The Bush administration’s calculated transformation of the US into a police state. The Washington Post prints a letter from one of the thousands in our midst who have lost some of their rights but can
So - what is going on at the Blue Canyon, down at the south end of Lake Whatcom? Who is Stephen Scott and who is Rita Foley and why have the responsible County departments allowed a creek to be clear
Four years ago today the ground invasion of Iraq started. George Bush used known false claims of danger to the US to justify the war. By early April the US had won a decisive war with total conquest o
Front page headline this morning reads “War enters fourth year”. Sorry, it is entering the fifth year. This for their most bold headline - and probably seen by 5 or 10 people before it ran. Unfortunat
The House of Representatives legal council today filed a multi-page Motion to Quash the subpoena requiring Rep. Rick Larsen to appear in Bellingham Court on March 20.
Congressman Rick Larsen has (so far) successfully avoided the process server who is waiting to hand him a subpoena to appear in the trial of war protester Ellen Murphy of Bellingham.
Gene Knutson, 14-year city council member, is running for mayor. He has his kickoff fund raiser at the Squalicum Boathouse next Thursday, Mar 15. Gene is well liked as a council member who has always
Ellen Murphy is now allowed to enter the Federal Building in Bellingham. With the court dismissal of the Oct. 20 trespass charge, the lifetime ban on entering the building was also dropped. (This took
Ellen Murphy’s court date has been changed. Her jury trial will be on Tuesday, March 20 ( not Feb 27 as posted below last week). It was changed - after being set by the Muni Court at the earlie
City of Bellingham prosecutor was forced to dismiss the October 20, 2006 trespassing charge against Ellen Murphy in Municipal Court today. Ellen will still stand trial on Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 9 am bef
The Pentagon, after weeks of delay, finally trotted out the “irrefutable evidence” that Iran is supplying deadly weapons to Iraqi “insurgents”. Wow! They produced two tables of weaponry with Iranian m
On Sat, Feb 24, there is a forum on voting integrity at the Bellingham Library downstairs lecture room from 10 am to noon. From their press release it looks good. James Johan sent the release, Marian
Today we have three corrections that apply to the Feb 6 post below. The corrections are important but do not change the thrust of the article - and indeed put even more of an accusation against Congre
Ellen Murphy has the courage to practice classic civil protest - to publicly bring her questions about the Iraq war to Rick Larsen, our US Congress Representative. And for daring to do that, it appear
Today’s Bellingham Herald editorial invites an answer. The editorial is good in that it reflects on past bad practices, like allowing GP to dump mercury into Bellingham Bay, and the editorial goes on
If you have arrived at this website for the first time as a result of the link posted in today’s Bellingham Herald article about branch libraries, then I welcome you and hope you return occasionally.
… welcome to the correct side of the Iraq war issue. Rick spoke yesterday at Bellingham city hall and, according to the Bellingham Herald, he switched his stand and now favors a partial pullout of
OK, my Democratic Party friends. Deal with this - like Barney Frank would not. He shouted down a Senator who dared to reveal this on the Senate floor. The hypocrisy stinks. If this is the lily-pure 10
Writer's notes: The candidates for State Representative in the 40th District Position 1 are: Dusty Gulleson (prefers Republican Party,) Chuck Carrell (prefers Republican Party,) Doug Revelle (prefers Happiness Party,) Mike Newman (prefers Republican Party,) Kristine Lytton (prefers Democratic Party,) Tom Pasma (prefers Democratic Party,) Thomas Boucher (prefers Democratic Party,) Justin Van Dyk (prefers Democratic Party,) and Donna R. Miller (prefers Republican Party.)
What follows are the two responses to questions I submitted to Chuck last Mon, Aug 2.
Why should I vote for you?
"I’m running this year because the Legislature and Governor continued their out of control spending habits despite our troubled economy, and we need to stop it.
The only way it will stop is to start electing strong leadership to the Legislature that can make the hard choices that will be needed.
I will not support any new taxes unless they will completely eliminate an existing tax and make the amount less overall to the people they affect.
I think people are taxed to their limit right now and the real long term solution is to have the state and local governments cut their spending and get back to the essential functions of what state government is supposed to do.
I will not accept money from, or be a representative for, any PAC or special interest group. That’s important when figuring out where to trim at least $3 billion dollars from our state’s budget next session.
When making cuts, these candidates will feel obligated to keep unnecessary programs due to the financial aid they received during their campaigns. The problem was highlighted this year, and electing those types of candidates will only bring the same issue to the next Legislative session."
What is important to you?
"The most important thing to me this next Legislative session is getting our fiscal house in order.
We need to simplify the tax structure and then get an accurate assessment of what the state budget will be.
Then we need to REALISTICALLY balance the budget. This means that we fund our most important things such as education and public safety first and then continue down until everything is funded or there is no more state money left.
When the state budget is down to zero then we stop funding programs. No matter how badly we want to fund a program, if the state budget is spent then they will have to get their funding someplace else besides state government.
Even within our top priorities we need to look at how to consolidate these agencies and programs to make them more efficient. We also need to look at reducing the middle management in these agencies and what I term “inner bureaucracies.”
Years of these types of hiring practices by state and local government has created an enormous drain on our resources and is not sustainable. Nor can we rely on Federal grants like we did this year to balance the budget."
