NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monthly Archives: February 2015

Washington’s Senate Republicans pass bill transferring education funding to highways

Excerpt: Prov­ing once again that their Fund edu­ca­tion first rhetoric is noth­ing but a false front, Repub­li­cans today pushed a bill through the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate that trans­fers sales tax rev­enue col­lect­ed on trans­porta­tion projects out of the state’s gen­er­al fund and into its high­way fund. Since the gen­er­al fund prin­ci­pal­ly pays for our schools and […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Education, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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VICTORY!!! FCC votes to adopt strong Net Neutrality rules to protect the Internet

Excerpt: Orga­nized mon­ey may be an increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful force in Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, but today, orga­nized peo­ple beat orga­nized mon­ey to secure a his­toric, vital vic­to­ry for Inter­net free­dom in the Unit­ed States of America. Just min­utes ago, the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty vot­ed to adopt strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules that will keep the […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Technology
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U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer to speak at NPI’s 2015 Spring Fundraising Gala

Excerpt: Tonight, we are very pleased and excit­ed to announce that U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer will be the open­ing speak­er at our sev­enth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which will take place April 10th at the Mer­cer Island Com­mu­ni­ty & Event Center. First elect­ed to the U.S. House in 2012, Con­gress­man Kilmer rep­re­sents Wash­ing­ton’s 6th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, which […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Announcements, Events
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Port dispute at an end? ILWU says tentative agreement reached on new contract with PMA

Excerpt: A dis­pute between the Inter­na­tion­al Long­shore and Ware­house Union (ILWU) and the Pacif­ic Mar­itime Asso­ci­a­tion (PMA), a group of West Coast ter­mi­nal oper­a­tors, is at an end fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tions on a new con­tract, the par­ties say. “After more than nine months of nego­ti­a­tions, we are pleased to have reached an agree­ment that is good for […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Tables at NPI’s 2015 Spring Fundraising Gala to be named after great progressive leaders

Excerpt: Late Feb­ru­ary is the time of year when many North­ern Hemi­sphere dwellers like to say that spring is right around the cor­ner. For those of us liv­ing west of the Cas­cades here in the Pacif­ic North­west, it feels like spring has already arrived, with the unusu­al­ly warm tem­per­a­tures we’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing. The oth­er day, my […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Events
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Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci announces campaign for King County Council, District 6

Excerpt: King Coun­ty sub­ur­ban pol­i­tics got a lot less bor­ing today with Belle­vue May­or Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci’s announce­ment that she is giv­ing up her seat on the Belle­vue City Coun­cil to chal­lenge Repub­li­can Jane Hague for King Coun­ty Coun­cil’s 6th District. The 6th Dis­trict encom­pass­es Kirk­land, most of Belle­vue, Mer­cer Island, part of Red­mond, the Points com­mu­ni­ties, […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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The new, extreme Republican Party has arrived in Washington State

Excerpt: Last week’s announce­ment from a group of State Sen­a­tors of a new trans­porta­tion pack­age has dom­i­nat­ed the polit­i­cal news in Wash­ing­ton State. NPI founder Andrew Vil­leneuve explained the numer­ous flaws of this pro­pos­al here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. But it’s also worth tak­ing a step back and exam­in­ing what this pro­pos­al means for the future […]
Written by:Robert Cruickshank
Categories:Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Senate Republicans unveil pavement-heavy transportation plan laden with bad provisions

Excerpt: Wash­ing­ton State’s Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus held a news con­fer­ence in Olympia this after­noon to take the wraps off of a trans­porta­tion plan that’s some­what bet­ter than what they belat­ed­ly offered last year, but still pave­ment-heavy and laden with a num­ber of pro­vi­sions that are com­plete­ly unacceptable. The Repub­li­can-backed pro­pos­al, pushed by Sen­a­tor Cur­tis King (who […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Philadelphia selected as host city for 2016 Democratic National Convention

Excerpt: It’s offi­cial: the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has a host city for its next qua­dren­ni­al meet­ing. Philadel­phia, the City of Broth­er­ly Love and Sis­ter­ly Affec­tion, will serve as the gath­er­ing place for the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, which will be held the week of July 25th, 2016, fol­low­ing the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion Cleve­land. (Typ­i­cal­ly, the par­ty that […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Events
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NBC’s Brian Williams suspended for six months; Jon Stewart to leave The Daily Show

Excerpt: Today, some­thing remark­able hap­pened: The host of a fake news show made real news by announc­ing his depar­ture from the pro­gram he has helmed since 1999, while the host of a real news show was sus­pend­ed by his net­work for fak­ing details about his expe­ri­ence as a war zone reporter over ten years ago. Who would […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Media & Culture
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Hearing on SB 5375 turns into The Pam Roach Show — with special guest Tim Eyman

Excerpt: Yes­ter­day morn­ing, as some read­ers may have heard on Twit­ter, I made a spe­cial trip down to Olympia with the inten­tion of tes­ti­fy­ing in favor of Sen­ate Bill 5375, one of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s pri­or­i­ty bills for this session. I was hop­ing to be able to explain to the Sen­ate Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions and Secu­ri­ty […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics
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SB 5375 would bring needed accountability to Washington’s signature gathering industry

Excerpt: Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing are the remarks I pre­pared as the basis for my spo­ken tes­ti­mo­ny in favor of SB 5375. This bill was sup­posed to be heard by the Sen­ate Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions and Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee today. I nev­er got a chance to tes­ti­fy in favor of SB 5375 because com­mit­tee chair Pam Roach refused […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics
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House Transportation Committee narrowly advances HB 1180 — after watering it down

Excerpt: This after­noon, the House Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee report­ed out House Bill 1180, one of NPI’s pri­or­i­ty bills for this leg­isla­tive ses­sion, with a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion… but not before adopt­ing a Repub­li­can-backed amend­ment that sub­stan­tial­ly watered down the bill for no good reason. In its now-amend­ed form, HB 1180 would grant new rev­enue author­i­ty to Sound […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Raspberry Pi Foundation unveils new Pi that’s six times faster, will support Windows 10

Excerpt: Three years to the month after launch­ing the first Rasp­ber­ry Pi micro­com­put­er, the Rasp­ber­ry Pi Foun­da­tion has unveiled a new Pi that uses a more mod­ern proces­sor and has twice as much mem­o­ry onboard. The Rasp­ber­ry Pi 2, as it’s being called, will sell for $35, just like its pre­de­ces­sors (the first gen­er­a­tion Mod­el A […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Technology
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