Monthly Archives: September 2012

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Litigation, Policy Topics

Frank Blethen’s Seattle Times tells Supreme Court to bring back Tim Eyman’s I‑1053

by Andrew Villeneuve

Well, that did­n’t take long. Less than sev­en­­ty-two hours after the Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment in League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers v. State of Wash­ing­ton (the legal chal­lenge to Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 1053), Frank Blethen’s Seat­tle Times released an edi­to­r­i­al telling the Supreme Court to bring back Tim Eyman’s I‑1053, which was struck down in May […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Sound Transit selects contractor to extend Link light rail into south SeaTac

by Andrew Villeneuve

Sound Tran­sit’s board of direc­tors have select­ed a con­trac­tor to expand Link light rail south from Seat­­tle-Taco­­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to the inter­sec­tion of South 200th St and 28th Avenue South, the agency announced today. PCL Civ­il Con­struc­tors, Inc. has been award­ed a con­tract to bring Link’s south­ern ter­mi­nus into the south­ern part of SeaT­ac, with […]

Posted inElections, Series & Special Reports

Ad Watch: Obama/Biden 2012 turns infamous Romney gaffe from secret video into an ad

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wel­come back to Ad Watch, our newest spe­cial series, which is run­ning week­ly from now until elec­tion week. The pur­pose of this series is to attempt to cat­a­log, or index, the many cam­paign ads that are going up on tele­vi­sion (and some­times radio) to influ­ence elec­tions in the Pacif­ic North­west. In each install­ment, we’ll briefly […]

Posted inElections

Autumn has arrived!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Well, it looks like anoth­er sea­son has come and gone. As of today, sum­mer 2012 is offi­cial­ly over, and autumn 2012 has begun. The third full sea­son of the year will last almost nine­ty days, encom­pass­ing part or all of four months: Sep­tem­ber, Octo­ber, Novem­ber, and Decem­ber. Win­ter will offi­cial­ly begin four days before Christ­mas this […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Colorado gets new national monument thanks to President Obama; will Washington be next?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, with the stroke of a pen, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma trans­formed one of Col­orado’s most beloved and best known sights — pre­vi­ous­ly pro­tect­ed as Chim­ney Rock Archae­o­log­i­cal Area — into Chim­ney Rock Nation­al Mon­u­ment, exer­cis­ing his author­i­ty under the Antiq­ui­ties Act of 1906. The move brings the site one step clos­er to the coveted […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Republicans shamelessly block Patty Murray’s veterans jobs bill in U.S. Senate

by Andrew Villeneuve

As if we need­ed fur­ther proof that Repub­li­cans aren’t inter­est­ed in help­ing cre­ate jobs and strength­en­ing eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty for Amer­i­cans, the Noto­ri­ous G.O.P (which stands for Grave­yard of Progress these days) has blocked Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray’s vet­er­ans jobs bill from com­ing up for a vote in the U.S. Sen­ate, effec­tive­ly killing it for the year: Eager […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

U.S. Representative Rick Larsen leads the charge to stop voter suppression

by Patrick Stickney

React­ing to laws mak­ing aim­ing to increase the dif­fi­cul­ty to vote since con­ser­v­a­tives took con­trol of  state gov­ern­ments in the 2010 midterm elec­tions, Con­gress­man Rick Larsen, along with 14 oth­er House Democ­rats, intro­duced a bill yes­ter­day to “com­bat vot­er sup­pres­sion efforts across the coun­try”. Only two of the cur­rent co-spon­­sors rep­re­sent a state which has enacted […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics

Wolves’ comeback breeds tensions

by Kathleen Reynolds

A con­tro­ver­sial and divi­sive fig­ure is rear­ing its scruffy head in Wash­ing­ton. Absent from our state for at least sev­en­ty years, the wolf is mak­ing a vig­or­ous come­back. And while Native Amer­i­cans hon­or it in sto­ry, ani­mal lovers appre­ci­ate its eco­log­i­cal role (not to men­tion its fam­i­ly loy­al­ty and intel­li­gence), many ranch­ers dis­trust it because […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics

Washington lawmakers should act to abolish executions in the 2013 legislative session

by Martin Chaney

A few months ago, as spring reached its apex, Connecticut’s Gov­er­nor, Dan­nel Mal­loy, a Demo­c­rat, signed a bill out­law­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. “Con­necti­cut joins six­teen oth­er states and the rest of the indus­tri­al­ized world by tak­ing this action,” he not­ed as he signed the bill into law. The signs are obvi­ous for any­one who looks. Capital […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Fallout from anonymously-produced video mocking Islam continues all over Middle East

by Andrew Villeneuve

Less than one hun­dred hours after the eleven year anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11th, Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists have seized upon an anony­­mous­­ly-pro­­duced video that mocks Islam to fan the flames of anti-Amer­i­­can sen­ti­ment all across the Mid­dle East… in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon, and oth­er coun­tries. The U.S. Depart­ment of State on Thurs­day issued trav­el warnings […]

Posted inElections, Series & Special Reports

Ad Watch: Our Washington goes after Rob McKenna, says he’s not who he says he is

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wel­come to Ad Watch, our newest spe­cial series, which will run week­ly from now until elec­tion week. The pur­pose of this series is to attempt to cat­a­log, or index, the many cam­paign ads that are going up on tele­vi­sion (and some­times radio) to influ­ence elec­tions in the Pacif­ic North­west. In each install­ment, we’ll briefly describe […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

Seattle Chamber of Commerce announces opposition to AWB and Tim Eyman’s I‑1185

by Andrew Villeneuve

Great news: Ear­li­er today, the Seat­tle Metro Cham­ber of Com­merce announced that after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, it has decid­ed to join the oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 1185, which would reim­pose the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al two-thirds vote require­ment to raise rev­enue on the state Leg­is­la­ture. The deci­sion is sig­nif­i­cant because the pri­ma­ry finan­cial force behind I‑1185 is the […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Terrorist attack in Benghazi kills American ambassador to Libya, two U.S. Marines

by Andrew Villeneuve

U.S. Ambas­sador to Libya Christo­pher J. Stevens, For­eign Ser­vice Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Offi­cer Sean Smith and two U.S. Marines were killed yes­ter­day when ter­ror­ists attacked the Amer­i­can con­sulate in Beng­hazi with rock­­et-pro­pelled grenades and firearms dur­ing a protest by angry Libyans upset with a trail­er for an anony­­mous­­ly-pro­­duced film that den­i­grates Islam, the White House has confirmed. […]

Posted inHolidays

In memoriam, eleven years later

by Andrew Villeneuve

Today is the eleventh anniver­sary of the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks, which destroyed New York’s World Trade Cen­ter, dam­aged the Pen­ta­gon, and claimed the lives of thou­sands of inno­cent Amer­i­cans. In hon­or of those who died that day, we’re repub­lish­ing a poem that we post annu­al­ly here on The Advo­cate. Two thou­sand one, nine eleven Two […]