yet? Well, no.

(Actually, the children are: despondent and angry.)

How about the Defense Department? The US is all about National Security. It’s an excuse for an enormous military budget. It’s an excuse for spying on citizens. It’s an excuse for censorship. It is sometimes, when they can get away with it, for imprisoning people for wrongspeak. National Security should make all levels of government sit up straight and pay attention.

Well…here it is. The Department of Defense has issued a report stating that climate change is a great National Security risk.

Anybody paying attention? mmmm…No.

In an effort to kick the can yet farther down the road, corporations and our elected officials have generated the “carbon neutral by 2050” phrase. What is carbon neutral? It is merely the amount of greenhouse gas emissions is equal to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, such as absorption by trees or mechanical/chemical processes.

The IPCC predicts that on the current path, catastrophic and possibly life-threatening changes will occur by 2050. We can all rest assured that if the goal of carbon-neutral by 2050 is met, the catastrophic and potentially life-threatening conditions won’t get any worse after 2050. Good to know, isn’t it?

We are on the sidelines, sort of, in a war between Russia and Ukraine. Among the conditions that make up the “sort of” status are economic sanctions on Russia. Among the economic sanctions is a prohibition of importing Russian oil and gas into the US. That’s all well and good. Russia is an oligarchy. The war is being conducted by a Russian oligarch who makes a lot of his money on the sales of oil and gas. It makes sense.

The result is, of course, gasoline and diesel fuel prices soar.

This is America. The natural reaction is that the government must do something about gasoline prices!

The natural reaction by elected officials is that we must fix the situation by producing more gas and oil. We need to drill more. We have depended upon countries that don’t necessarily like us for our fuel (that’s nothing new, but some folks are just now discovering it). We need to be energy independent.

If there was ever a “for the children” opportunity, this is it. A shortage of petroleum should be the impetus we need to stop using the stuff.

Left unchecked, the effect of climate change will be about the same as the effect of nuclear war. It will just take longer. Forget conflicts with other countries. The threat of the effect of war is upon us. The US should react as it did in 1941. Everyone in the US reduced consumption “for the war effort.” Material needed for war was produced at an unprecedented rate.

440 foot long, 11,000 ton Liberty ships were built in four days. Four engine airplanes were built from scratch in an hour. Companies that were in businesses not related to military supplies started producing military supplies. Lionel (the toy train manufacturer), Ford, Alcoa, and Mattatuck Manufacturing Company (upholstery nails) and many others changed production to military supplies unrelated to their business. US railroads handled 70 percent of all freight (it is now less than 10 percent, which they can barely manage).

We have the perfect opportunity to effectively respond to the climate emergency, protect National security, and respond to the petropolitics that are affecting the economy.

Among the newspeak platitudes to show that the government is doing something is the vision of super fast High Speed Rail. A super fast High Speed Rail project started today would likely not be in service until 2050. One project that isn’t even funded yet promises emissions reductions by 2035. There are promises of charging stations for Electric Vehicles (EVs). Almost half of the population is living from paycheck to paycheck without a dollar to spare. Exactly where are they going to get the EVs to charge at the government charging stations? Those are questions we’re not supposed to ask. When asked, the question of HSR is evaded with empty responses. The question of how people will get the EVs to charge at the government charging stations is met with the possibility of tax incentives. I have news for those elected officials hiding behind that idea. People living paycheck to paycheck are generally not paying enough taxes to allow them to buy an EV even if it was all refunded.

We need to direct funds into rail transportation, electric vehicles, and other greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

The time is now. Kicking the can down the road is no longer possible. It is already beyond the end of the road…and we are at the end of the road.

Elected officials who are in favor of solving the current problem with more domestic production to ensure the status quo need to be replaced in the next election. Do it “for the children.”

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Thos

1. Folks tell you that you shouldn’t pile those mineral spirit paint thinner rags in the corner. There can be spontaneous combustion. Any other way will cost more and take more effort than using paint thinner and throwing the cleaning rags in the corner. Continue piling the rags in the corner.
2. You wake up during the night thinking you smell smoke. You don’t see anything. Go back to sleep.
3. You wake up later, thinking you smell smoke. The room seems a bit hazy but you don’t see any fire. Go back to sleep.
4. You wake up later, smell smoke and see some flames over in the corner. You consider getting the fire extinguisher, but it cost 50 bucks and refilling it will cost yet more. Go back to sleep.
5. You wake up later. It’s really hot and you see fire all around you. You think it may be time to use the fire extinguisher.
6. You don’t wake up any more.

Is Climate Change really a threat? We are at 4.

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Thos

The real estate industry in the north Seattle suburban area is putting on an intensive propaganda campaign, including supporting appropriately-minded political candidates. The propaganda campaign promotes the idea that single family housing must be replaced by high density housing because of the coming light rail transit line. The propaganda campaign is even convincing some of the “environmental community” that we can’t have mass transit without driving people out of their homes to provide high density housing.  Anyone who opposes them is called environmentally unfriendly and against the good of the people. Don’t be taken by the propaganda.

We are witnessing the social and economic engineering methods of  “white flight” in the ’50s. It wasn’t really “white flight, ” it was chasing white folks to the developing suburbs in order to make money three times. Yes three times.

