Read more here: 

Here’s  a message from Media Matters for America, a Web-based, not-for-profit,  progressive research and information center “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

“Recently, we learned that News Corp, Fox News’ corporate parent, gave $1 million to the Republican Governors’ Association — a donation that a News Corp spokesman chalked up to the RGA’s “pro-business agenda.”

While other networks covered this unusual contribution extensively, Fox viewers have been left mostly in the dark as to the network’s direct involvement in races this fall.

Media Matters for America has decided to make sure Fox viewers are aware of News Corp’s donation to Republicans. We are purchasing a national ad to air during The O’Reilly Factor to share this vital information with viewers. Will you help us?”

Eric Burns, the president of Media Matters for America, said, “Fox is posing as a news operation — even as it actively engages in political campaigning through lies, distortions, activism by its hosts, and now a huge direct contribution from its parent company to a Republican campaign arm. You now have a chance to add a rare 30 seconds of truth.”

This is the ad the group plans to run. (You can donate to the effort here.)

The PostGlobe relies on your donations. Please support us by going to our donate page and give what you can.

Musician Fox Elipsus is returning to Washington. Elipsus, who hails from Oxford, England, says he tries to bring “peace & love & meaning to music like John Lennon did.”

Elipsus says, “I perform for free, travel far, and usually sleep in my car (this year: 9 months, 300 shows), so your support is very much appreciated!”

All shows are free:

Fri 21st May, 6pm-8pm at Starbucks, 3415 B Fremont Avenue North in Seattle.

Sat 22nd May, 2pm-4pm at Zippy’s Java Lounge, 1804 Hewitt Avenue in Everett

Sat 22nd May, 9pm-11pm at Mandolin Cafe, 3923 South 12th Street in Tacoma.

Also in May: 20th Bellingham, 23rd Yakima, 24th Spokane.

More details can be found on Elipsus’ website: http://elipsus.net/ or on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FoxElipsus

Collin Tong was named the “2009 Volunteer of the Year” by the Western and Central Washington state chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.  Tong, a frequent Post-Globe contributor, received the award at the Association’s regional conference in Seattle on April 19.  The Association cited his leadership and advocacy work in the state legislature on behalf of adult day health programs in Washington state.  Tong’s wife, Linda, has early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. (Read his first-person story here.)

Last October, Tong was the recipient of the Katryna Gould Award by the National Association of Adult Day Services.  The award is named in honor of Katryna Gould, who served on the NADSA Board of Directors as a consumer advocate. The award was established in 2006 to recognize a consumer of adult day services who, through advocacy efforts, has increased the visibility and recognition of adult day services as a viable community-based long-term care option. 

Tong is a Seattle-based writer and former senior director of communications at Washington State University.

 Former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren rejected an offer to become the team’s president to do what? Take a similar job with the Cleveland Browns? KPLU’s Kirsten Kendrick and sports commentator Art Thiel talk about why the deal fell through. Listen here

  We asked for your help to let us continue doing some of the journalism that was lost when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication.

  We’ve made it about eight months now, without any start-up funding – thanks to your help.

  Here’s a small taste of stories we’ve done that went uncovered by other news organizations:

• We broke the story about City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco’s getting a $40,000 bonus from the city.  It’s impossible to know if another reporter would have discovered that eventually. But we may never have known had we not been there.
• We broke the story of how Seattle might ban smoking in parks.
• We “ truth-squaded ” the proposal by King County Council members to have Seattle pay for the downtown bus tunnel and were the only ones to report Metro believes Seattle is already paying its fair share.
• We were the only ones to report a bit of Seattle history – the sale of four old ferries that cruised Puget Sound for decades. And we were the only ones to chronicle their departure for a scrap yard in Mexico.
• We’ve told stories that largely went unreported everywhere else about an immigrant facing deportation, the uninsured, the challenges facing the Tenants Union, the latest from “Nickelsville,” toxics in pregnant women, and the troubles facing social-service agencies.
•  Former P-I political reporter Greg Roberts pointed out some of the hypocrisy in the debate over ferries in the King County executive’s election. 
• Former Beacon Hill News reporter Tony Brouner reported on how the religious right was able to be more successful trying to get signatures to put an anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot.

