Monthly Archives: July 2011

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Senator Jay Rockefeller wants U.S. probe of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

by Andrew Villeneuve

U.S. Sen­a­tor Jay Rock­e­feller of West Vir­ginia, who chairs the Sen­ate’s Com­mit­tee on Com­merce, Sci­ence, and Trans­porta­tion, called today for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to inves­ti­gate pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion (and its many sub­sidiaries) in the Unit­ed States. Rock­e­feller is among the first elect­ed lead­ers in the Unit­ed States to weigh in on […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Rupert Murdoch’s empire in crisis following News of the World closure

by Andrew Villeneuve

Rupert Mur­doch’s News of the World may have print­ed its final edi­tion yes­ter­day, but the fall­out from the uneth­i­cal and like­ly ille­gal activ­i­ties of its for­mer employ­ees con­tin­ues to swell. The phone-hack­­ing scan­dal is beyond a headache for Rupert Mur­doch — it’s become a cri­sis that is threat­en­ing his entire media empire. Here’s a roundup […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NWroots 2011 is tomorrow in Pioneer Square!

by Andrew Villeneuve

The big day has almost arrived! As many read­ers already know, tomor­row the NWroots Fel­low­ship and NPI are hold­ing the fourth NWroots Con­fer­ence in Pio­neer Square, Seat­tle, at Com­e­dy Under­ground and Fx McRo­ry’s.  We’ve got a fan­tas­tic line­up for the event, includ­ing Roger Good­man, Jay Inslee, WSLC Pres­i­dent Jeff John­son, Jim McDer­mott, Den­nis Kucinich, and […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman turns in signatures for I‑1125 in Olympia; NPI and Doug MacDonald respond

by Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, Tim Eyman and his cohorts from Spokane, the Fagans, showed up in Olympia at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex to deliv­er box­es of peti­tions for Eyman’s lat­est scheme to wreck gov­ern­ment — Ini­tia­tive 1125, which would inter­fere with WSDOT’s abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the new Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge over Lake Washington […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Murdochs abandon ship, announce that News of the World tabloid will shut down

by Andrew Villeneuve

The News of the World, the Rupert Mur­­doch-owned tabloid at the cen­ter of the phone-hack­­ing scan­dal that has rocked the Unit­ed King­dom, will be shut down fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of this Sun­day’s edi­tion, News Cor­po­ra­tion said today. The week­ly tabloid is accused of hack­ing into the mobile phones of crime vic­tims, celebri­ties and politi­cians. On Thursday, […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Outrage against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp grows as phone-hacking scandal widens

by Andrew Villeneuve

When we hear the word “scan­dal” in the same sen­tence as “politi­cians” or “celebri­ties”, we’re used to assum­ing that an elect­ed offi­cial, actor, or sports star has done some­thing wrong and is being sub­ject­ed to a harsh media spot­light. But over in the Unit­ed King­dom, there’s a widen­ing scan­dal involv­ing politi­cians and celebri­ties in which […]

Posted inHolidays

Happy Fourth of July 2011!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good after­noon and Hap­py Fourth of July 2011! Here’s a quick news roundup for our nation’s two hun­dred and thir­ty fifth birth­day: Once again, speed eater Joey Chest­nut has won the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eat­ing Con­test, held annu­al­ly at Coney Island since 1916. Chest­nut man­aged to down six­­ty-four hot dogs and buns in ten […]

Posted inHolidays

The Declaration of Independence, two hundred and thirty-five years later

by Andrew Villeneuve

In accor­dance with tra­di­tion, we are post­ing the text of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence here on The Advo­cate for your enjoy­ment. The Dec­la­ra­tion was pri­mar­i­ly authored by our third pres­i­dent, Thomas Jef­fer­son, who drew heav­i­ly on the think­ing of Enlight­en­ment philoso­phers such as John Locke to per­sua­sive­ly lay out the case for the inde­pen­dence of […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

ExxonMobil pipeline bursts in Montana, spilling crude oil into Yellowstone River

by Andrew Villeneuve

As if we need­ed anoth­er reminder that the oil indus­try is a dirty indus­try… An Exxon­Mo­bil pipeline run­ning under the Yel­low­stone Riv­er in south cen­tral Mon­tana rup­tured late Fri­day, spilling crude oil into the riv­er and forc­ing evac­u­a­tions. The pipeline burst about 10 miles west of Billings, coat­ing parts of the Yel­low­stone Riv­er that run […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

Google+: Step right up if you want to help Google complete its profile of you

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er this week, Google final­ly took the wrap­pings off of the Face­book clone it has been devel­op­ing, spark­ing a pro­longed media fren­zy about its efforts to catch up with Twit­ter and Face­book in the social net­work­ing are­na. By all accounts, Google+ rep­re­sents the com­pa­ny’s most sophis­ti­cat­ed attempt to build a social net­work. It is a top […]

Posted inEvents

Transcript: Van Jones urges netroots to lead the way in rebuilding the American dream

by Patrick Stickney

Edi­tor’s Note: One of the high­lights of Net­roots Nation 2011 was Van Jones’ Sat­ur­day keynote addres urg­ing the com­mu­ni­ty to lead the way in rebuild­ing the Amer­i­can Dream, which repeat­ed­ly brought the con­ven­tion to its feet. NPI has tran­scribed the speech for the ben­e­fit of pro­gres­sive activists who weren’t there to hear it in person. […]