• The real estate industry devalued people’s two-flats and bungalows with “they’re coming, you must sell now,” preying largely on first generation immigrants or their second generation children who didn’t realize that nobody was coming if they didn’t sell. That flooded the market and prices dropped to the fire sale level, buildings then to be sold to slumlords for a good commission.
• Those fleeing were urged to buy tract houses in a nice “safe” suburb, for a good commission.
• A generation later, the real estate industry came back to the neighborhood that they gutted, gentrifying for even bigger commission. In the process, banking made a lot of money too. Folks were forced, or perhaps better described as scared out of what they owned, using the inadequate buyout cash they received as a down payment on a suburban mortgage.

The banks cashed in big again on gentrification loans and mortgages on the new multi-million dollar properties.

I was in grade school, but I saw all of this in action and, since I seem to have been condemned to be analytical all of my life, I figured out what was going on. Decades later, I found that my assessment was not incorrect. We were forced from our home by “white flight.” We were renting. Relatives owned the property, but the effect was the same (including their move to the suburbs). My parents couldn’t find a place they could afford to rent in Chicago. They were turned away from housing they could afford because This property is for black people. You shouldn’t be here. You need to go to the suburbs and buy a house.

I watched the Chicago west side housing projects being built as a swath of housing and businesses was wiped out for the Congress Street (now Eisenhower) expressway. Even more was wiped out for the projects being built for those displaced by the expressway. I still remember wondering, if they are tearing down all of the small shops that had the owner’s apartment on the second floor, and building these big apartment buildings, where do the people in the apartment buildings work now and where do they go to buy what they need? It seems, that I was watching the creation of “the projects” and what would become known as the ghetto. There was a lot of money made in tearing down two-flats, bungalows, and shop/apartment buildings and constructing projects.

We are seeing this in action now, but instead of “they’re coming,” it’s “transit is coming.” “Everybody knows” that transit doesn’t work without density. “Everybody knows” is a propaganda statement. If “everybody knows,” it must be true and those who do not know must be deficient.

Let’s have a look at people who don’t know that transit doesn’t work near single family housing:

Western Springs IL
Hinsdale IL
La Grange IL
Brookfield IL
Evanston IL
Montrose (Chicago IL)
Oak Park IL

Each is on a commuter rail line or a metro (heavy rail transit) line. Unlike the limited service in the Seattle area, the lines served by commuter rail have 50-100 trains per day. The lines served by heavy rail have trains every 6-15 minutes. The folks in the pictures who are living in single family houses just don’t realize that they are contributing to the failure of transit. Oh wait. The transit system depicted in each picture has been operating for 125 – 150 years.

There are no Park & Ride lots in these pictures. Most folks walk or take a connecting bus. There is some parking along some of the streets, but it is not extensive. The bus service, particularly within Chicago, is arranged in a way that a walk to a bus is generally no more than one-half mile.

Downtown, walking distance for most commuters is up to a mile, but there is a lot of bus transit available in the downtown area as well. People actually walk to and from transit, even in Chicago winters (which would be  frightening for anyone who has never lived outside of western Washington).

These low density areas along transit and commuter rail lines have survived without the recently available transit on demand service which makes the current single family zoning in the suburban area north of Seattle Washington even more viable.

The propaganda states that upzoning must occur in order to have effective transit. Yet, a quick inventory of parking lots in Shoreline shows that there are 125 acres, the equivalent of about 735 residential lots, dedicated to the part-time storage of automobiles, also known as parking. Of the potential uses for land, merely paving for parking is the least constructive. That land could have high density housing built above parking. One must ask why developers have no interest in this land.

Upzoning comes not only with displacing families with a good chance of substantially lowering their standard of living. It involves substantial destruction. While we scour the earth for minerals and increase the destruction related to mining, buildings full of copper wiring, copper pipe, iron pipe, and other re-usable items are merely compacted into trucks and taken to a landfill. Salvage is considered to be too costly by the folks who stand to make substantial profits on building high density housing.

Most of the houses subject to upzoning were built 60 or more years ago. There aren’t many trees left like the ones that were the source of the lumber in these houses. The wood used for construction in that era grew slowly in forests. It is more dense and stronger than the quickly grown trees used for today’s lumber. Like the metal items, the lumber is ground, compacted, and hauled to a landfill. Although much of the wood involved could not be re-used for building construction, it could be re-milled into material for furniture and cabinetry.

The methods of “white flight” and “density for transit” propaganda are similar. Instead of “they’re coming, you have to leave before it’s too late,” it’s “Transit is coming. We need it to relieve congestion. We can’t have it without density, so we must change the zoning to allow higher density.”

The effect is similar. “White flight” involved coercing owners to sell and move to the suburbs. This new flavor of propaganda convinces cities to rezone for density, which creates an immense jump in prices, which the tax assessor considers to be value. When the value increases, the tax increases, whether or not the owner wants to sell the property to realize the “value.” Owners can no longer afford the taxes and are forced to sell to the developers who were the cause of the increased price and tax. Instead of fleeing to the new suburbs, today’s victims will be displaced with few alternatives.

Thos

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…and it’s not pretty.

My attention was called to the 32^nd Legislative District Senate Democrat endorsement in The Stranger. I have not read The Stranger for many years. I had no time for the quantity of uninformed twaddle found in its pages. To the people who called my attention to the endorsement article, thank you for reminding me of why I haven’t bothered with The Stranger for all these years.

