Monthly Archives: November 2013

Posted inHolidays

Happy Thanksgiving 2013!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing, every­one! Since World War II, Amer­i­cans have gath­ered togeth­er on the fourth Thurs­day of Novem­ber to cel­e­brate the year’s boun­ty and bless­ings, shar­ing food, friend­ship, and — in many hous­es — foot­ball. This year, the fourth Thurs­day of Novem­ber hap­pens to fall very late in the month, and unusu­al­ly, it also coin­cides with […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Pope Francis denounces income inequality and greed in new apostolic exhortation

by Andrew Villeneuve

The Vat­i­can today pub­lished the text of His Holi­ness Pope Fran­cis’ first apos­tolic exhor­ta­tion, writ­ten by the Holy Father over the sum­mer, which is Fran­cis’ first major writ­ten work as Pope. It presents Fran­cis’ views on issues of the day, some­what like a polit­i­cal par­ty plat­form, and clocks in at eighty-four pages. Help­ful­ly, the Vatican […]

Posted inBreaking News

President Barack Obama rolls into town for another fundraising-only visit

by Andrew Villeneuve

Barack Oba­ma has land­ed in our Wash­ing­ton for his first sec­ond-term vis­it as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, after a flight last­ing a lit­tle less than five hours from Joint Base Andrews in Mary­land. As with past vis­its to our state, the Pres­i­dent has no pub­lic or offi­cial events sched­uled, just fundrais­ers for the DNC […]

Posted inBreaking News, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Deal reached with Iran to limit its nuclear program; President Obama to speak shortly

by Andrew Villeneuve

Break­ing, his­toric news tonight. From the New York Times: The for­eign pol­i­cy chief of the Euro­pean Union and Iran­ian offi­cials announced a land­mark accord Sun­day morn­ing that would tem­porar­i­ly freeze Tehran’s nuclear pro­gram and lay the foun­da­tion for a more sweep­ing accord. After marathon talks that final­ly end­ed ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing, the Unit­ed States and […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

Are Senate Republicans — including Rodney Tom — telling top nonpartisan staff to get lost?

by Andrew Villeneuve

This is dis­turb­ing news. From Andrew Gar­ber at The Seat­tle Times: Sen­ate Democ­rats raised con­cerns Fri­day that the GOP [Republican]-led major­i­ty in [the] Sen­ate is get­ting rid of top non-par­ti­san com­mit­tee staff man­agers. Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Sharon Nel­son, D‑Maury Island, said it was her under­stand­ing there was pres­sure from the GOP [Republican]-led major­i­ty cau­cus to […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

U.S. Senate’s Pacific Northwest delegation votes along party lines to reform the filibuster

by Andrew Villeneuve

As men­tioned, Democ­rats set up a his­toric vote today on curb­ing the fil­i­buster, which Repub­li­cans have been using to pre­vent the Unit­ed States Sen­ate from con­sid­er­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s exec­u­tive and judi­cial nom­i­nees. The vote was a suc­cess, with fifty Democ­rats and two inde­pen­dents back­ing the rules change. Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid orches­trat­ed the vote […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

It’s done! Senate Democrats have — at long last — voted to implement filibuster reform

by Andrew Villeneuve

After years of talk, fil­i­buster reform has final­ly become a real­i­ty. Today, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate took a huge and momen­tous step towards becom­ing a more demo­c­ra­t­ic body. By a vote of fifty-two to forty-eight, sen­a­tors vot­ed to change Sen­ate rules to abol­ish fil­i­busters of exec­u­tive and judi­cial nom­i­na­tions, except Supreme Court nom­i­na­tions. The move […]

Posted inBreaking News, Party Politics, Public Service

Sharon Nelson chosen to succeed Ed Murray as new Senate Democratic Leader

by Andrew Villeneuve

Sen­a­tor Sharon Nel­son (D‑34th Dis­trict, Mau­ry Island) has been select­ed by her col­leagues to serve as the new leader of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate Democ­rats, the cau­cus announced today. She suc­ceeds Ed Mur­ray, who, as of next Tues­day, will offi­cial­ly be the May­or-elect of the City of Seat­tle. Nel­son, six­­ty-two, rep­re­sents West Seat­tle, Burien, Vashon […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

Filibuster reform might really, actually, finally be on the verge of happening in U.S. Senate

by Andrew Villeneuve

Great news from Greg Sar­gent: With Sen­ate Repub­li­cans block­ing a third Oba­ma nom­i­na­tion to the pow­er­ful D.C. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals, a senior Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship aide tells me Reid is now all but cer­tain to move to change the Sen­ate rules by sim­ple major­i­ty — doing away with the fil­i­buster on exec­u­tive and judi­cial nominations, […]

Posted inParty Politics, Public Service

Obama excoriates hypocritical Senate Republicans following today’s filibuster

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ear­li­er today, for the third time in three weeks, Repub­li­can Mitch McConnell and his cau­cus refused to allow the Unit­ed States Sen­ate to pro­ceed with con­sid­er­ing anoth­er of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nom­i­nees to fill one of the vacan­cies on the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia Cir­cuit. The unsuc­cess­ful vote on the […]

Posted inElections

Saturday elections update: Less than 15,000 ballots now remain to be processed statewide

by Andrew Villeneuve

We are now into the sec­ond half of Novem­ber, and the num­ber of bal­lots remain­ing to be processed by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials has now dwin­dled to 12,578 (esti­mat­ed). More than three-fourths of this num­ber are King Coun­ty bal­lots. King Coun­ty Elec­tions was open for busi­ness today, and released updat­ed results this after­noon. As usu­al, some […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Friday elections update: Richard Conlin concedes to Kshama Sawant in Seattle; SeaTac Proposition 1 still ahead

by Andrew Villeneuve

Acknowl­edg­ing that he will not be able to over­come Kshama Sawan­t’s incred­i­ble and sus­tained late momen­tum, incum­bent Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Richard Con­lin con­ced­ed defeat this evening in a news con­fer­ence at Seat­tle City Hall, admit­ting he was “sur­prised and dis­ap­point­ed.” He was flanked by Coun­cil col­leagues and sup­port­ers, includ­ing for­mer may­oral hope­ful Tim Burgess. He […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Thursday election update: Kshama Sawant pulls further ahead of Richard Conlin

by Andrew Villeneuve

Seat­tle City Coun­cil can­di­date Kshama Sawan­t’s momen­tum has some­times slowed in the days since Novem­ber 5th, but it has nev­er stopped. Moments ago, King Coun­ty Elec­tions pub­lished new num­bers that reflect the lat­est batch of tab­u­lat­ed bal­lots. The fresh results show that Sawant is now ahead of incum­bent City Coun­cilmem­ber Richard Con­lin by more than […]