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: July 2014

How democracy saves Seattle schools from bad superintendents

Excerpt: With the depar­ture of Jose Ban­da from the post of super­in­ten­dent of Seat­tle Pub­lic Schools, we’ve seen the usu­al hand-wring­ing and recrim­i­na­tions over the future of the dis­trict. Ban­da’s depar­ture led the Seat­tle Times to pub­lish an arti­cle and an edi­to­r­i­al decry­ing sup­posed med­dling by the board in the oper­a­tions of the district. The edi­to­r­i­al […]
Written by:Robert Cruickshank
Categories:Unscheduled Programming
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House Republicans authorize John Boehner to file baseless lawsuit against President Obama

Excerpt: John Boehn­er and his cau­cus con­tin­ued their polit­i­cal the­atrics on a grand scale today by forc­ing the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to vote on a res­o­lu­tion autho­riz­ing John Boehn­er to ini­ti­ate lit­i­ga­tion against Barack Oba­ma for fail­ing to prop­er­ly dis­charge his duties as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of America. All but five Repub­li­cans […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Litigation, Open Government, Policy Topics
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Republican Party trying to drive down support for Matt Isenhower with attack mailers targeting 45th’s Democratic voters

Excerpt: In an appar­ent attempt to make the high-pro­file con­test between incum­bent Repub­li­can Andy Hill and his Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Matt Isen­how­er look less com­pet­i­tive, the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus (of which Andy Hill is a mem­ber) has begun send­ing out attack mail­ers to Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers in the 45th Dis­trict, try­ing to dis­cred­it Matt Isen­how­er by claim­ing he […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics
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LIVE from Detroit: NSA Surveillance Reform: Pitfalls and Opportunities

Excerpt: Pan­el descrip­tion: A recent­ly launched cam­paign in Europe calls on indi­vid­u­als to “vote for [their] dig­i­tal rights.” How­ev­er, no such move­ment has caught on in the Unit­ed States, despite the upcom­ing elec­tion cycle. Ral­lies and events—including the Ral­ly to End Mass Sur­veil­lance and the Day We Fight Back—have demon­strat­ed wide sup­port for sur­veil­lance reform. By […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Turn on the water! Panel addresses city’s unconscionable shutoffs

Excerpt: Peter Ham­mer, a law pro­fes­sor from Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty opens the dis­cus­sion. He began by intro­duc­ing the con­cept of the “three R’s of Detroit” which include “Race, Region­al­ism, and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.” He spoke most about “Spa­cial Racism” and demon­strat­ed by show­ing a map of Detroit areas col­or cod­ed to indi­cate vary­ing lev­el of eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. Areas […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Civil Liberties, Economic Security, Education, Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Keynote with Debbie Stabenow, Mark Schauer

Excerpt: Good Morn­ing from Detroit! This is the last day of the con­fer­ence and we are begin­ning the day with keynotes from Mark Schauer, can­di­date to replace Sny­der as gov­er­nor of Michi­gan, and Sen­a­tor Deb­bie Stabenow. Lisa Brown is Schauer’s run­ning-mate. Schauer promis­es to repeal “Right-To-Work-For-Less” and to sup­port unions. Schauer promis­es equal pay for equal […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Events, Live Coverage
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Live from Detroit: Detroit, Rocked City: How the Bankruptcy Led to Retirement Attacks that Could Spread Nationwide

Excerpt: This pan­el is mod­er­at­ed by David Siro­ta. Pan­elists include Gwen­dolyn Beasley, Reesa Kos­soff, and Diane Oakley. Pub­lic pen­sion attacks are hap­pen­ing nation­al­ly and are being dri­ven by the Koch Brothers. 401k plans have not proven to save tax pay­er mon­ey over a Defined Ben­e­fit plan, in fact there are cas­es where state lia­bil­i­ty has increased. […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Economic Security, Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Why Net Neutrality is a Social Justice Issue

Excerpt: This pan­el is mod­er­at­ed by Maris­sa Valeri who is Com­mon Cause’s dig­i­tal strate­gies man­ag­er. Pan­elists include Kim Lehmkuhl, Lau­ren Wil­son, and Andi Zeisler. From the pan­el description: Ear­li­er this year, a court over­turned the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Commission’s (FCC) com­mon sense net neu­tral­i­ty rules, which guar­an­teed the right of users to con­nect to the web­sites, blogs, […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Events, Media & Culture, Technology
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LIVE from Detroit: The Rise of Janet Yellen: Why the Fed Matters

Excerpt: The Fed­er­al Reserve wields great eco­nom­ic pow­er; it is often said that the Chair­man of the Fed­er­al Reserve is the sec­ond most pow­er­ful per­son in Amer­i­ca. In 2013, a rag­tag coali­tion came togeth­er to fight for eco­nom­ic jus­tice and work on an unprece­dent­ed cam­paign: to influ­ence who would become the Chair of the Fed­er­al Reserve. […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Economic Security, Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Netroots Nation 2015 will be in Phoenix, Arizona next July 16th — 19th

Excerpt: Con­tin­u­ing a tra­di­tion begun last year in San Jose, Net­roots Nation exec­u­tive direc­tor Raven Brooks has cho­sen to reveal the loca­tion of next year’s con­ven­tion on open­ing night so that ear­ly-bird tick­et sales can begin while this year’s con­ven­tion is still under­way. Net­roots Nation 2015 will be held in Phoenix, Ari­zona, from July 16th — […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Events
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LIVE from Detroit: Netroots Nation 2014’s opening night, in photos

Excerpt: Good evening from the Motor City, where the first day of Net­roots Nation 2014 has just con­clud­ed! The team at NPI is unwind­ing after a long day of pan­els, train­ings, and final­ly, keynotes, capped by an incred­i­bly inspi­ra­tional speech from Rev­erend Dr. William Bar­ber II of North Carolina. When we have more time, we’ll be […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden addresses Netroots Nation 2014

Excerpt: Wel­come to our con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of Net­roots Nation 2014 in Detroit, Michi­gan. This after­noon, for the first time in the his­to­ry of the con­ven­tion (which began in 2006), the Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States will be speak­ing to the thou­sands of activists who reunite every year to coor­di­nate the build­ing of a stronger pro­gres­sive […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Corporate Welfare and Tax Loopholes vs. Public Services: Who’s Winning?

Excerpt: This ses­sion is mod­er­at­ed by Mesha Williams, social media coor­di­na­tor for the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Fire Fight­ers. Panelist/speaker is Greg LeRoy from Good Jobs First. About $70 Bil­lion is spent per year on sub­si­diz­ing busi­ness devel­op­ment. Tax­es amount to only about 2% of the cost of doing busi­ness on aver­age, so tax breaks have min­i­mal effect […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Economic Security, Events, Live Coverage
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LIVE from Detroit: Workers Organizing Online: What We’ve Learned and What We’re Learning

Excerpt: This ses­sion at Net­roots Nation is led by Elana Levin who is Direc­tor of Online Orga­niz­ing at Make the Road Action Fund. Ken­zo Shi­ba­ta began by speak­ing about the bat­tle he led against Rahm Emanuel’s tac­tics in attempt­ing to bust the teach­ers’ union in Chica­go. Shi­ba­ta cre­at­ed a video asso­ci­at­ing Emanuel with the Tea Par­ty […]
Written by:Rennie Sawade
Categories:Events, Live Coverage
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