Were the endorsement article to be sophomoric drivel, it would be improved. The author may imagine being a crusading reporter, a modern-day Edward R Murrow, uncovering and fighting the evil of a repressive, autocratic, egotistical maniac like Joseph McCarthy. However, if this person even knows who Edward R Murrow was, emulating his role is pure fantasy or delusion, like that of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. The repressive, autocratic, egotistical maniacal Maralyn Chase represented in the endorsement article is certainly a product of delusion.

The author, the editorial staff, and the publisher may consider the style of writing exhibited in the endorsement article to be hip, since it extends to other areas of The Stranger, but is far from hip or even acceptable writing, even in the ghetto neighborhoods of Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, et al. It merely reinforces the impression of sophomoric drivel. The author is in no danger of winning a Pulitzer prize for the egesta of this article and may not be in danger of passing the entrance writing exam for Fayetteville State University (https://owlcation.com/academia/The-10-Worst-Colleges-In-America)

The author claims to have been insulted and implies that the article is retaliation. In the first place, Americans tend to be insulted too easily in general. However, a professional journalist should be objective. A professional journalist should not use his/her position of power to carry on a personal vendetta. There is a great difference between being published and being a professional journalist, however, so perhaps one should look to the editors and publishers of The Stranger for the abusive content responsibility.

The author’s use of distortion and outright lies to carry on the personal vendetta from a position of power is unconscionable.  If the author is going to set distortion and outright lies to be an acceptable standard, at least study such conduct in publications such as Washington Post of New York times, where bias in such content is at least obfuscated. Whatever the influence that led to the publishing of this reprehensible purgamentum, cash, favors, position, or a stick of bubble gum, the writer and the editors should be a little more discrete than presenting disparaging remarks about both candidates, then endorsing one of them. The discrete way would be having no endorsements for the position. Broadcasting the obvious bias of the writer, the editorial staff, or the publisher is just such an amateur approach.

As a matter of information, I am supporting Maralyn Chase. This is the first political campaign I have ever worked on and only the second I have actively supported, the other being Bernie Sanders. I have a high standard that just has not been met by any other candidates I have encountered. I have been relegated for decades to picking the moderately better or less dreadful candidate. Bernie and Maralyn are a refreshing change from the norm of US politics for the past five decades.

The author and The Stranger editorial staff and publishers are reminded that the power of the press lies with he who owns one…and in the 21^st Century, that covers a lot of people.

Thos

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Folks seem to be all in an uproar over what they think is the Washington State Legislature’s need for secrecy. It seems that folks want them all out NOW or sooner for ostensibly obstructing the public’s right to information. The corporate media has the public convinced that there is foul play afoot. Hermann Goering would be proud of the propaganda machine our media has become.

If you don’t want the State Patrol, Department of Licensing, Department of Revenue, Department of Social and Health Services, and so on to read in the news about your complaints about them to your legislators, reading on might do you well…oh, except uninformed clamor has made a mess of the situation. Perhaps this is merely a history lesson to learn from if things go south and you wonder why.

It is apparent from comments on the subject that folks don’t bother to read the bill, they just grab the pitchforks because the media has implied strongly to them that it must be done. To save the folks the arduous task of actually reading 25 pages, here is, in seven pages, is the cliffnotes version.

(To save even more reading, the cliffnotes version of the cliffnotes version is that the legislature was hiding absolutely nothing with the passage of this bill, just protecting the private information of constituents, legislators, and their employees – social security numbers, credit card numbers, home addresses, etc. are nobody’s business – read the list of records made available in Section 103 and the list of protected information in Section 105.)

AN ACT
Amending RCW 42.56 (PUBLIC RECORDS ACT)… (“Each state agency shall separately state and currently publish”) – (“(1) “Agency” includes all state agencies and all local agencies. “State agency” includes every state office, department, division, bureau, board, commission, or other state agency. “Local agency” includes every county, city, town, municipal corporation, quasi-municipal corporation, or special purpose district, or any office, department, division, bureau, board, commission, or agency thereof, or other local public agency.”)

(——————-

• Point of contention. Legislature is a branch of government, not an agency. Judge’s ruling says that is true, but each individual legislator is a government agency. That ruling is so far beyond a stretch that even stretching the definition of an agency as far as it goes, you can’t see the ruling from there. Heretofore, as a branch of government, the Legislature has had public disclosure rules. By his ruling, the judge has created 147 public agencies. Each member of the part time legislature would need to staff its office a minimum of 30 hours per week, and produce requested records promptly. That directive would be responsible for 147 full time jobs.
• Point of clarification. Agencies do not have constituents. Therefore there is nothing secret. Legislators have constituents. Your conversation with them should be like talking to your doctor, lawyer, or accountant. Therefore, some things need to be secret. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CONCEPT
• Point of clarification. Legislators are paid $48k per year for approximately 74% of a full time job. That would be $65k per year full time. Legislative assistants are paid about $44k per year. For comparison, that’s less than the average for restaurant manager, truck driver, or grocery store manager; close to the average for a news reporter. 147 full time legislative assistant jobs would be about $6.5 million. Legislators also make less than restaurant and grocery store managers and less than lots of truck drivers, but after all, they, like teachers, aren’t full time.

