Business, News, Politics

An Indomitable Maria Cantwell is Back with a Glass-Steagall Posse

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has joined senatorial forces with Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John McCain (R-AZ), and Angus King (I-ME) to introduce a bill they’re calling a “21st Century Glass-Steagall Act,” an updating of the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall), which was gradually rendered toothless during the go-go 1980s and 1990s, and repealed in 1999. Continue reading An Indomitable Maria Cantwell is Back with a Glass-Steagall Posse

Health, News, Politics

Sen. Cantwell: Washington State is Model for Federal Basic Health Plan

This morning, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) arrived at Seattle’s Country Doctor clinic on Capitol Hill to announce that she’d arm-twisted the Obama administration into launching the Federal Basic Health Plan Option (FBHPO) in 2015. In 1987, the late Governor Booth Gardner signed Washington State’s Basic Health Plan into law at the same Country Doctor clinic. Continue reading Sen. Cantwell: Washington State is Model for Federal Basic Health Plan

Crime, News, Politics

Jay Inslee on Seattle’s Latest Mass Murder: Crickets

This “spate” of gun violence–an inaccurate term for the variability in a chronic situation–has at least got Seattle’s city council reviewing what they can do to provide controls on handguns. Do you remember Kyle Huff (2006)? Do you remember Maurice Clemmons (2009)? How many episodic mass murders, do you think, will it take before people start connecting them as an ongoing problem? Continue reading Jay Inslee on Seattle’s Latest Mass Murder: *Crickets*

Health, News

What’s Washington Doing to Stem Our Whooping Cough Epidemic?

A little over a month since whooping cough crossed the epidemic threshold in Washington State, political officials seem persuaded that the nagging cough is not going to go away on its own. Last week, Governor Gregoire announced that she’d be making available, along with $210,000 already allocated from the Department of Health, an extra $90,000 from the emergency fund to combat pertussis. Continue reading What’s Washington Doing to Stem Our Whooping Cough Epidemic?

Environment, News, Politics

“What’s the Plan for Tsunami Debris?” You Ask

Last week, a 150-foot Japanese fishing boat (outfitted for squid-fishing, to be precise) was spotting drifting, unmanned, about 150 nautical miles off B.C.’s Queen Charlotte Islands, and its arrival raised, more urgently, the question of what is to be done about the bulk of the debris when it arrives. (“Bulk” in abstract sense; the ocean will have had the chance to break up the debris into smaller and smaller pieces, scientists think.) Because not much is being done. Continue reading “What’s the Plan for Tsunami Debris?” You Ask

Environment, News, Politics

Tsunami Debris Field Floating to West Coast Landfall (Photo Gallery)

Something Sendai this way floats, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) doesn’t want to wait until its projected 2014 arrival on West Coast shores to get ready for it. (Hawaii should see tsunami debris in 2013.)

After the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan on March 11 of this year, the ensuing tsunami swept more than 200,000 houses (not to mention boats and cars) out to sea, where oceanographers predict they will make a slow journey to the West Coast, stopping off first at the Hawaiian Islands. Continue reading Tsunami Debris Field Floating to West Coast Landfall (Photo Gallery)

Cantwell: Coastal Doppler Radar “Fully Operational” <strike>Rebels Within Grasp</strike>

News, Weather

Cantwell: Coastal Doppler Radar “Fully Operational” Rebels Within Grasp

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is the main reason that Washington (the state) has a new coastal Doppler weather radar station, and a year ahead of schedule at that, so she took pride of place at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Langley Hill in Grays Harbor on Thursday.

Cantwell managed to geese an unneeded Air Force NEXRAD radar from Keesler Air Force Base, which meant we didn’t have to wait for a new radar to be built, and shaved nearly $3 million from the projected cost, to boot. Continue reading Cantwell: Coastal Doppler Radar “Fully Operational” ~~Rebels Within Grasp~~