Thanks to your support, we’ve been able to air perspectives that otherwise would not have been aired:

• Former P-I columnist John Levesque’s take that the media’s desire to know didn’t trump Susan Hutchison’s right to privacy;
• A study by the Seattle Displacement Coalition disputing a myth that southeast Seattle has a disproportionate share of affordable housing – a belief that might hurt the chances of the housing levy’s passing;
• Economic Opportunity Institute director John Burbank’s calls for meaningful health care reform;
• Center for Government Reform director Jason Mercier’s commentary on the entire debate over protests at health care town halls;
• Collin Tong’s first-person story “Journey with Alzheimers: A Caregiver’s Notebook.”

  And don’t forget about the work of other P-I alumni who still want to keep writing – Mariners beat reporter John Hickey and film reviewers Sean Axmaker and Bill White. At a time when theater reviews are dwindling, former P-I theater critic Gianni Truzzi is continuing to review productions.

   While our focus is on local stories, we’ve been proud to run the insights of former P-I foreign affairs writer Larry Johnson. And we’ve been able to give added exposure to some of our colleagues at other sites such as KPLU, KUOW, KBCS,  and the land-use site, Northwest Hub.

   We hope you’ll keep reading and help us keep going.

   You can donate by check to our fiscal sponsor, KCTS, or through our Causes page on Facebook.

From the Secretary of State’s office:

Washington’s new “everything-but-marriage” law, recently approved by voters, will take effect on Thursday, providing expanded rights and responsibilities for domestic partners on the state registry operated by the state Corporations and Charities Division. 

The registry has had a substantial increase in filings during the month after voters upheld the law in the November Election. There have been an average of 90 registrations a week since the election; the weekly average has traditionally been 35 to 40 new registrations.

“Our office is ready for the new changes and is hard at work to ensure the registration process continues to go smoothly,” said Corporations Director Pam Floyd. “Couples needing assistance completing the forms should not hesitate to contact our office.”

While the domestic partners will continue to register with the agency’s Corporations Division, the following changes begin December 3:

• Terminations will now be handled by the courts in similar fashion to a divorce proceeding. If termination is by death of one partner, then a termination may filed with the Office of Secretary of State when accompanied by a death certificate.
• If a member of a domestic partnership changes his/her name or address, they can file that change with the Office of Secretary of State. This form is available at http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/domesticpartnerships/  and in the Corporations Division lobby.

This past spring, Senate Bill 5688 was signed into law by Governor Chris Gregoire. Immediately following, a group of citizens attempted to reverse the law by forcing a statewide vote on the issue through the referendum process, leaving the outcome of the law up to a public vote. However 53 percent of Washington voters approved Referendum 71 this November, meaning the original law will be implemented throughout the state.

The law expands benefits for partners, such as giving them sick leave to care for a domestic partner and rights related to adoption and child custody. Previously, Washington lawmakers provided hospital visitation rights for couples, and expanded rights in areas of community property and guardianship. To learn about how the new law impacts your domestic partnership rights, contact a trusted legal advisor.

New Jersey, California and Oregon are among the several states that, like Washington, have laws giving same-sex couples similar rights to married couples.

As of this week, there are more than 13,000 domestic partners registered in Washington State, both same-sex couples and heterosexual partners where one partner is 62 or older.

Visit http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/domesticpartnerships/

###

   In May, the wife of cop-shooting suspect Maurice Clemmons told authorities her husband had been acting “crazy” before he allegedly raped her daughter.

   He was in jail in Pierce County on that pending charge of second-degree child rape when he put down $15,000 to post bail last week.

   Court records released Monday afternoon show:

   * Clemmons told his victim “the world is going to end soon and that he was Jesus,” according to an affidavit.

  * Clemmons told his victim and his wife’s teen son “they all needed to get naked because it was Sunday and they all needed to be naked for at least five minutes together on Sunday. ” They complied “because they were all afraid of the way the defendant was acting and how he had fought with the police a few days prior.” The molestation and rape of the young female occurred in another room later.

  * Only days before the alleged rape, Clemmons went on a “rampage,” “throwing rocks through windows and at various cars in the neighborhood,” including his family’s own vehicle, according to a probable cause affidavit. He and two men — apparently his cousins — fought with responding deputies. (Clemmons “ran out of the house and immediately punched Deputy Christian in the face.”) “Both deputies suffered injuries as a result of the fight.” Clemmons’ wife declined to press domestic violence charges.

