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: November 2014

President Obama pledges to treat more new Americans with dignity in immigration speech

Excerpt: In a ground­break­ing speech, Barack Oba­ma announced this evening that he is using his author­i­ty and dis­cre­tion as Pres­i­dent to end the oppres­sion of over five mil­lion new Amer­i­cans by grant­i­ng them a reprieve from the threat of depor­ta­tion, pro­vid­ed they iden­ti­fy them­selves to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and pay their taxes. Speak­ing from the White House, […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Civil Liberties, Policy Topics
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Bill intended to force construction of Keystone XL pipeline fails to advance in U.S. Senate

Excerpt: By the tight­est of mar­gins, the U.S. Sen­ate this evening defeat­ed a poor­ly con­ceived bill intend­ed to give oil giant Tran­sCana­da a green light to build its pro­posed Key­stone XL pipeline through Mon­tana, the Dako­tas, and Nebraska. S.2280, prime spon­sored by Repub­li­can John Hoeven of North Dako­ta and pro­mot­ed by an increas­ing­ly des­per­ate Mary Lan­drieu […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Unscheduled Programming
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Class size initiative now has 18,000+ vote lead; Snohomish swings back into yes column

Excerpt: Today was a great day to be a sup­port­er of I‑1351, the ini­tia­tive to low­er class sizes in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across Wash­ing­ton State. After hav­ing trailed and alter­nat­ed between lead­ing and trail­ing for the first three days post-Elec­tion Night, the ini­tia­tive appears to have moved away from the pre­cip­i­tous edge, thanks to Wash­ing­ton’s three […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Elections
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North Korea releases imprisoned Americans Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller

Excerpt: Final­ly, some good news for a change! The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion announced today that it has secured the release of Ken­neth Bae and Matthew Miller, two Amer­i­cans who were being held by North Korea. Both are on their way home to the Unit­ed States on a U.S. air­craft with Nation­al Intel­li­gence Direc­tor James Clap­per, who secret­ly […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, World Commmunity
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Initiative to lower class sizes in Washington now passing by a slim margin

Excerpt: Some hap­py news to report tonight: Ini­tia­tive 1351, which man­dates low­er class sizes in Wash­ing­ton’s pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, is final­ly pass­ing after hav­ing trailed on Elec­tion Night and in yes­ter­day’s count. After King Coun­ty fin­ished tab­u­lat­ing and report­ing a fresh batch of bal­lots (its sec­ond count of the day), I‑1351 went from los­ing to win­ning. […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Elections
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Biggest political loser last night: Tim Eyman

Excerpt: This morn­ing, as I had rather expect­ed he would, Tim Eyman sent out a cel­e­bra­to­ry email bask­ing in the results of the 2014 midterms, which Pres­i­dent Oba­ma referred to ear­li­er today as a good night for Repub­li­cans. Eyman did his very best to spin the results of the elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton as some kind of […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Unscheduled Programming
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Class size initiative too close to call

Excerpt: With 49.5% of the vote, it’s too soon to tell if Ini­tia­tive 1351 will pass. If approved by vot­ers, the ini­tia­tive would low­er pub­lic school class sizes in grades kinder­garten through 12. Washington’s pupil-teacher ratio ranks 47th nation­al­ly, and both the state and nation­al teach­ers unions were the pri­ma­ry sup­port­ers of the campaign. State Super­in­ten­dent […]
Written by:Kathleen Reynolds
Categories:Education
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Initiative 594 leading–Washington just got safer

Excerpt: Own­ing a gun is a big respon­si­bil­i­ty, one which increas­es the risk of sui­cide or homi­cide for gun own­ers and their fam­i­lies. In Wash­ing­ton state, near­ly 6,000 peo­ple were killed with a gun in the last decade. Thank­ful­ly, today Wash­ing­ton vot­ers are mak­ing a deci­sion that will save lives, by pass­ing Ini­tia­tive 594 by a […]
Written by:Kathleen Reynolds
Categories:Elections
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U.S. Senate map looking grim for Democrats; Republicans may end up with the majority

Excerpt: There are still many bal­lots left to count in quite a few places, but the U.S. Sen­ate map is not look­ing good for Democ­rats of this hour. The mass media are pro­ject­ing Repub­li­can vic­to­ries in Iowa and Col­orado — two states that Democ­rats real­ly need­ed to win in order to pro­tect their U.S. Sen­ate majority. […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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Networks project a win for Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire

Excerpt: New Hamp­shire’s Jeanne Sha­heen has won anoth­er term in the U.S. Sen­ate, major news net­works are pro­ject­ing, in what is an incred­i­bly impor­tant Demo­c­ra­t­ic hold. ABC News was the first out of the gate to declare a win for Sha­heen. NBC News/MSNBC fol­lowed suit short­ly thereafter. Sha­heen faced Repub­li­can Scott Brown, who pre­vi­ous­ly served in the […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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Tom Wolf wins in Pennsylvania as Democrats take back governorship from Republicans

Excerpt: An impor­tant guber­na­to­r­i­al race is now being called in Penn­syl­va­nia for the Democ­rats. Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Tom Wolf is the pro­ject­ed win­ner, defeat­ing incum­bent Repub­li­can Tom Corbett. Very few bal­lots have been tab­u­lat­ed and report­ed so far, but appar­ent­ly Wolf’s mar­gin of vic­to­ry is sig­nif­i­cant enough that mass media feel com­fort­able call­ing it. Polling showed that Wolf […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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As expected, networks project victory for Mitch McConnell in Kentucky

Excerpt: Polls in Ken­tucky have now closed, and news net­works are pro­ject­ing that Mitch McConnell has been reelect­ed as Ken­tuck­y’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor, defeat­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Ali­son Lun­der­gan Grimes. Grimes raised a lot of mon­ey and ran a cred­i­ble cam­paign in the eyes of many observers, but found going up against “Sen­a­tor Grid­lock” to be an […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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