Softball player warms up for hardball council race Michael Maddux is both a softball player and umpire but spent much of last summer indoors, campaigning for creation of a Seattle Parks District, with resources to do such jobs as fixing baseball diamonds in city parks. The Seattle paralegal is about to enter a game of political…

Suzan DelBene vs. Pedro Celis: Minimum wage, maximum disagreement The minimum wage was one area of maximum disagreement as U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-1) faced off Wednesday against Republican challenger Pedro Celis in the contest for Washington’s sprawling, diverse 1st Congressional District. “I support raising the (federal) minimum wage to $10.10 an hour,” said DelBene, saying…

Supreme Court case shows how Amazon legally cheats workers No other company embodies the mantra “Time is money” quite like Amazon, with its seamless mastery of “just in time” logistics and round-the-clock online retail hours. But inside the cavernous warehouses that ship its goods, there are real people, and their time is not so preciously…

Grooming students for a lifetime of surveillance Since 2011, billions of dollars of venture capital investment have poured into public education through private, for-profit technologies that promise to revolutionize education. Designed for the “21st century” classroom, these tools promise to remedy the many, many societal ills facing public education with artificial intelligence, machine learning, data…

Widescale corruption scandal rocks South Carolina’s GOP statehouse Just over a month ago, South Carolina’s Republican Speaker of the House, Bobby Harrell, was indicted on multiple criminal charges, including misconduct in office, misuse of power, using campaign donations for personal gain, and falsifying financial reports. The nine-count criminal indictment against Harrell appears to be just the…

Why Democrats must take sides in the class war The waning of America’s middle class presents a huge challenge to the nation’s oldest political party. The Democrats’ ability to improve the economic lives of most Americans has been their primary calling card to the nation’s voters ever since Franklin Roosevelt became president. Since the 1940s, however, the…

Voodoo economics, the next generation Even if Republicans take the Senate this year, gaining control of both houses of Congress, they won’t gain much in conventional terms: They’re already able to block legislation, and they still won’t be able to pass anything over the president’s veto. One thing they will be able to do, however,…

Rogue donors not ready for Hillary? Hillary Clinton is facing the beginnings of a backlash from rich liberals unhappy with her positions on litmus test issues and her team’s efforts to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination before the contest starts. Elizabeth Warren says she’s not running, but donors are pledging big money to get her…

‘Third Way’ battles for Democratic Party’s soul On a summer afternoon amid the frenzy of the Democratic National Convention in Boston 10 years ago, a group of Washington business lobbyists, political operatives, and a smattering of senators gathered at one of the city’s downtown law firms to hear a plan. Members of the group worried that,…

Fractions of women in Texas How do you count women in Texas, and when do the numbers get big? There is a good deal of bad math in a decision made last week, by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, that had the effect of closing all but eight abortion clinics in the state; until recently, there…