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Section 1.

Clarify: Legislature is a branch of government, like the judiciary, not an agency as used in RCW 42.56. Constitution defines access requirements.

Section 101. TITLE
Legislative Public Records Act

Section 102. RECORDS DISCLOSURE OBLIGATIONS OF THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH.

• RCW 42.56 (PUBLIC RECORDS ACT) does not apply to legislative branch (The media wants you to stop reading here…and a lot of folks did, if they even got this far)
• Secretary and chief clerk must make public records available
• Secretary or designee is the public records officer for senate, senators, senate committees; chef clerk is public records officer for house, members of house, house committees; secretary and chief clerk are jointly public records officers for the senate and house collectively and joint committees

Section 103. DEFINITIONS (definitions have supreme importance in interpreting the language, even in the “cliffnotes” version)

• “Chief Clerk” means Chief Clerk of the House
• “Committee” means committee or subcommittee as defined in legislative rule and joint committees as defined by statute or resolution
• “Constituent” means individuals who are not lobbyists, lobbyist’s employers, sponsors of grassroots lobbying, public employees who lobby, elected officials or individuals who act in their behalf
• “Executive rules committee” means executive rules committee of the house or successor committees
• “Facilities and operations committee” means facilities and operations committee of the senate or successor committees defined in rule or procedure to administer polices and procedures and oversight of the senate.
• “Legislative agency” means joint legislative audit and review committee, joint legislative transportation committee, legislative evaluation and accountability committee, office of legislative support services, joint legislative systems committee, statute law committee, office of the code reviser, office of the state actuary, redistricting commission, legislative ethics board, or any other agency created by the legislative branch
• “legislative public records” means, regardless of physical form:

(THIS BILL MAKES ALL OF THESE AVAILABLE)

Correspondence, amendments, reports, and minutes of meetings, made by or submitted to legislative committees or subcommittees

Transcripts, other records of hearings, or supplementary written testimony or data thereof filed with committees or subcommittees in connection with the exercise of legislative or investigatory functions

Records, such as records of payments in lieu of per diem or reimbursement of member expenses

Personnel leave, travel, and payroll records

Records of legislative sessions such as journals, floor amendments and recordings of floor debate

Bills and bill reports

Legislators’ calendar notations of dates, events, and names of individuals or organizations, for meetings or events that are related to official legislative duties and that occur July 1, 2018, and thereafter

Legislators’ correspondence dated July 1, 2018, and thereafter on legislative business to and from persons outside the legislature who are not constituents

Any other record designated a legislative public record by1any official action of the senate or the house of representatives

• “legislative rule” rules adopted jointly or respectively by the houses of the legislature pursuant to Article II, section 9 of the state Constitution
• “Secretary” means secretary of the senate

Section 104. GENERAL DISCLOSURE DUTIES

• Chief clerk and secretary make public records available (see definition in 103)
• Chief clerk and secretary must prominently publish procedures for requesting legislative public records
• Chief clerk and the secretary may establish policies for producing, indexing, and identifying legislative public records
• No authority for chief clerk or secretary to give, sell, or provide access to lists of individuals requested for commercial purposes unless specifically directed by law

Section 105. DISCLOSURE EXEMPTIONS

(THIS IS WHAT IS KEPT PRIVATE AND NOT DISCLOSED)

• Records the disclosure of which would violate a person’s right of privacy including, but not limited to, personal information in files maintained for employees, appointees, or legislators
• A person’s right to privacy is invaded if disclosure of information about the person: (i) Would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and (ii) is not of legitimate concern to the public. The provisions of this chapter dealing with privacy in certain legislative public records do not create any right of privacy beyond those rights that are specified in this chapter as express exemptions from the public’s right to inspect, examine, or copy public records
• Information that would would invade the right of privacy under this subsection, the chief clerk and the secretary may delete identifying details when they make available or publish any legislative public record
• Credit card numbers, debit card numbers, electronic check numbers, card expiration dates, or bank or other financial information including social security numbers, except when disclosure is expressly required by or governed by other law
• Information in personnel records, public employment-related records, volunteer rosters, or included in any mailing list of employees or volunteers of any legislative house or agency: Residential addresses, residential telephone numbers, personal wireless telephone numbers, personal email addresses, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, identicard numbers, and emergency contact information of employees or volunteers of a legislative house or agency, and the names, dates of birth, residential addresses, residential telephone numbers, personal wireless telephone numbers, personal email addresses, social security numbers, and emergency contact information of dependents of employees or volunteers of a legislative house or agency
• Records assembled, prepared, or maintained to prevent, mitigate, or respond to criminal terrorist acts
• Specific and unique vulnerability assessments or specific and unique response or deployment plans
• Records not subject to public disclosure under federal law that are shared by federal or international agencies, and information prepared from national security briefings provided to state or local government officials related to domestic preparedness for acts of terrorism
• Information regarding the public and private infrastructure and security of computer and telecommunications networks
• Records that are relevant to a controversy to which any entity of state government is a party but which records would not be available to another party under court rules for pretrial discovery
• Records that are subject to the speech or debate clause of Article II, section of the state Constitution including, but not limited to, preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, and internal legislative and interbranch communication in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended

