Posted inEconomic Security, Unscheduled Programming

Senate needs to move forward on confirming new chief for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

by Steve

There’s good news and bad news for Amer­i­can con­sumers this week. The good news is that on July 21 the land­mark Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau (CFPB) takes over as the nation’s chief con­sumer bank reg­u­la­tor – it will super­vise mort­gages, cred­it cards, oth­er bank loans, and fees such as those charged for over­draft pro­tec­tion. The failure […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

U.K. police chieftain resigns as his officers arrest Murdoch confidante Rebekah Brooks

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Things just got worse for for­mer News of the World edi­tor Rebekah Brooks: Rebekah Brooks has been arrest­ed by police inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of phone hack­ing by the News of the World and alle­ga­tions that police offi­cers were bribed to leak sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion. The Met­ro­pol­i­tan police said a 43-year-old woman was arrest­ed at noon on Sunday, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

News of the World phone hacking scandal finally claims career of Rebekah Brooks

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Rebekah Brooks, the for­mer News of the World edi­tor who was sub­se­quent­ly pro­mot­ed to a high-rank­ing posi­tion with­in News Cor­po­ra­tion, has belat­ed­ly announced her res­ig­na­tion, bow­ing to sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure from Par­lia­ment, the pub­lic, and even the com­pa­ny’s share­hold­ers: Brooks announced her deci­sion to News Inter­na­tion­al staff in Wap­ping just before 10am on Fri­day, say­ing her […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

FBI to investigate possible wrongdoing by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Good news: The Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is report­ed­ly launch­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion, only hours after Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter King fol­lowed sev­er­al senior Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors in ask­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to look into the mat­ter. In response to requests from mem­bers of Con­gress and at least one […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Netflix subjects customers to “price change”; opt-out required to avoid paying 60% more

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, Net­flix sent out an email to its mil­lions of cus­tomers dis­clos­ing that it has decid­ed to raise its prices, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly for new cus­tomers and effec­tive in Sep­tem­ber for exist­ing cus­tomers. The announce­ment, also post­ed to Net­flix’s blog and its Face­book page around the same time, has since drawn tens of thou­sands of comments, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

News Corporation drops bid for BSkyB, citing overwhelming public opposition

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Vic­to­ry! Rupert Mur­doch’s media group News Cor­po­ra­tion bowed to pres­sure from the pub­lic and par­lia­ment on Wednes­day and with­drew its bid to take full con­trol of pay-TV com­pa­ny BSkyB. All three main polit­i­cal par­ties were poised to call on News Corp to aban­don its offer in a vote in the House of Com­mons lat­er on Wednesday. […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Senator Jay Rockefeller wants U.S. probe of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

U.S. Sen­a­tor Jay Rock­e­feller of West Vir­ginia, who chairs the Sen­ate’s Com­mit­tee on Com­merce, Sci­ence, and Trans­porta­tion, called today for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to inves­ti­gate pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion (and its many sub­sidiaries) in the Unit­ed States. Rock­e­feller is among the first elect­ed lead­ers in the Unit­ed States to weigh in on […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

Rupert Murdoch’s empire in crisis following News of the World closure

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Rupert Mur­doch’s News of the World may have print­ed its final edi­tion yes­ter­day, but the fall­out from the uneth­i­cal and like­ly ille­gal activ­i­ties of its for­mer employ­ees con­tin­ues to swell. The phone-hack­­ing scan­dal is beyond a headache for Rupert Mur­doch — it’s become a cri­sis that is threat­en­ing his entire media empire. Here’s a roundup […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NWroots 2011 is tomorrow in Pioneer Square!

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The big day has almost arrived! As many read­ers already know, tomor­row the NWroots Fel­low­ship and NPI are hold­ing the fourth NWroots Con­fer­ence in Pio­neer Square, Seat­tle, at Com­e­dy Under­ground and Fx McRo­ry’s.  We’ve got a fan­tas­tic line­up for the event, includ­ing Roger Good­man, Jay Inslee, WSLC Pres­i­dent Jeff John­son, Jim McDer­mott, Den­nis Kucinich, and […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics

Tim Eyman turns in signatures for I‑1125 in Olympia; NPI and Doug MacDonald respond

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, Tim Eyman and his cohorts from Spokane, the Fagans, showed up in Olympia at the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex to deliv­er box­es of peti­tions for Eyman’s lat­est scheme to wreck gov­ern­ment — Ini­tia­tive 1125, which would inter­fere with WSDOT’s abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the new Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge over Lake Washington […]

Posted inMedia & Culture

Murdochs abandon ship, announce that News of the World tabloid will shut down

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The News of the World, the Rupert Mur­­doch-owned tabloid at the cen­ter of the phone-hack­­ing scan­dal that has rocked the Unit­ed King­dom, will be shut down fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of this Sun­day’s edi­tion, News Cor­po­ra­tion said today. The week­ly tabloid is accused of hack­ing into the mobile phones of crime vic­tims, celebri­ties and politi­cians. On Thursday, […]