Posted inEconomic Security, Healthcare

One of six proposed coal terminals in Washington and Oregon abandoned

Ask a polit­i­cal orga­niz­er in What­com Coun­ty, and it trends that they will tell you about how often they hear vot­ers ask about the pro­posed coal ter­mi­nal at Cher­ry Point, right out­side of Belling­ham. They get frus­trat­ed. Train tracks cut right through Belling­ham, and run along next to local busi­ness­es. Sit for a few hours […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Litigation, Policy Topics

Frank Blethen, self-proclaimed champion of higher education, doesn’t want Chris Gregoire intervening in lawsuit against I‑1053

A few days ago, Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire let it be known that she intends to ask the courts to rule on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Tim Eyman’s I‑1053, which was chal­lenged by a group of par­ents, teach­ers, and law­mak­ers in a law­suit last spring. Gre­goire is a defen­dant in the law­suit (which is being defend­ed by […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Policy Topics

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

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 inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

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

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 inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning

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

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 […]