Section 106. REQUESTS–INSPECTION AND COPYING

• A legislative public records request must be for identifiable records. A request for all or substantially all records … is not a valid request for identifiable legislative public records under this chapter
• the chief clerk and the secretary shall, upon request for identifiable legislative public records, make them promptly available to any person
• The chief clerk and the secretary shall not distinguish among persons requesting records, and such persons are not required to provide information as to the purpose for the request except to establish whether inspection and copying would violate…statute that exempts or prohibits disclosure of specific information or records to certain persons
• Facilities of the chief clerk and secretary must be made available to any person for the copying of legislative public records except when and to the extent that this would unreasonably disrupt the operations of the chief clerk or secretary
• No official format is required for making a records request

Section 107. RESPONSES

• The chief clerk and the secretary must promptly respond to requests for legislative public records (and on and on with ways and formats to accomplish)
• Additional time required to respond may be based on need to clarify intent, locate and assemble information, notify affected persons, time, resources, personnel constraints
• Secretary or the chief clerk may ask the requester to clarify what information the requester is seeking
• If the requester fails to respond to a request to clarify the request, and the entire request is unclear, the secretary or the chief clerk need not respond to it
• Denials must be in written statement of the specific reasons
• Chief clerk or the secretary may deny a bot request that is one of multiple requests from the requester to the chief clerk or secretary within a twenty-four hour period
• Chief clerk or secretary may deny a request if determined  request made to harass or intimidate a legislator or legislative employee, threaten safety, assist criminal activity

Section 108. REVIEW

• Person whose request was denied may seek review

Section 109. PROTECTION—ACCESS—ARCHIVING

• Secretary and chief clerk shall establish reasonable procedures…shall provide for the fullest assistance to inquirers and the most timely possible action on requests for information
• Procedures adopted for access to and preservation of legislative public records must be consistent with the archiving duties of the chief clerk and the secretary under chapter 40.14 RCW (PRESERVATION AND DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC RECORDS)
• Chief clerk and secretary establish retention schedules for records not covered by RCW 40.14
• Records sent to the state archivist are subject to access laws governing state archives
• If a legislative public records request is made at a time when such record exists but is scheduled for destruction in the near4future, the secretary or the chief clerk shall retain possession of the record, and may not destroy or erase the record until the request is resolved

Section 110. FEES

Impose reasonable fee for photocopies, scanning, storage media used to transmit, etc.

Section 111. DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY

Legislative branch and its houses, members, employees, and agencies are not liable, and no cause of action exists, for any loss or damage based upon the release of a legislative public record if the entity releasing the record acted in good faith in attempting to comply with the provisions of this chapter (if it gets this far, a judge figures it out)

Section 112. DUTY TO DISCLOSE OR WITHHOLD

Does not affect duty to disclose or withhold under other laws

Section 113. LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES

Nothing in this chapter gives the executive rules committee oversight authority over any senators, senate employees, or committee of the senate, nor does it give the facilities and operations committee oversight authority over house members, house employees, or any committee of the house of representatives (there are provisions for this elsewhere)

Section 114. CODIFICATION

This act is a new chapter Title 44 in RCW (important for reading the following)

(From here down is basically housekeeping changes of other sections)

Section 115.

Statute law committee and the office of the code reviser are agencies governed by RCW 44

Section 116.

Legislative ethics board is an agency governed by RCW  44

Section 117.

Joint transportation committee is an agency governed by RCW 44

Section 118.

The redistricting commission is an agency governed by RCW 44

Section 119.

The joint legislative audit and review committee is an agency governed by RCW 44

Section 120.

Committee on pension policy and the office of the state actuary are agencies governed by RCW 44

Section 121.

Joint legislative evaluation and accountability program committee is an agency governed by RCW 44

Section 122.

Joint legislative systems administrative committee is an agency governed by RCW 44

Section 123.

Office of legislative support services is an agency governed by RCW 44

PART II

PUBLIC RECORDS ACT—CLARIFIED TO EXCLUDE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH—CONFORMING AMENDMENTS TO CHAPTER 42.56 RCW

Sections 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 208 amend RCW 42.56… to make perfectly clear that the legislature is governed by RCW 44

PART III

Section 301. SEVERABILITY

If any part is found invalid, the rest remains in effect

Section 302. APPLICATION

Curative, remedial, and retroactive, and applies to all records requests and lawsuits under chapter 42.56 RCW pending as of the effective date of this section.

Section 303.

This act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and takes effect immediately.

———————

That’s it in a nutshell (granted, it’s like coco de mer, the world’s largest nut, but a nutshell nonetheless).

Next step? Who knows? It might cost us a lot or more than that in tax dollars and personal grief to find out.

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Thos

“And please don’t blame the activist for sitting on the train track.”

Why not? The way to limit production is to limit consumption. I have had this argument with lots of activists.

Corporations will continue to make whatever they can sell. Use less is the way to prevent making. Attempting to stop production when there is demand is almost fruitless. Why not demonstrate at gas stations? Why not demonstrate at SUV dealers? Why not protest car-oriented urban sprawl? Why not protest car-oriented malls? The amount of the US that is paved for parking is about the size of Rhode Island, 1,200 square miles.

