Monthly Archives: September 2013

Posted inParty Politics

Dwight Pelz to retire as Washington State Democratic Party Chair in February

by Andrew Villeneuve

For­mer King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Dwight Pelz, who has ably led the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty for more than three fourths of a decade, announced today that he will retir­ing as state par­ty chair on Feb­ru­ary 1st, 2014, the date of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee’s next meet­ing in Van­cou­ver. In a let­ter copied to […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

House Republicans bent on taking another vote to defund the Patient Protection Act

by Andrew Villeneuve

The black­mail con­tin­ues: House Repub­li­cans plan to attach a one-year delay of [the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act] and a repeal of its med­ical device to a stop­gap spend­ing bill on Sat­ur­day, a move that could ensure much of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shuts down on Tues­day. Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑Ohio) out­lined the maneu­ver to Repub­li­cans in a […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Meta, Policy Topics

Michael King’s embezzlement demonstrates why progressive and Democratic organizations need strong internal controls

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, King Coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors charged Michael Wal­ter King, the for­mer exec­u­tive direc­tor of the now-defunct Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (SDCC) with six counts of theft fol­low­ing a six month inves­ti­ga­tion, in which Seat­tle police found that King had stolen more than a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars from the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus to fund his […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

The tech pundits are wrong: BlackBerry may be struggling, but it’s not a doomed company

by Andrew Villeneuve

On Fri­day, Black­Ber­ry Lim­it­ed (for­mer­ly Research in Motion) announced that it expect­ed to lose some­where between $950 mil­lion to $995 mil­lion in the sec­ond quar­ter of its cur­rent fis­cal year, and plans to lay off forty per­cent of its work­force in an attempt to con­trol costs and adjust to the decline in rev­enue. Inevitably, this […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Healthcare, Policy Topics

House Republicans vote to slash food stamps with disgraceful “let them starve” legislation

by Andrew Villeneuve

Once again, we have occa­sion to say: So much for com­pas­sion­ate con­ser­vatism. By a vote of two hun­dred and sev­en­teen to two hun­dred and ten, the Repub­­li­­can-con­trolled U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has vot­ed to make sig­nif­i­cant and destruc­tive cuts to SNAP, the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram, col­lo­qui­al­ly known as food stamps. Their leg­is­la­tion reduces funding […]

Posted inElections

Why creating House districts could make the Washington State Legislature more diverse

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The NPI team is pleased to wel­come Richard Cham­pi­on as a con­trib­u­tor to the NPI Advo­cate. Richard is a com­mit­ted Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist who cur­rent­ly serves as the 2nd Vice Chair of the King Coun­ty Democ­rats. He resides in the 30th LD and is active in the 30th LD Democ­rats. As with all posts […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics, Public Service

White House: Larry Summers has withdrawn his name from consideration as Fed Chair

by Andrew Villeneuve

The White House has just dropped a Sun­day evening bomb­shell: Neolib­er­al econ­o­mist Lar­ry Sum­mers — who Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma was on the verge of nom­i­nat­ing to be the next Chair­man of the Board of Gov­er­nors of the Fed­er­al Reserve — is no longer being con­sid­ered for the posi­tion, at his own request! “Ear­li­er today, I […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Service

Larry Summers’ nomination for Fed Chair isn’t official yet — but it’s already in trouble

by Andrew Villeneuve

If the Belt­way rumor mill is to be believed, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is on the verge of nom­i­nat­ing his old pal Lar­ry Sum­mers to be the next chair of the Fed­er­al Reserve. Sum­mers, as most read­ers prob­a­bly know, is one of the coun­try’s most promi­nent neolib­er­al econ­o­mists and an admir­er of Mil­ton Fried­man and Alan Greenspan. […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Dissecting conservative Justice Jim Johnson’s dissenting opinion in Freeman v. State

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day’s sev­en-to-two deci­sion in Free­man et al. v. State of Wash­ing­ton et al. was a pret­ty resound­ing vic­to­ry for the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton and two pub­lic agen­cies that build and main­tain trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture on the peo­ple’s behalf (Sound Tran­sit and the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion). But it was­n’t a unan­i­mous deci­sion. The court’s two […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, National Defense, Policy Topics, Technology

When are SSL and VPNs not secure? Why, when the NSA wants to spy on you, of course!

by Andrew Villeneuve

With each pass­ing week, it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear that for­mer NSA employ­ee Edward Snow­den’s doc­u­ment dump con­sti­tutes the largest and most impor­tant leak in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. While Snow­den remains in Rus­sia, news­pa­pers in the West con­tin­ue to sift through the doc­u­ments he leaked, using those as the basis […]

Posted inBreaking News, Technology

Microsoft buying Nokia’s handset division in $7.2 billion deal; Stephen Elop returning

by Andrew Villeneuve

Well, how’s this for late-break­ing Labor Day news: Microsoft has just announced that it’s struck a deal with Nokia to buy “sub­stan­tial­ly all” of the Finnish phone mak­er’s Devices & Ser­vices busi­ness, plus license Noki­a’s patent port­fo­lio for ten years, for $7.1 bil­lion in cash. As part of the deal, for­mer Microsoft exec­u­tive Stephen Elop […]