Late Tuesday afternoon we learned that nation-wide vigils for Trayvon Martin have been called for this Saturday at noon, exactly the same time as the planned WTF Olympia? rally. At an emergency committee meeting last night we decided to postpone the rally until the following Saturday, July 27, out of respect for this national day of action…
King County Executive Dow Constantine spoke to the 41st LD Democrats Wednesday night. He said that King County is the 13th largest county in the country. It has a population of over 2,000,000 people, making it more populous than 13 or 14 states (each of which has two US senators). King County accounts for about…
The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility announced today that a judge gave final approval to the language of their ballot initiative, I-594, which will establish background checks for gun purchases. Gun rights groups had litigated to change the wording of the initiative to something more favorable. The original proposed wording of the ballot initiative was…
The terrible injustice of the not-guilty verdict for Trayvon Martin’s killer has brought Marissa Alexander’s racist and sexist treatment by Florida courts to center-stage of U.S. and world attention. It is infuriating to think how a white man used Stand Your Ground to avoid any penalties for killing a Black teenager, while a Black woman…
Representatives Rick Larsen and Jim McDermott have signed the Ciccline letter “Expressing the sense of the Congress that the Chained Consumer Price Index should not be used to calculate cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits.” And Rep. McDermott has signed several other letters in support of Social Security (see table below). But no Washington State…
Conservative billionaire Pete Peterson, a major financier in the effort to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, just got some egg on his face courtesy of the Social Security Works – Washington coalition, the Economic Opportunity Institute and PSARA. The winning video in the Pete Peterson Foundation’s video contest – which had the goal of “compiling…
The editorials and cartoons of the local newspaper, the Bellevue Reporter, almost always have an anti-government and anti-taxation message. During the 2010 election cycle, when the high earner’s income tax initiative I-1098 was on the ballot, they published a cartoon depicting government as a fat pig. In response to one of their recent anti-government editorials…
Insurance Company Gets F-ed Over By Another Cancer Patient Eventually, people will look back to our age and wonder: how could people be so uncivilized that they let people suffer and die without adequate health care?
Barry Buchanan on the election trail, seeking a seat on Whatcom County Council Credits: KGMI-AM  790 With the future of fossil fuels as America’s primary energy source hanging in the balance, upcoming off-year elections in the far corner of the Pacific Northwest may tip the scales one way or the other. Whatcom County, Washington, will…