Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Policy Topics

The search for a long-term answer for coherence in Ryan Blethen’s columns

by Andrew Villeneuve

Appar­ent­ly obliv­i­ous to the real­i­ty that he has as much cred­i­bil­i­ty as Tim Eyman does when it comes to talk­ing about pro­tect­ing pub­lic ser­vices, Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al page edi­tor Ryan Blethen has penned yet anoth­er col­umn lament­ing the dire straits that Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties are in. The piece, which ran in today’s Sun­day edi­tion, does a […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Jay Inslee to speak at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundraising Gala on Mercer Island

by Andrew Villeneuve

I am delight­ed to announce this morn­ing that Jay Inslee — my rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress and a true cham­pi­on for eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion — will be speak­ing at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala (with all pro­ceeds to ben­e­fit NPI), hap­pen­ing two weeks from tomor­row on Mer­cer Island. If you fol­low nation­al pol­i­tics, you […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Camp Wellstone returning to Seattle: Don’t miss an outstanding training opportunity

by Andrew Villeneuve

Camp Well­stone, the sig­na­ture train­ing offered by the orga­niz­ing genius­es at Well­stone Action, is return­ing to Seat­tle for the sixth or sev­enth con­sec­u­tive year — I’m los­ing track 🙂 — about a month from now. The 2011 camp will take place at Seat­tle Pacif­ic Uni­ver­si­ty on May 13th, 14th, and 15th. (SPU is actu­al­ly where it […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Statehouse goes into lockdown; Gregoire trying to shut out protestors?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Fel­low activists who are at the Capi­tol in Olympia are telling NPI that Gen­er­al Admin­is­tra­tion has just put the state­house — the peo­ple’s house — under lock­down, pre­vent­ing any­one with­out a gov­­ern­­ment-issued iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card from enter­ing. The lock­down has evi­dent­ly been insti­gat­ed so that Gov­er­nor Gre­goire and law­mak­ers can go about dis­man­tling the peo­ple’s government […]

Posted inAnnouncements

Please join NPI this Saturday at Lynn Allen’s memorial service on Mercer Island

by Andrew Villeneuve

This Sat­ur­day, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute team will be gath­er­ing on Mer­cer Island to join Lynn Allen’s fam­i­ly and friends in a cel­e­bra­tion of her life. Lynn was a found­ing board mem­ber of NPI who pro­vid­ed invalu­able coun­sel and advice to myself and the staff. We miss her great­ly, but we will nev­er for­get the wisdom […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Democratic Party’s new chair should be chosen democratically, not by executive order

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: This post reflects my own per­spec­tive as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offi­cial. As an insti­tu­tion orga­nized to fur­ther the com­mon good, NPI does not take posi­tions in Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lead­er­ship elec­tions or hold a posi­tion on how the par­ty should be run. Ear­li­er today, for­mer Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine announced that he resign­ing as Chairman […]

Posted inElections

Wisconsin State Supreme Court race turning out to be a nailbiter: Who will win?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Hours have passed since the polls closed in Wis­con­sin, but even with hun­dreds of thou­sands of votes tal­lied and report­ed, it remains unclear what will hap­pen in the Bad­ger State’s much-watched Supreme Court race. As of 8:10 PM, the race was extreme­ly close, with incum­bent David Pross­er (who is of the same ide­o­log­i­cal per­sua­sion as Scott […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Scott Macklin to speak at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundraising Gala on April 28th

by Andrew Villeneuve

Hap­py Fri­day! Just so there’s absolute­ly no con­fu­sion, this post is not an April Fools’ Day joke. And that’s def­i­nite­ly a good thing! 🙂 On behalf of the team at NPI, I am pleased to announce this after­noon that the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton’s Scott Mack­lin will be speak­ing at our third Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which is coming […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Meet the hypocrites: Congressman Doc Hastings

by Ken

Meet Con­gress­man Doc Hast­ings (R‑Pasco), cham­pi­on of open gov­ern­ment: Dur­ing the last ses­sion of Con­gress – under Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi – this top-down, closed-door men­tal­i­ty reached an all time high.  There was zero open debate on the House floor.  Law­mak­ers were blocked from offer­ing ideas and amend­ments.  Con­gress spent mon­ey the gov­ern­ment doesn’t have and […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Meet the Hypocrites: U.S. foreign policy

by Ken

Ear­li­er tonight, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma laid out his case jus­ti­fy­ing the need for U.S. mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Libya, where coali­tion forces under the  aus­pices of a Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tion have been knock­ing out the air defens­es of its bru­tal dic­ta­tor. The Unit­ed States and its allies are work­ing to pre­vent Muam­mar al-Gaddafi from con­tin­u­ing to kill […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Tim Eyman gloms onto another anti-red light camera measure — this time in Redmond

by Andrew Villeneuve

I’ve lost track of the num­ber of times I’ve been asked (usu­al­ly in con­ver­sa­tion) what moti­vat­ed me to cre­ate Per­ma­nent Defense more than nine years ago. Reg­u­lar read­ers are undoubt­ed­ly famil­iar with the sto­ry of PD’s found­ing, because I’ve told it or referred to it many times over the years. The cat­a­lyst, of course, was Tim […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Humor & Satire, Policy Topics

Costco to Washington State Legislature: “Have we got a deal for you…”

by Steve

From: Cost­co To: Mem­bers, Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture RE: Your finan­cial trou­bles Dear law­mak­ers, As one of Washington’s largest pub­­licly-trad­ed com­pa­nies, Cost­co feels an oblig­a­tion to self­less­ly assist its state in weath­er­ing the ongo­ing fis­cal storm that has had such a dev­as­tat­ing impact on cit­i­zens and con­sumers alike. Last year the vot­ers of our state rejected […]