Invading refineries or corporate offices, turning valves (which can lead to an explosion), and blocking railroad tracks is so much more hip. Why not block streets, roads, interstates, and runways? Oh…those only represent using the oil and they’re dangerous.

Brave is not as much as foolish. A train uses 10% of the energy because it has 10% of the friction between the wheel and the rolling surface. That also means it takes a long time to stop. A “brave” activist in California a few decades ago learned that the hard way when he lay on the track in front of a slow moving weapons train that “should have stopped.” Well…it couldn’t and he lost his legs. How about the engineer that couldn’t get it stopped? Is he merely sacrificed for the cause? Read up on what running over people does to engineers. They can expect to kill at least four people over the course of a career. A former colleague stopped counting at 27. He stopped getting off the engine to see about the person(s) who got hit (some on foot, some in vehicles). He got to consuming a lot of Seagram’s VO to deal with life. One guy hit the breaking point at after that last fatal just got off the engine in the middle of nowhere and walked away. No, he didn’t come back to the railroad. How about the firefighters and paramedics who need to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together in some meaningful way? I worked with one who finally couldn’t take the emotional trauma of so frequently being powerless to keep life in the body. Are they sacrificed for the cause too? Oh, maybe causing a derailment is fun. Yes, an emergency rate braking application at low speed can derail a train. Go for it.

“Without good mass transit it is very difficult for the necessary numbers of activists to get themselves to the train tracks at the right time due to the fluidity of many direct actions. ”

Let’s see…the legislature just lowered car license tab fees because of car/truck/SUV owner complaints. That may or may not reduce the extent of ST3. Do we see anybody protesting against lowering the license fees? Oh…that isn’t sexy like scaling fences, cutting chains, and camping on railroad tracks.

How about a train trip of 2 hours 30 minutes every hour between Seattle and Portland, 2 hours 45 minutes Seattle – Vancouver BC bi-hourly. It’s a 20 year program that will be in service in 2018…oh…this is 2018. It wasn’t funded, was it? Oh well. Clamoring for that…nope.

I have mentioned my oil train content list to activists who have bristled at the thought that I might be blaming their habits for oil trains. Some have been hostile. A German colleague told me that it seems that Americans can’t entertain themselves without gasoline.

In Europe, one can get along just fine without a car. In the times that I have visited Europe, I have been in a taxi once (because my Bulgarian colleague and I managed to get lost in Zurich at 3am) and in a car once (the conversation with the professor I was visiting became too engaged; the university was a 30 minute walk from the station and he realized that my train was going to leave in 15 minutes). Other than that, it’s been walking and trains. My friend in Braunschweig Germany doesn’t drive. He doesn’t have a license. He doesn’t need it. How does that happen? How about gasoline at 6-8 bucks a gallon and a tax on vehicle CO2 and other emissions in addition to registration fees? Nope, that won’t fly here. When the price gets to be over $3 per gallon, there is loud demand for the US government to do something about it. Either we invade another little country to defend and stabilize our oil under their dirt, or we tap the strategic reserve to flood the market and lower the price. Is anybody protesting that? Nope.

A couple of decades ago, there was a suggestion that a one cent per gallon addition to the federal gasoline tax, dedicated to Amtrak, could bring Amtrak into about the 50s…maybe the 60s level of service. That was a non-starter. Were there protests? No. There was relief at not having to pay another penny per gallon.

Long ago, there was a state five cent additional tax per gallon of gasoline, dedicated to transportation. If I remember correctly, highways got $14 billion. Rail projects got $250 million The highway folks insisted that it was their money that had been stolen and repeatedly tried to find ways to get it. Anybody protest that? Nope.

The US military is the entity that has the largest oil consumption in the world. Is anyone protesting that? We’re lucky to have anyone merely protesting war, let alone the military’s oil consumption. That’s unpatriotic. The brave soldiers are defending our freedom. By maintaining and enlarging an empire? No they are contributing to the collapse.

Export coal going to China (which generates protest) makes the electricity for the cheap plastic stuff that comes back to fill the shelves of Walmart and such (which does not). The manufacturing jobs precede or follow the coal. People flock to Walmart (where employees get public assistance to survive) to get the best price, then can’t figure out why there is so much unemployment and homelessness. Of course, they won’t pay extra to buy something that is well made here (if you can even find it any more…but I’ll settle for well made in Germany, Spain, etc.). Then the cheap plastic junk that is the product of oil and coal gets ditched because it is junk. Then folks buy more to replace it. There doesn’t seem to be protest over that cycle…except a cursory protest over Walmart coming to town…sometimes.

Need a couple of #10×2″ screws to finish up a repair or project? Go on down to the store to get…ten of them in a plastic bag. The little baggie is useless for anything else, so it is ditched – hopefully in one of the plastic bag recycle boxes. Does anybody protest that? Nope. You can be sure, though, that no terrorist put germs into your bag of eight too many screws. I was working a gig on the road and found that I forgot my utility knife. I needed one and had to go to a hardware store to get it. There was a choice of several.They all had packaging. Some had PACKAGING. I bought the one that had the least packaging and I still needed a knife to open the package so that I could use the knife! Does anybody protest that wasteful use of oil? (Short answer: Nope.)

