The coronavirus pandemic has left Washington state not only facing a public health emergency, but also a budget crisis that will shape public policy for years to come. We’ve seen an economic fallout like this before in our state, and the response by legislators then continues to haunt the decisions…
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As mass protests have taken place all over the nation, the images of well-armed and flak-jacketed police facing off against protesters and violently subduing them while remaining encased in protective gear stands in stark contrast to our desperately under-equipped health care workers who have been vainly trying to save as many lives as possible during the coronavirus pandemic.
La pandemia de coronavirus ha dejado al estado de Washington no solo frente a una emergencia de salud pública, sino también a una crisis presupuestaria que dará forma a las políticas públicas en los próximos años. En el pasado ya hemos visto una secuela económica como esta en nuestro estado,…
Washington’s Democratic legislature and Republican Secretary of State have made it easy for any citizen to vote in Washington State. Easy to register, easy to get a ballot, easy to vote, easy to return your ballot. One result is that Washington is a predictably blue state: Washington voters have checked…
The letters below were sent to members of the Olympia City Council after they asked Governor Inslee to change state laws to provide severe penalties for people who form private armed militias—complaining that existing penalties were insufficient. The fact that Olympia’s city leadership hadn’t enforced even those penalties struck some citizens as a problem.
It can happen here. As the struggle for racial justice unfolds in Olympia, my biggest fear is that too many people believe our city is too liberal for anything like what happened to my aunt or Rosebud Denovo or George Floyd to happen here.
What is a militia? Federal and state laws generally use the term “militia” to refer to all able-bodied residents between certain ages who may be called forth by the government to defend the United States or an individual state. See10 U.S.C. § 246.When not called forth, they are sometimes referred…
There is so much more to politics than deciding between what the Democratic Party and Republican Party chooses to put on the ballot. Around the country this year, people organized in behalf of direct ways to address the inequality that is driving us toward disaster. Here some of the efforts…
It’s a tall order trying to build a more humane world and save ourselves from ecological collapse. In the Olympia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), we know that the solutions to our biggest problems must come in the form of working people organizing from the bottom-up, to protect and build power for ourselves.
While ballots were being counted in many states days after election day, here in Washington State, our legislature remains solidly in Democrat hands. However, as everyone knows, all Democrats are not equal. The question is, how well will we do in the upcoming legislative session? The answer, from a progressive…
Our government prides itself—officially—on the idea that its authority is based on the consent of the governed. We rely on elections to manifest this consent: the more of those governed who vote, and the more the majority vote is reflected in the government, the more legitimate is the authority of the government.
On Sunday, November 1 (Dia de los Muertos), leaders from La Resistencia guided the creation of an ofrenda, or offering, to honor people who died in custody at the hands of, or because of, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This year, many lives were lost due to violence incited by law…
The Chameleon blockade Residents of the South Sound region are blessed with a panoply of natural beauty surrounding us: Cascades to the east, Olympics and ocean to the west, and some unique and wild places right here in our backyard. The unrecognized value Anyone who has spent time in our…
In the summer of 2016, two years before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted Joe Crowley in New York and kicked off a national insurgency in the Democratic Party, progressives in Rhode Island were organizing one of their own.
Scientists on the Go ♦ Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ♦ West Central Neighborhood Park ♦ Vigils -- not vigilantes ♦ Olympia Tribune ♦ Olympia Mutual Aid Partners ♦ International Migrants Day ♦ Electronics recycling at Best Buy ♦ Orca Books ♦ The Shower Bus ♦ Olympia Free Clinic ♦ International Day of Solidarity