I support efforts to legalize gay marriage in Washington State. However, it’s not at the top of my list of priorities. Legalizing gay marriage may drive a wedge into Democratic constituencies and harm efforts to support economic justice, education, and social services. I fear that lawmakers prefer dealing with wedge issues over economic issues.
The genius of democracy is dispersed public control. As we saw in Iowa when alert public citizens captured evidence of the actual vote count, BEFORE it was reported by a centralized state committee, neither the state Republican Party nor the news media reported the correct results, claiming victory for the wrong winner. In South Carolina,…
Most legislators aren’t bad people. But, being human, they react to pressure. Because the special interest lobbyists that serve the wealthiest 1% of the population are well-organized and well-paid, our legislators would get an earful if they tried to right some of the wrongs in our state. Whose voices will the legislators hear? The lobbyists?…
Al Franken defends the Protect-IP (SOPA) act, saying that it’s necessary to protect intellectual property.  “If this bill really did some of the things people have heard it would do (like shutting down YouTube), I would never have supported it.”    See his website.
Years ago there was a comic strip named “Pogo.” One of the most insightful strips was a distilled discussion of human foibles, in which Pogo announced, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” When it comes to the national debate over the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent, we may not like the…
http://www.the-99-declaration.org/ “BE IT RESOLVED THAT WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in order to form a more perfect Union, by, for and of the People, shall elect and convene a NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY the week of July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia to prepare and ratify a PETITION…
State Rep. Ross Hunter is reporting, in Landmark Supreme Court Case, that the State Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that “the Legislature cannot cut basic education funding regardless of the budget difficulties we face.” The legislature has failed to live up to the lofty language of Article IX of the constitution, and now it should…
Dems Introduce Capital Gains Tax Bill in Olympia “Representative Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) introduced HB 2563 today, which would impose a 5 percent excise tax on capital gains over $10,000 a year ($5,000 for an individual), a bill that borrows generously from proposals made by the Washington State Budget and Policy Center. The proposed bill would…