Folks feel so smugly good (except the ones who resent having to do it) about recycling. Let’s see…buy throwaway packaging. Throw it in a bin. The diesel (or CNG, we protest both) truck picks it up and pours it all into a big pile in the truck. The truck drives to a facility to be dumped into a bigger pile. The pile is sorted into material types with the aid of a diesel front end loader. The front end loader than loads the various piles into diesel trucks to be hauled to a facility of some sort to re manufacture the stuff in some way. Oh, the bulk of it goes to China (one of the largest exports of the US is garbage) in a diesel ship. Ah, but we recycle. We’re being so ecologically friendly. Is anyone protesting that cycle of oil use…uh, no.

Nope, as a society, and even as environmental activists, we want oil production to stop and don’t want to protest the egregious useless consumption that causes the production.

There was a protest blocking the railroad in Olympia to protest the shipment of fracking sand…but there was no shipment of fracking sand. Other things were blocked, but that’s just the cost of protesting. I’ve got it! If trains are so evil, let’s use trucks. One railroad car holds about four semi trailers and it takes a tenth of the energy to move it…but we need to block shipments because some trains might have oil production related shipments. Decades ago, the folks in Bellingham were so happy when the daily train of rock to the cement factory went away. The railroad was bankrupt and couldn’t stay in business (the days when the federal government was actually competing against the railroad industry at the same time as applying destructive economic regulation. Yay government, go get those evil profiteering robber baron railroads-except that part was 100 years previous). Hooray for our side! Oh…then the cement factory needed 180 trucks of stone a day to keep up production and stay in business. They protested and protested and protested. Those trucks shouldn’t be using our streets! They won. The cement factory closed. Oh…all the jobs in the neighborhood went away. How did that happen?

It’s easy to blame all of this on capitalism. Personal responsibility is not a really big thing in the US. No matter what happens, it is obviously someone else’s fault.

I’m all for those brave protesters actually being brave and protesting against what needs to be protested against and protesting for what needs to be supported.

-30-

Thos

Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus

I am aware that you do not represent my state. However, this is a matter of national, not state, importance. As well, I have contributed to the campaign funds of several of you.

The Republican tax bill has disastrous immediate and delayed consequences. I don’t believe that most of the American people understand the gravity of the situation. Their lack of understanding makes your position difficult.

The Republicans in Congress have demonstrated a mean-spirited disregard for the processes of government and for their constituents. This applies particularly to the Senate Republicans who have demonstrated disdain for the decorum that should be expected of Senators.

The Republican party has maneuvered the Democratic party, and particularly the Senate Democrats, into a corner. It appears that the only alternative to stopping the passage of the tax bill is to be as ruthless as the Republicans have been.

The only bargaining chip that appears to remain is the spending resolution. If that is not passed, the government will shut down. Under normal conditions, that would not be acceptable. However, these are far from normal conditions.

Although the DREAM Act is important, the far-reaching consequences of the tax bill are grave.

The situation appears to be that the Democrats will be blamed for the government shutdown and its consequences if they prevent the spending bill from passing. If the tax bill passes, it will be easy to blame the Republican party for the disastrous consequences. Were the ability to use blame in campaigns all that mattered, that strategy would be acceptable. However, the immediate and long-term consequences of the tax bill do not warrant that passive strategy. Allowing the dreadful to occur so blame can be affixed later is not acceptable.

Beyond the corporate tax breaks and the temporary advantages for middle class individuals, the matter of the deficit of more than one trillion dollars that the tax bill creates is beyond unacceptable. The American people will pay immediately, particularly the 13 million people who will lose health insurance. They will then pay again when domestic programs including social security and Medicare are cut to rectify the deficit caused by this bill.

Unless you can see another way to prevent passage of the tax bill, I urge you to make clear to the Senate Republicans that if it is passed, the Senate Democrats are prepared to vote no on the spending bill and shut down the government, making clear to the American people why they have done so including the explanation of the immediate and long-term consequences. I don’t believe that given a choice between a cut finger and dying a slow horrific death, that people would choose the latter.

SENATE DEMOCRATS
Last	First	State	Fax
Baldwin	Tammy	WI	~~
Bennett	Michael	CO	202-228-5097
Blumenthal	Richard	CT	(202) 224-9673
Booker	Cory	NJ	(202) 224-8378
Brown	Sherrod	OH	(202) 228-6321
Cantwell	Maria	WA	(202) 228-0514
Cardin	Ben	MD	(202) 224-1651
Carper	Tom	DE	(202) 228-2190
Casey	Bob	PA	(202) 228-0604
Chris	Coons	DE	~~
Cortez Masto	Catherine	NV	(775) 686-5757
Donnelly	Joe	IN	(202) 224-5011
Duckworth	Tammy	IL	~~
Durbin	Dick	IL	202.228.0400
Feinstein	Dianne	CA	(202) 228-3954
Franken	Al	MN	~~
Gillibrand	Kirsten	NY	(202) 228-0282
Harris	Kamala	CA	(202) 224 – 2200
Hassan	Maggie	NH	~~
Heinrich	Martin	NM	(202) 228-2841
Heitkamp	Heidi	ND	(202) 224-7776
Hirono	Mazie	HI	(202) 224-2126
Kaine	Tim	VA	(202) 228-6363
King	Angus	ME	~~
Klobuchar	Amy	MN	202-228-2186
Leahy	Patrick	VT	~~
McCaskill	Claire	MO	(202) 228-6326
Manchin	Joe	VA	202-228-0002
Markey	Ed	MA	~~
Menendez	Bob	NJ	202.228.2197
Merkley	Jeff	OR	(202) 228-3997
Murphy	Chris	CT	(202) 224-9750
Murray	Patty	WA	(202) 224-0238
Nelson	Bill	FL	202-228-2183
Peters	Gary	MI	~~
Reed	Jack	RI	(202) 224-4680
Sanders	Bernie	VT	(202) 228-0776
Schatz	Brian	HI	(202) 228-1153
Schumer	Chick	NY	(202) 228-3027
Saheen	Jeanne	NH	~~
Stebanow	Debbie	MI	~~
Tester	Jon	MT	(202) 224-8594
Udall	Tom	NM	~~
Van Hollen	Chris	MD	(202) 228-0629
Warner	Mark	VA	~~
Warren	Elizabeth	MA	~~
Whitehouse	Sheldon	RI	(202) 228-6362
Wyden	Ron	OR	(202) 228-2717

