(Olympia, WA) – Broken Crosswalk Signals leave local foot traffic money stranded outside of Downtown Olympia Core. Drivers so far unaffected.

Olympia shoppers consider alternate helicopter pooling option (cost permitting)

(Olympia, WA) – Money and Politics. Greedy Downtown Olympia Corporations lobby against Puget Sound Ecological Restoration efforts.

Outrage in Washington DC as faltering local newspaper (Washington Post) is caught trying to profit from it’s access to Obama Officials.

Politico:

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

The flier circulated to the corporate lobbyists read in part:

Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate. Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.

… Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders. …

Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less.

Lets read that part again:

“..Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders“

Wow. Its like deja’ vu..

HuffPost:

Journalism is in crisis around the country. The economic downturn has collided with fundamental technological, cultural and ideological changes, leaving the future of journalism in doubt.

But selling access to reporters and editors to the highest bidder should never be an option.

The backlash against the Post was swift, spread by outraged members of social networks — whose anger was fueled in part by marketing materials that seemed blind to the inherent conflicts of interest in this model. The promotional flier for the salons said that these events “are extensions of The Washington Post brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard.”

In full damage control, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli took up the issue of journalistic ethics in the Post’s follow-up, saying, “We do not offer access to the newsroom for money. We just are not in that business.” He went on to say that the newsroom was never involved in this plan, nor would it have taken part in such an event.

Yet, the fact that this idea got as far as it did is another example of how Big Media tend to put corporate interests before the public interest. The notion of holding these events suggests that for the Post, the real stakeholders in the health care debate seemed to be lobbyists and the companies they represent, not the American people whom the Post is supposed to inform, educate and represent.

The White House counsel’s office sent the following letter to Obama Officials on Thursday in wake of the debacle:

“As we have advised in a previous memo, federal ethics rules restricting the acceptance of gifts govern your ability to accept free admission to events put on by a non-governmental sponsor.

Conflicts of interest, such as this embarrassing controversy, raise serious doubts about the integrity and viability of the newspaper industry.

(Olympia, WA) – Maria Cantwell = bad decisions. While President Obama has taken the leadership role in helping Washington Families receive proper health coverage, controversial Washington Senator Maria Cantwell has thus far sided with the greedy Corporate HMO’s.

Why?

http://standwithdrdean.com/where_congress_stands?

(Olympia, WA) – Is Joan Machlis incompetent?

Would a trained robot do better as a corporate spokesperson for Real Estate Developers?

(Olympia, WA) – Olympia residents ponder Jeff Kingsbury’s lack of trustworthiness.

Why has Jeff Kingsbury turned his back on progressives?

Reaffirming its belief that The McClatchy Co. has “an untenable capital structure” of large debt and shrinking revenue, Fitch Ratings on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the nation’s third-largest chain, and noted pointedly that other debt-encumbered newspaper companies are now in bankruptcy protection.

The action came hours after McClatchy announced that its offer to exchange $1.15 billion of its approximately $2 billion debt for new and deeply discounted notes with higher interest rates had fallen far short of its goal.

Noteholders were most reluctant, it appears, to swap debt coming due relatively soon. Of the $170 million in notes coming due in 2011, for instance, holders of just $3.8 million in face value accepted McClatchy’s offer.

Analysts say that indicates the holders have obtained credit default swaps — essentially insurance — on the notes, and may be calculating they will do better if the Sacramento-based parent of The Miami Herald goes into default.

Credit ratings agencies, while repeatedly praising McClatchy’s efforts to pay down its debt, have cited the debt load and falling revenue in rating McClatchy debt deep in junk, or non-investment-grade, territory.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003988328

(Olympia, WA) – Outrage, Controversy, and the Larida Passage Scandal.

Olympia residents fight back against Corporate Greenwashing and Real Estate Industry Propaganda and sleaze.

Shame on you Doug Mah.

In a national survey of homeless service and advocacy agencies conducted by the these groups, 79 percent of respondents stated that at least some of their clients were homeless as a result of foreclosure, and about half estimated that more than ten percent of their clients were homeless because of foreclosure on a home they had been occupying. During 2008, RealtyTrac reported 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions, an 81 percent jump from 2007 and a 225 percent increase from 2006.

“We are one step away from foreclosure. More and more families and children are affected by job loss and the economy. ‘Getting back on your feet’ is next to impossible in today’s society. The public needs to be made aware of who is becoming homeless… and that they could be next – just like any average family,” an individual respondent to the national survey from North Carolina reported.

The study found that there are many interrelated consequences of the economic downturn that lead to both home foreclosure and to homelessness.  There is an increased need for affordable housing, as well as targeted legal assistance, health care, living-wage jobs, income supports, access to education, civil rights protections and the various supports that will continue to be needed as a result of the recession.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/news/pr_foreclosure_062509.html

That’s right! Free Lunch! All you have to do is show up at Garfield Elementary School (325 Plymouth St NW, Olympia) for a hot lunch, or at Lion’s Park (800 Wilson St) for a sack lunch, at Noon between June 22 and August 14, 2009. (No lunch July 3rd)

Don’t forget—You must be 18 and under!

The free summer lunch program is brought to you by
Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation Department and the
Olympia School District.

http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us/~/media/Files/Parks/Recreation/Summer%20Lunch%20Program%2009.ashx