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: January 2013

Analysis: New Republican-backed bills would cut injured workers’ benefits

Excerpt: Last week all pre­tense of bipar­ti­san­ship in State Sen­a­tor Rod­ney Tom’s new coali­tion was aban­doned with its intro­duc­tion of five anti-labor bills pur­pose­ly intend­ed to weak­en work­er’s com­pen­sa­tion. The new cau­cus formed by Sen­a­tors Tom and Shel­don and the Repub­li­cans is try­ing to rush these bills through to pas­sage. A floor vote is expect­ed in […]
Written by:Linda Seltzer
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy
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Research in Motion set to officially unveil its new BlackBerry 10 platform tomorrow

Excerpt: In less than eigh­teen hours, exec­u­tives at Cana­di­an telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions pio­neer Research in Motion will simul­ta­ne­ous­ly take the stage at a set of media events in major cities around the world to offi­cial­ly unveil Black­Ber­ry 10, the com­pa­ny’s much antic­i­pat­ed next-gen­er­a­tion mobile oper­at­ing sys­tem, which RIM hopes will put its line of smart­phones back in the […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Technology
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Senate Republicans want to assign letter grades to Washington’s public schools

Excerpt: Wash­ing­ton State Sen­a­tor Steve Lit­zow (R‑41st Dis­trict; Mer­cer Island) has intro­duced a bill that would assign a let­ter grade to pub­lic schools and school dis­tricts in the name of “account­abil­i­ty.” High-per­form­ing mid­dle, junior high, and high schools would receive finan­cial rewards from the state. Lit­zow’s pro­pos­al turns on its head the pol­i­cy of pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing […]
Written by:Sarajane Siegfriedt
Categories:Education, Policy Topics
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Students won’t stay silent on high tuition

Excerpt: I lob­bied on Monday. That may not seem like much, see­ing as hun­dreds of peo­ple did the same thing on the exact same day. But see­ing as I’m a stu­dent at a uni­ver­si­ty, for some, it might be a big thing indeed. I was there with 59 oth­er West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents who met with more than 60% per­cent […]
Written by:Patrick Stickney
Categories:Economic Security, Education, Legislative Advocacy
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President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address: A heartening, uplifting call for progress

Excerpt: Four years ago, I stood on the Nation­al Mall in our nation’s cap­i­tal and wit­nessed the swear­ing-in of Barack Oba­ma as the forty-fourth Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. It was a his­toric day — a hap­py and joy­ous day that offered a wel­come respite from weeks of bad eco­nom­ic news and feel­ings of […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Holidays, Public Service, Views & Reviews
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The sale of the Sacramento Kings to Chris Hansen shouldn’t be a cause for celebration

Excerpt: This morn­ing, the Mal­oof fam­i­ly, who have owned a con­trol­ling inter­est in the NBA’s Sacra­men­to Kings for more than a decade, end­ed weeks of spec­u­la­tion by announc­ing that they have agreed to sell their stake in the fran­chise to a group of investors led by San Fran­cis­co hedge fund man­ag­er Chris Hansen. Hansen’s group, as […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Gun control supporters rally in Seattle

Excerpt: A large crowd of gun con­trol sup­port­ers, mobi­lized by StandUP Wash­ing­ton, marched from Seattle’s West­lake Park to a ral­ly at the Seat­tle Cen­ter this Sun­day after­noon. The mood was somber, as vic­tims of the Sandy Hook school shoot­ing were remem­bered, but there was also a spir­it of resolve. The event had a dual pur­pose, to remem­ber, but […]
Written by:Kathleen Reynolds
Categories:Unscheduled Programming
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Tired of destructive, self-serving Eyman initiatives? Help us stop Tim’s profit machine

Excerpt: This morn­ing, at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex in Olympia, Tim Eyman and his pals Eddie Agazarm and Paul Jacob showed up to deliv­er what they said were 345,000 sig­na­tures for Ini­tia­tive 517, Eyman’s lat­est scheme, which is intend­ed to make it eas­i­er and cheap­er for Tim Eyman to qual­i­fy ini­tia­tives for the bal­lot […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Legislative Advocacy
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U.S. House passes H.R. 8, reinstating tax cuts and extending aid for the unemployed

Excerpt: By a vote of two hun­dred and fifty sev­en to one hun­dred and six­ty-sev­en, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has passed H.R. 8, mak­ing per­ma­nent the Bush tax cuts for those mak­ing less than $400,000 a year, extend­ing aid to the une­ployed, and delay­ing the auto­mat­ic reduc­tions to fed­er­al expen­di­tures that were set to […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics
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New laws for 2013, Washington State edition

Excerpt: New Year’s Day is more than just a fes­tive hol­i­day and a turn­ing point on the Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar. It’s also the occa­sion when many laws and admin­is­tra­tive rules go into effect, as pre­scribed by our Leg­is­la­ture. Here’s a sum­ma­ry of some of the new laws and rules tak­ing effect in Wash­ing­ton today: The min­i­mum wage in […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Holidays, Legislative Advocacy
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Banished Words for 2013

Excerpt: Edi­tor’s note: This post was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on Decem­ber 30th, 2012, and repub­lished on New Year’s Day 2013. Every year since 1976, Michigan’s Lake Supe­ri­or State Uni­ver­si­ty has released a thought­ful and humor­ous “List of Words Ban­ished from the Queen’s Eng­lish for Mis­use, Overuse and Gen­er­al Use­less­ness”. Here is the 2013 (and thir­ty-eighth annu­al) edi­tion, for […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Holidays, Series & Special Reports
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Happy New Year: Welcome 2013!

Excerpt: 2013 has begun! On behalf of the team at NPI, I’d like to wish all of our read­ers, donors, and vol­un­teers a hap­py, healthy, and pros­per­ous new year. 2013 holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for us, because it is NPI’s tenth year. We’ll be cel­e­brat­ing this remark­able mile­stone that you’ve helped make pos­si­ble all year long — online, at […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Announcements, Holidays, Legislative Advocacy
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