Washington Liberals

Joe Bageant died yesterday. He fought a good fight against cancer the past 4 months and kept writing and posting. Here is part of a piece he wrote not too long ago: AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM? Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga By Joe Bageant Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico If…

Washington Community Action Network is holding a Week of Action to demand that our legislators and the governor do the right thing.  Close corporate tax giveaways and stop balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the middle class. APRIL 5-8 we will take back our dignity and our State. On April 5-8th,…

The Washington State Democrats have sent out a fund-raising appeal so that it can place an ad critical of Rob McKenna in the Seattle Times.  (See http://www.wa-democrats.org/content/our-newspaper-ad.) This ad calling out Rob McKenna for his attacks on public employee unions is running in today’s issue of The Olympian. GOAL: We need to raise $6,935 to…

Juan Cole has an interesting post up at Informed Comment on the current state of affairs in Libya: Top Ten Accomplishments of the UN No Fly Zone. I find Juan’s analysis of the current state of affairs to be a little encouraging. I understand the break that exists between the folks who do not believe…

Democrats fear that voter turnout will be low in 2012 due to dissatisfaction with President Obama’s policies and due to a feeling that change is hopeless. If Democrats want progressives’ votes and help, they should stand up to the corrupt, corporatist Democrats by openly criticizing centrists such as President Obama and Governor Gregoire, and by…

Thanks to Donna Albert for sending me a link to this video that is running on Grist among other places. It’s an interesting and entertaining piece on global distribution of wealth.

Last night, King County Democrats narrowly voted down a “resolution to cut corporate tax exemptions rather than cutting school funding”. [Here is a link to the resolution, by David Spring: http://fairschoolfundingcoalition.org/joomla/.] The purpose of the proposed resolution is to support elimination of tax breaks for corporations earning north of $1 billion, and use that money…

I was really concerned that the international community would simply stand by and watch as Libyans were slaughtered by their own military forces. Think Rwanda and Burundi and those awful type of events and outcomes all over again. The US and the international community stood by as human beings were exterminated. If you need background…

Sunday afternoon I attended the King County Dems’ Legislative Action Committee meeting in Renton, where Rep. Bob Hasegawa was the guest speaker. He is awesome: a strong progressive and an unpretentious, nice guy.  The meeting was riveting, for political junkies like me anyway, and well attended.  I guess the attendees all felt like fellow comrades…

Our leaders don’t lead. Governor Gregoire and the legislators have punted on the issue of raising revenue. If you ask legislators, they say “the people” have to demand fair taxation and an end to corporate tax giveaways. Though the Democrats control the governor’s mansion and both houses in Olympia, they don’t use their positions of…