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: October 2013

U.S. House passes “Citibill” to partially roll back the Dodd-Frank Reform Act

Excerpt: Once again, some­thing is rot­ten in the peo­ple’s House. Ear­li­er today, the Repub­li­can-con­trolled U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed two hun­dred and nine­ty-two to one hun­dred and twen­ty-two to pass H.R. 992, offi­cial­ly titled the Swaps Reg­u­la­to­ry Improve­ment Act. Like MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, we’re call­ing H.R. 992 Citibill because it was pri­mar­i­ly authored by Cit­i­group lob­by­ists. It […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags: ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Poll Watch: Tim Eyman’s Initiative 517 is sinking like a rock, new surveys show

Excerpt: It looks like our efforts to edu­cate vot­ers about the cost and con­se­quences of Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive on ini­tia­tive (I‑517) are start­ing to pay off. Hurrah! The last two sur­veys to gauge sup­port for Ini­tia­tive 517 both show sup­port for the mea­sure drop­ping, and the most recent of the two — just released today — […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
Tags:
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Tentative deal averts grocery strike here; Bay Area’s BART work stoppage ended by accord

Excerpt: And now, for some good news! The Unit­ed Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers announced this evening that its nego­ti­at­ing team has been able to reach an agree­ment with Allied Employ­ers on a new (and pre­sum­ably fair) con­tract, there­by avert­ing a strike against Fred Mey­er, QFC, Safe­way, and Albert­son’s stores through­out west­ern Washington. Mean­while, down in Cal­i­for­nia, strik­ing […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Know where to shop for groceries in the event that UFCW members go on strike

Excerpt: As of this morn­ing, we are twelve hours away from a pos­si­ble strike against Fred Mey­er, Safe­way, Albert­son’s, and QFC by our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Unit­ed Food & Com­mer­cial Work­ers, Local 21. The hard­work­ing mem­bers of Local 21 are try­ing to nego­ti­ate a new con­tract with the big chains, but so far, they […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags: ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Marco Rubio is wrong: Setting up a website where people can buy something is not simple

Excerpt: This morn­ing, Sen­a­tor Mar­co Rubio of Flori­da appeared on Fox Noise Chan­nel’s Sun­day morn­ing show to talk pol­i­tics with Chris Wal­lace. One of the top­ics the two men dis­cussed was the roll­out of the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act’s online exchanges, which unfor­tu­nate­ly has­n’t gone too well. (Many peo­ple have tried to use the exchanges, only to […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Healthcare, Policy Topics
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

NPI launches BallotGuide.info, a microsite that demystifies ballot measures

Excerpt: On behalf of the team at here at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, I’m pleased to announce this evening that we have launched BallotGuide.info, a new microsite designed to help pro­gres­sive vot­ers nav­i­gate the many mea­sures on the 2013 gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot in Wash­ing­ton State. (Microsites, for those who don’t speak tech, are very small stand­alone web­sites […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Announcements, Elections, Meta
Tags: , ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

House Speaker Tom Foley: 1929–2013

Excerpt: This morn­ing, we lost a leg­end in Wash­ing­ton and U.S. politics. Tom Foley, who served the Ever­green State with dis­tinc­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for sev­er­al decades, died of com­pli­ca­tions from mul­ti­ple strokes in the ear­ly hours of the day today, his fam­i­ly has announced. He was eighty-four. Foley, the last Demo­c­rat to rep­re­sent […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Party Politics, Public Service
Tags:
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

President Barack Obama signs legislation to reopen government and avert default; federal employees directed to return to work

Excerpt: Our lat­est Repub­li­can-insti­gat­ed man­u­fac­tured fis­cal cri­sis is over. Finally. From the White House, received moments ago: On Thurs­day, Octo­ber 17, 2013, the Pres­i­dent signed into law: H.R. 2775, the “Con­tin­u­ing Appro­pri­a­tions Act, 2014,” which pro­vides fis­cal year 2014 appro­pri­a­tions for projects and activ­i­ties of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment through Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 15, 2014.  The effec­tive time for the con­tin­u­ing […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags: , ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

U.S. House signs off on deal to reopen the federal government and pay America’s bills

Excerpt: An eleventh-hour agree­ment nego­ti­at­ed by Har­ry Reid and Mitch McConnell to reopen the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and pay Amer­i­ca’s bills was accept­ed by the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Wednes­day night after top House Repub­li­cans admit­ted that their attempts to extract a ran­som in exchange for sim­ply ful­fill­ing their basic respon­si­bil­i­ties as rep­re­sen­ta­tives had failed miserably. With […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags: ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

U.S. Senate votes overwhelmingly to reopen federal government and pay America’s bills

Excerpt: At long last, we final­ly have some decent news out of the Oth­er Washington. By a vote of eighty-one to eigh­teen, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate has vot­ed to approve leg­is­la­tion that reopens the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment through mid-Jan­u­ary and allows the U.S. Depart­ment of the Trea­sury to pay Amer­i­ca’s bills through mid-Feb­ru­ary. More than half of […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags: ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

An open letter to the Pacific Northwest members of the House Republican caucus

Excerpt: Edi­tor’s note: The fol­low­ing let­ter was trans­mit­ted by fac­sim­i­le to the offices of Dave Reichert, Greg Walden, and Mike Simp­son this morn­ing. A slight­ly dif­fer­ent let­ter was sent to Raul Labrador, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, and Doc Hast­ings, who are known for being hard­lin­ers. All of the afore­men­tioned indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent (or pur­port to rep­re­sent) por­tions of […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
Tags:
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Live from Whatcom: Senate Republican Transportation Listening Tour

Excerpt: It’s been a fog­gy day here in Belling­ham, but the low vis­i­bil­i­ty has not kept peo­ple from com­ing to the Belling­ham leg of the Sen­ate Repub­li­can’s lis­ten­ing tour, because this place is packed. As we cov­ered ear­li­er this month, Belling­ham was not orig­i­nal­ly a place sched­uled to be part of the tour, but the size […]
Written by:Patrick Stickney
Categories:Unscheduled Programming
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

Tim Eyman gets an earful in Seattle after stepping to the mic to recite his talking points

Excerpt: Ini­tia­tive prof­i­teer Tim Eyman got a taste of what it’s like to be inter­rupt­ed and heck­led tonight when he showed up in Seat­tle to speak at the sec­ond to last stop on Rod­ney Tom and Cur­tis King’s trans­porta­tion autumn “lis­ten­ing tour”, which has been trav­el­ing around the state since mid-September. Eyman, who was also at […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning
Tags: , ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed

LIVE from Seattle: Transportation “listening tour” comes to the Emerald City

Excerpt: Good evening from Seat­tle. I’m here at the First Pres­by­ter­ian Church on First Hill, where a dozen mem­bers of the state House and Sen­ate are hold­ing a pub­lic meet­ing to talk about Wash­ing­ton State’s trans­porta­tion needs. This is the lat­est stop on what’s been called a “lis­ten­ing tour” insti­gat­ed by Rod­ney Tom and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning
Tags: ,
Bookmark:Permalink | Comments closed