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: December 2013

2014 should be the year of the worker

Excerpt: We’ve been in the post-reces­sion recov­ery peri­od for five years. It is time to shape what the next-gen­er­a­tion work place needs to look like. The year of the work­er needs to build on our new-found con­fi­dence that we can cre­ate a more fair econ­o­my, not just set­tle for what the econ­o­my used to be or […]
Written by:Gael Tarleton
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
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Seasoned Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene tapped to manage Healthcare.gov

Excerpt: For­mer Microsoft exec­u­tive Kurt Del­Bene, who has capa­bly served as the pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny’s Busi­ness divi­sion for many years, will take over man­age­ment of Healthcare.gov, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion announced today at a meet­ing with top tech­nol­o­gy exec­u­tives, includ­ing Microsoft gen­er­al coun­sel Brad Smith. Del­Bene will suc­ceed Jef­frey D. Zients, who has been serv­ing as a […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Healthcare, Policy Topics, Public Service
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United States needs and deserves a budget that puts people — and the planet — first

Excerpt: Con­gress votes and the deal’s done. What does it mean? Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray and her nego­ti­at­ing part­ner Con­gress­man Paul Ryan have avert­ed yet anoth­er bud­get cri­sis head­ing into the 2014 bud­get nego­ti­a­tions. The Sen­ate still has to vote, but the House has, by a sur­pris­ing­ly large mar­gin, gone ahead and signed off on […]
Written by:Gael Tarleton
Categories:Economic Security, National Defense, Policy Topics
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Scam alert! An unknown entity, the “Labor Standards Compliance Office”, is trying to sell labor posters with letters that look like bills

Excerpt: An unknown enti­ty call­ing itself the “Labor Stan­dards Com­pli­ance Office” is mass mail­ing decep­tive let­ters to Wash­ing­ton busi­ness­es and non­prof­its that appear to be bills from the gov­ern­ment, but are in real­i­ty solic­i­ta­tions for labor posters that can be freely obtained, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has learned. One of these sus­pi­cious-look­ing let­ters showed up this […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
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Pope Francis is TIME’s Person of the Year

Excerpt: A wor­thy choice: These days it is brac­ing to hear a leader say any­thing that annoys any­one. Now lib­er­als and con­ser­v­a­tives alike face a choice as they lis­ten to a new voice of con­science: Which mat­ters more, that this charis­mat­ic leader is say­ing things they think need to be said or that he is also […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Media & Culture
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Right-wing think tanks plotting Eymanesque campaign against our cities and counties

Excerpt: Last week, reporters for The Guardian pulled the cur­tain back on a net­work of well-fund­ed, well-orga­nized right-wing think tanks and their extreme agenda. Doc­u­ments obtained by The Guardian show the bland­ly-named State Pol­i­cy Net­work is work­ing to under­mine edu­ca­tion, health­care, and rev­enue col­lec­tion in near­ly every state in the coun­try. Their spe­cif­ic pro­pos­als are extreme­ly […]
Written by:Robert Cruickshank
Categories:Economic Security, Policy Topics
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Steve Sarkisian abandons his players and Husky football for USC’s top coaching job

Excerpt: Wash­ing­ton’s high­est-paid employ­ee is head­ed south for a more lucra­tive job. Steve Sark­isian, who was hired to turn around a win­less Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton foot­ball pro­gram five years ago, acknowl­edged ear­li­er today that he has accept­ed the head coach­ing posi­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, which is one of the most elite schools in the […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Education, Policy Topics
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Theft of Victoria Clipper IV demonstrates the need for stronger port security

Excerpt: Ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, the newest high speed cata­ma­ran in the Clip­per Nav­i­ga­tion fleet, the Vic­to­ria Clip­per IV, was stolen from its berth at Seat­tle’s Pier 69 by a reg­is­tered sex offend­er who lat­er told police he was try­ing to use the ves­sel to get to West Seat­tle. (Why he did­n’t just walk or take the […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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