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Saturday, January 19, 2013

News Saturday Morning News

Posted by Unpaid Intern on Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 8:06 AM

Posted by news intern Jocelyn Macdonald

Sexual Assault Unit Sergeants Accused of Sexual Harassment: Three sheriff's detectives filed suit against the county for a hostile work environment, including allegations that male unit sergeants made inappropriate remarks about the detectives' bodies, mocked sexual assault victims, and played fun pranks, including one where a sergeant purportedly, "strapped a fake phallus to his ankle in the office so it protruded from the bottom of his trousers."

Gee, Thanks! GOP conditionally agrees to lift debt-ceiling for another three months. Maybe we'll get to argue about this year-round.

States Rights: Gov. Inslee and WA Attorney General Bob Ferguson will travel to DC to discuss implementation of I-502 next week.

Too Early to Call It a "Quagmire?" A lot of important people are not impressed with the French air and ground offensive in Mali. Meanwhile, Leon Panetta is feeling out how many drones we could shuffle around to lend a hand against rebels.

Happy Birthday, Citizens United: We made this party for you. Bring your party hat to Garfield High School, 400 23rd avenue, today at 9:30 am.

Medical Marijuana Used to Front Regular Marijuana Trafficking: Craig Douglas Deiffenbach, who spent much of the 90s in jail for trafficking cocaine, is going back to prison for trafficking marijuana out of a medical marijuana dispensary.

Need a Good Cry? Watch this Aaron Swartz memorial today.

WH: "Sometimes, I find myself thinking, 'My God, what have we done?'" We the People petitions will now require 100,000 signatures to merit official White House response.

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Comments (19) RSS

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Ahhh, yes! The old classic protruding fake phallus... Gets 'em every time.

Posted by PapaKipChee on January 19, 2013 at 8:47 AM

Ugh. I've been through government sexual harassment training programs, and they are dreadful. Cheesy educational films shot in the seventies and eighties. My employer requires a biannual refresher course of all employees.

It's clear from King County's sexual harassment policy that they have a similar program. Their policy appears to have been last updated in 2009.

Here's the relevant item:

7.7.1 Provide training to departments and/or provide referrals to qualified training consultants; provide tracking mechanism to departments; and conduct annual review of alleged and proven violations of this policy to determine patterns and practices for prevention/intervention purposes.

This is utterly disgusting, because the two sergeants accused have clearly been through the training, likely more than once, and have overlooked or ignored their required annual reporting requirements, as have their supervisors. This speaks to a systematic failure on behalf of the County.

This is also eerily similar to the harassment problems that plagued Snohomish County a few years ago, problems that came to a head when PDS division director Craig Ladiser exposed himself while drunk as a skunk during a professional conference. That led to the head of the EEO office, Mark Knudsen, resigning in disgrace after it was discovered he was delaying, ignoring, and destroying records of harassment.

The goddamn head of the department charged with rooting out harassment cases didn't give a flying fuck about doing his job right!!

Time will tell how King County deals with this, and how widespread the problem is. One thing's sure, they didn't learn the lesson from their neighbor to the north.

Guess who's gonna get a DOJ audit soon??

More...

Posted by Dr_Awesome on January 19, 2013 at 9:16 AM

We need a nation Initiative program similar to what states such as Washington have. These would be binding and mandatory and break the gridlock of Congress on issues with a popular consensus like limiting taxes.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 19, 2013 at 9:51 AM

I like the heading Need A Good Cry? Every morning I look at your Morning News, and usually at least 2 items remind me of how sad and tragic the world is. Due to media overload and desensitization, I never get close to rightful teary eyed. Can you continue the Need A Good Cry reminder in all future Morning News? Ya know, keep it real, or whatever impossibility.

Posted by dnt trust me on January 19, 2013 at 10:14 AM

Our initiative process is easily bought and sold. Ask Tim Eyman. Brought to the national level as is would be horrifying.

Posted by Painy on January 19, 2013 at 10:18 AM

Dems won the recent congressional election by 1M+ aggregate votes, you so sure national-Eyeman would go the way you envision? Raising taxes on the higher brackets is a popular platform. National voters aren't quite as less-taxes-more-stuff-for-me as the dimmer "libertarians" here in WA...

Posted by JonnoN on January 19, 2013 at 10:24 AM

#5

Direct Democracy threatens socialism..as it should.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 19, 2013 at 10:24 AM

#6

Exactly..do you think there would have been a moment's hesitation in enacting the Middle Class tax cuts using a popular initiative process?

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 19, 2013 at 10:26 AM

Direct Democracy: "Liberty and justice for some."

Posted by JonnoN on January 19, 2013 at 10:27 AM

#9

That's the stupidest thing I've read..how can you possibly say that?

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 19, 2013 at 10:36 AM

Meanwhile, I don't really see this story getting the attention it deserves. I picked this up on one of my RSS feeds, but it seems like not many people are aware this happened. I thought it would be a bigger story that the gun people are intimidating our lawmakers enough to influence policy.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…

Posted by Tiffany

on January 19, 2013 at 10:39 AM

@3: Interesting, but that would usurp state's rights and be a very foreboding double-edged sword.

Posted by Phoebe in Wallingford on January 19, 2013 at 10:40 AM

The US is a Constitutional Republic and Representative Democracy. A national initiative system would be in conflict with that system as it really is here in WA as well.

Posted by Gordon Werner on January 19, 2013 at 10:58 AM

@unpaid intern,

Thanks for including the Aaron Swartz link, speaking of which, there is an excellent posting a /. today on this subject:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/01/19/1…

theodp writes

"If Aaron Swartz downloaded JSTOR documents without paying for them, it would presumably be considered a crime by the USDOJ. But if U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz or U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder did the same? Rather than a crime, it would be considered their entitlement, a perk of an elite education that's paid for by their alma maters. Ironically and sadly, that's the kind of inequity Aaron railed against with the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, a document the DOJ cited as evidence (pdf) that Swartz was a menace to society. On Thursday, Ortiz insisted Swartz — who she now characterizes as 'mentally ill' — received fair and reasonable treatment from the DOJ. But that wasn't good enough for Senator John Cornyn, who on Friday asked Eric Holder to explain the DOJ prosecution of Aaron Swartz."

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-…

Posted by sgt_doom on January 19, 2013 at 11:00 AM

#13

The only document that defines what the US "is" is the Declaration of Independence. We have had two "constitutions", the Articles of Confederation and the present one which includes the ability to add amendments. Therefore, there is no reason that we cannot modify or remake the system to create National Initiatives and move towards Direct Democracy. The failures of the current Representative system are all too plain to see.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on January 19, 2013 at 11:26 AM