Monthly Archives: October 2013

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

by Andrew Villeneuve

A wor­thy choice: The Nor­we­gian Nobel Com­mit­tee has decid­ed that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 is to be award­ed to the Orga­ni­za­tion for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Chem­i­cal Weapons (OPCW) for its exten­sive efforts to elim­i­nate chem­i­cal weapons. Dur­ing World War One, chem­i­cal weapons were used to a con­sid­er­able degree. The Gene­va Con­ven­tion of 1925 […]

Posted inElections, Live Coverage, Our Environment, Policy Topics

LIVE from Bellingham: Council candidates share their vision for Whatcom County

by Patrick Stickney

Here comes the home stretch of yet anoth­er elec­tion sea­son. As cam­paigns move into get-out-the-vote mode, vol­un­teers are phonebank­ing and knock­ing on doors, can­di­dates hope to make an impact on more civi­cal­ly active vot­ers by speak­ing at forums. While many of these just serve to engage the base and get a few more peo­ple to […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics

Latest Republican thinking: We’ll vote to pay our nation’s bills for a few more weeks, but we won’t reopen the federal government

by Andrew Villeneuve

Sor­ry, Repub­li­cans.… not good enough: House Repub­li­cans, look­ing for a way out of a bud­get stand­off they began, plan to vote as ear­ly as Thurs­day on a plan to raise the debt lim­it through Novem­ber 22. But because the House pro­pos­al would not allow a vote on a Sen­ate-passed mea­sure to finance and reopen the government, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

President Barack Obama nominates Janet Yellen to be the next Federal Reserve Chair

by Andrew Villeneuve

His­to­ry was made today at the White House when Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma announced that he has decid­ed to for­mal­ly nom­i­nate Janet Yellen as the next chair­per­son of the Board of Gov­er­nors of the Fed­er­al Reserve Sys­tem. Yellen, who cur­rent­ly serves as vice chair of the board, would be (if con­firmed) the first woman and the […]

Posted inElections

The Seattle Times sensibly joins the coalition opposing Tim Eyman’s self-serving I‑517

by Andrew Villeneuve

In an edi­to­r­i­al just pub­lished to the Web this evening, The Seat­tle Times’ edi­to­r­i­al page — which we have not always been in agree­ment with — has wise­ly come out against Ini­tia­tive 517, the lat­est scheme to roll out of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry. I‑517, which NPI has been help­ing orga­nize oppo­si­tion to for almost […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

New set of polls shows Republicans could lose the U.S. House of Representatives

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ever since the con­clu­sion of vote-coun­t­ing in last year’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the num­ber sev­en­teen has tak­en on a spe­cial mean­ing to Democ­rats. That’s the num­ber of seats Democ­rats need to win next year to get back the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and rel­e­gate the Tea Par­ty extrem­ists who con­trol the House Repub­li­can cau­cus to […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Outside right wing groups playing outsize role in Republican government shutdown

by Andrew Villeneuve

The New York Times has a great arti­cle today that delves into the ori­gins of the House Repub­li­cans’ gov­ern­ment shut­down. It turns out that pow­er­ful right wing groups, includ­ing the vast polit­i­cal machin­ery assem­bled and fund­ed by the Koch broth­ers, have been agi­tat­ing for a shut­down for a long time, and were final­ly able, with […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Curtis King and Rodney Tom’s transportation “listening tour” adds more stops

by Andrew Villeneuve

A few weeks ago, when Sen­ate Repub­li­cans announced the dates and loca­tions for their autumn trans­porta­tion lis­ten­ing tour, we crit­i­cized them for not sched­ul­ing stops in places like Seat­tle (the state’s largest city) or Bre­mer­ton (one of the state’s fer­ry depen­dent com­mu­ni­ties). At the time, I wrote: Trans­porta­tion is a major issue for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who live […]

Posted inElections, Public Service

Wendy Davis makes it official: She’s running to be governor of Texas in 2014!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Big news out of the Lone Star State today! Pro­gres­sive hero Wendy Davis, who did an incred­i­ble job lead­ing the fight against leg­is­la­tion to roll back repro­duc­tive rights in Texas back in the spring, has announced that she is run­ning to replace Rick Per­ry as the state’s gov­er­nor. At an event in Hal­tom City, Davis laid […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Let’s not forget: House Republicans forced this federal government shutdown to happen

by Andrew Villeneuve

We are almost through Day One of the first major shut­down of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in sev­en­teen years, and sad­ly, it still appears that House Repub­li­cans are unwill­ing and unready to do their jobs. They could have eas­i­ly avert­ed the shut­down days ago by sim­ply pass­ing the con­tin­u­ing bud­get res­o­lu­tion the Sen­ate sent them, and […]