Monthly Archives: February 2016

Posted inMedia & Culture, Policy Topics, Technology

No, tablets aren’t dead

by Andrew Villeneuve

Every so often, AOL-owned tech­nol­o­gy blog TechCrunch pub­lish­es a piece writ­ten by a con­trib­u­tor that bizarrely declares some­thing that remains in wide­spread usage to be dead. MG Siegler infa­mous­ly pro­claimed the mouse to be dead in 2010, and lat­er that same year, in the span of a sin­gle week, TechCrunch writ­ers aston­ish­ing­ly pro­claimed that the […]

Posted inElections

Early numbers suggest Hillary Clinton has scored a big victory in South Carolina

by Andrew Villeneuve

As expect­ed, it took only a few sec­onds fol­low­ing the clos­ing of polls in South Car­oli­na for cable and broad­cast news net­works to project that Hillary Clin­ton had won. Though the actu­al num­bers are still trick­ling in, it looks like Clin­ton has scored an impres­sive vic­to­ry. Present­ly, she has around four-fifths of the vote. South Carolina […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Sound Transit celebrates new ridership milestones, advances engineering for Redmond & Federal Way light rail extensions

by Andrew Villeneuve

Hap­py news to share this after­noon: Sound Tran­sit revealed today that demand for its express bus, com­muter rail, and light rail ser­vices is boom­ing, while also announc­ing that it has restored fund­ing for engi­neer­ing work on future light rail exten­sions to Fed­er­al Way and down­town Red­mond, where NPI is head­quar­tered. Sound Tran­sit, as most Cascadia […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections

Hillary Clinton projected as the narrow victor in the Nevada Democratic caucuses

by Andrew Villeneuve

For­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton will wind up eking out a nar­row vic­to­ry over Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders in the Neva­da Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus­es, if pro­jec­tions by cable and broad­cast news net­works are accu­rate. With 72.4% report­ing, Clin­ton had 52.3% sup­port, com­pared to 47.7% for Bernie Sanders. When all is said and done, she will probably […]

Posted inBreaking News, Litigation, Party Politics

Right wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dead at seventy-nine

by Andrew Villeneuve

Unit­ed States Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, the most senior jus­tice on the Roberts Court and a reli­able vote for the Court’s right wing bloc, has died, accord­ing to a state­ment released today by Chief Jus­tice John Roberts. “On behalf of the Court and retired Jus­tices, I am sad­dened to report that our col­league Justice […]

Posted inElections, Events, Live Coverage

Liveblogging the sixth 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the sixth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. I will be watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. The debate is being orga­nized and broad­cast by PBS affil­i­ates like KCTS 9, and simul­cast by CNN. If you don’t get PBS over the […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics

VICTORY! WA Senate defeats bill to roll back protections for transgender individuals

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a vic­to­ry for LGBT civ­il rights, a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bill that tried to roll back pro­tec­tions for trans­gen­der indi­vid­u­als has died on the floor of the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate today after being defeat­ed by the nar­row­est of mar­gins. The mil­i­tants who con­trol the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus, includ­ing Tim Eyman’s pals Doug Erick­sen, Michael Baum­gart­ner, Pam […]

Posted inBreaking News, Elections, Live Coverage

Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump projected to win in New Hampshire after polls close

by Andrew Villeneuve

Now that most of the state’s polls have closed, Amer­i­ca’s cable and broad­cast net­works are pro­ject­ing that Bernie Sanders and Don­ald Trump — who each fin­ished sec­ond place in the Iowa cau­cus­es last week — have won the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can 2016 pres­i­den­tial pri­maries in New Hamp­shire. Ear­ly unof­fi­cial results show both Sanders and Trump ahead. […]

Posted inElections

Here we go again: Tim Eyman resumes his war on Sound Transit and Link light rail

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tim Eyman is los­ing in court and under inves­ti­ga­tion by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son for sub­stan­tive vio­la­tions of Wash­ing­ton pub­lic dis­clo­sure law, but that’s not stop­ping him from swing­ing for the fences in 2016. Today, Eyman announced that he plans to qual­i­fy not one, but two ini­tia­tives to the bal­lot this year. The first, unveiled back […]

Posted inOpen Government, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Senate Republicans trip all over themselves trying to explain Lynn Peterson’s ouster

by Andrew Villeneuve

In the wake of yes­ter­day’s sur­prise vote to remove Lynn Peter­son as Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have been asked, again and again, by their Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues as well as by reporters: Why are you doing this? Dif­fer­ent Repub­li­can sen­a­tors have been giv­ing dif­fer­ent answers, espe­cial­ly in one-on-one inter­views with the press.… even contradicting […]

Posted inLive Coverage, Party Politics

Snohomish County’s 5th District PCOs meet to choose nominees to succeed Dave Somers

by Rennie Sawade

Good morn­ing, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus to fill the coun­cil vacan­cy cre­at­ed by the elec­tion of Dave Somers as Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive. This spe­cial nom­i­nat­ing cau­cus has been called by the Sno­homish Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee in accor­dance with state par­ty rules, to select three nom­i­nees to present […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Washington Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson forced out by Senate Republicans

by Andrew Villeneuve

After three years on the job, Wash­ing­ton State Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion Lynn Peter­son­’s employ­ment has been abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed — though not by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, the chief exec­u­tive who hired her and who she reports to by law. Instead, in a stun­ning turn of events, Peter­son is being forced to pack her bags by the vindictive, […]

Posted inElections, Live Coverage

Liveblogging the fifth 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the fourth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. I will be watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es. The debate is being broad­cast by MSNBC. If you don’t have cable, you can livestream the debate online. Cour­tesy of MSNBC, here’s how you can […]