Well, the snow is melting, the power is coming back on in the Puget Sound region and the sky was blue yesterday afternoon. The snow was really pretty for a day. then it was really wet and sloppy for a few days. Now it’s gone. Here is a news report from OilPrice.com: Study Finds that…
We need transcendent, transformative politics in this country and the world, but the mainstream paradigm remains a struggle between established power bases – one, a social democrat model as epitomized in Scandinavian models and the other, a Thatcher/Reagan model of social darwinism wearing a mantle of trickle down, supply-side economics. There is no question that…
The brightest moment in the Jan 3rd meeting with Senator Fraser, Representative Hunt and Representative Reykdal came when Chris Reykdal took the opportunity to talk about the impasse that exists with generating revenue for the State. Reykdal had campaigned for election to the legislature on tax fairness and he appears to be willing to make…
Senator Fraser, Representative Hunt and Representative Reykdal all spoke on January 3rd about the “big achievement” of the recent Special Session that was able to cut 480 million dollars to reduce the budget deficit, about 25% of the amount that it is assumed will need to be cut. There was some sense of dread about…
I attended a meeting with the Thurston County legislators on Jan 3rd. The three legislators are not firebrands, but as a group, representing a community, they (Reykdal, Hunt, Fraser) are probably about as liberal a group as any one community could send to Olympia to develop Washington State public policy. But there is the problem:…
I didn’t feel like putting together a “best of” list to review 2011. It was an unsettling year. The politics of stalemate made it pretty useless and 2012 is an election year, if I am not mistaken, so there is not much chance of legislative action and good public policy in this year (unless an…
A couple of quotes and some thoughts. “[The founding fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone — the right most valued by civilized men.” — Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice, 1928 Indeed, the right to be left alone. That’s a profound thought in a new era…
I have a dream! It’s not a dream on the scale of ML King Jr.’s dream and if I try to express my dream in a speech, it won’t bring a lump to your throat the way that Martin’s dream speech will, but if you have a full bladder in downtown Olympia after hours some…