Attention Republicans

You claim to be the party of family values and Christian principles. That’s your claim.

You promote hatred of people who are not white Christians.

You attempt to force your Christian religion on everyone.

You engage in class warfare.

You lie.

You cheat.

You take bribes…after making bribery legal.

Your actions intentionally bring misery to millions of people.

You forsake the constituents that you are responsible to in pursuit of wealth and power.

You encourage and actively pursue war.

You exhibit no integrity.

Your claim is invalid. You are not the party of family values and Christian principles.

Perhaps some of you might redeem yourselves and start doing the right thing instead of thinking of your own wealth and power.

Probably not much chance of that.

-30-

Thos

The practice of contacting the government with your opinion has always consisted of contacting your Representative and Senators. Those would be the Representative for your congressional district and the Senators for your state. Don’t contact any others as they only want to hear from their constituents, the people that live and are eligible to vote in their area of representation.

However, we live in an environment of two sets of rules.

Congress, generally the Republicans in Congress, have been generating legislation and approving Presidential appointments that are detrimental to the people that they theoretically represent as well as everyone else.  “Theoretically represent” is used because they don’t represent the interest of people who vote for them. They represent the interest of the Donor Class.

The Representatives, the Senators, and both political parties solicit money nation wide from non-voters and voters who are not within their area of representation. Some of these constituents are corporations which claim to be people even though they cannot vote, Political Action Committees which are also not people, and the Donor Class as individuals regardless of whether they are within the legislator’s area of representation.

It is well past time to change the rules and change convention. If Congress can solicit funds from, and represent the interest of these non-voters, those who are not eligible to vote for an individual legislator must be able to voice an opinion on matters that affect them. The current convention allows them to solicit money from anywhere and from non-voters, therefore, contact with voters they are affecting, regardless of where they live, should be acceptable.

If you call Representatives of another district or Senators from another state, they may hang up on you. They don’t want to hear from you. That doesn’t prevent anyone from calling after hours and leaving a voice mail message.

However, if you email, fax, tweet, or mail your opinion, they will see the volume of comments even if they disregard them.

It is time to level the playing field and inundate the legislators who are actively dismantling the United States as we know it. Call and write all of them frequently.

-30-

Thos

We have been involved in war in Afghanistan for 16 years

16 years –

It took 5 years (Dunkirk – VE Day) to take back North Africa and Europe from German Nazis / Italian Fascists. It took four years to take China, Philippines, several Pacific islands, and SE Asia from Japan (starting with virtually no navy). Korea was three years, declared a stalemate, and continues as a non-shooting (mostly) occupation for 64 years and counting. ‘Nam was 20 years. 16 years in Afghanistan also includes 16 years of constant US warfare elsewhere in the Middle-East with a little side excursion into Libya.

It is interesting to note that one of the weapons that the US military uses in endless war is named after one of the guys who took part in taking Europe in five years (Omar Bradley).

Now we have another we can’t…

We can’t help Puerto Rico because it is an island!

Let’s see, Guadalcanal is an island. The US figured how to get 60,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Guadalcanal in 1942.

Iwo Jima is an island. The US figured out how to get 110,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Iwo Jima in 1945.

Okinawa is an island. The US figured out how to get 541,000 soldiers and their supply chain to Okinawa in 1945.

In 1943-44, the US figured out how to move around a million soldiers, thousands or airplanes, trucks, tanks, and other various supplies to England, an Island. England is not only an island, it was an island blockaded by the German navy and air force.

Was there some sort of magical technology in use 73 years ago that does not exist today?

It seems that our current national leadership is not as smart as Roosevelt, Churchill, or Stalin (Russia took the biggest hits and had a substantial role in success). Current military leadership is not as smart as Eisenhower, Montgomery, Zhukov, et al., our “opponent” military leaders are a lot smarter than Rommel, Himmler, et al., or they continue these wars intentionally.

The same observation can  be made of assistance to Puerto Rico. Have we not assisted sufficiently because our current leaders can’t do it, or because our leaders don’t want to?

The answer is apparent to most of us, but it would be interesting to frame the question to the establishment in exactly that way. The excuse might be entertaining.

-30-

Thos