  * Clemmons’ wife told deputies that the couple “argued over a newly discovered child” and she “theorized that this argument precipitated the rampage.” The records do not elaborate.

 City Councilmember Tim Burgess had promised beleaguered residents and business owners that help is on the way for dealing with what some call “the neighbors from hell” — the scattered properties, motels and residences where criminal behavior becomes chronic. On Monday afternoon, it happened: The City Council voted to adopt a Chronic Nuisance Property ordinance on an 8-0 vote (Richard Conlin excused). 

  The ordinance is “designed to stop frequent criminal activity at commercial and residential properties across the city,” Burgess wrote on his City Views blog after the vote. “We have worked on this legislation for just over a year and it was personally gratifying that all of my colleagues supported this work.”

  According to Burgess:

The new law will help people protect their neighborhoods, including some who have lived with drug trafficking, prostitution, and other street-level crime for years.  Unfortunately, there are some property owners who don’t care about their neighbors and they allow all sorts of criminal behavior to flourish.  These owners destroy neighborhoods and the Council said today with its vote that we’ve had enough.

The legislation gives the city an additional tool against property owners who knowingly and repeatedly allow criminal activity on their property and fail to take steps to stop it.  Under the ordinance, following police investigation, the city can seek a court determination that a specific property is a chronic nuisance.  Court-ordered penalties could include fines up to $500 per day that the nuisance continues, a $25,000 fine if a property owner fails to respond to city attempts to resolve the nuisance, and other nuisance abatement steps the court may impose. 

 

As PostGlobe’s Joe Copeland wrote previously, the city had tried to use existing powers to force improvements at several motels along Aurora Avenue in north Seattle, but neighbors told the council’s public safety committee that the new chronic nuisance property is badly needed (earlier PostGlobe coverage is here). At least one West Seattle woman also testified at that earlier committee meeting. She said she lives near townhouses where the landlord doesn’t screen tenants properly.

“My home is not a refuge,” she said. “It is more like a war zone.”

 Mayor-elect Mike McGinn has put forth a homework assignment, of sorts, for all Seattleites. Did you hear? At his transition web site, he invites everyone to type answers to these three questions:

1. How do we build the strongest possible team to achieve the policy objectives and values set forth by the campaign (grass roots community involvement, transparency and neighborhood focus)?
2. How do we build public trust in the new administration?
3. What do you view as the incoming administration and the city’s greatest challenge — what should the new administration do first out of the gate?

“We need your input,” the site says. “… and we want your answers.”

It’s attracted a range of response already.

Just some examples:

Commenter Terry Vogel began: “Value the strength and life of the neighborhoods; empower the office of neighborhoods and fund/staff well. Drop out rates at Seattle schools should be on the front burner….”

“Please have small business owners fro[m] the community participate and have a voice,” Angela Williams wrote. “The associations and large companies don’t have a clue of what is needed. Small business is the backbone of the country and is being crushed.”

“I believe that ‘Carbon Neutrality for Seattle by 2030′ will be an abiding goal for the McGinn Administration,” city employee Charlie Cuniff wrote as part of a detailed, lengthy response. “…One other program that should be given a lot of thought is the Seattle Climate Action NOW program. This was originally conceived as a deeply rooted community action program that would encourage residents and neighborhoods to make the necessary changes and take the necessary actions to reduce our individual and collective carbon footprint(s). As we know, this program has worked well in some respects and not so well in others. However, it is a well-branded program and it would not make budgetary or environmental sense to scuttle it… To meet the 2030 goal, this program will need to be both continued and enhanced…”

Commenter Terry Parkhurst wrote: “First, consider a city ordinance to ban leaf-blowers. It would follow up on the message, espoused during the campaign, of responsible environmentalism. This is not said facetiously, nor is it something I take lightly…”

Read more responses and add yours here.

Or tell McGinn yourself.

McGinn has scheduled three open community meetings for next week.

The first is at Northgate on Monday, followed by one Tuesday on Capitol Hill Tuesday and another in the Rainier Valley on Wednesday.  Here’s the announcement from McGinn’s transition website.

Mayor-elect McGinn will be hosting three town halls during the transition. The town halls will continue the mayor-elect’s work to hear from community members and will be an opportunity for members of the public to share ideas with the mayor-elect.

 

NORTHGATE COMMUNITY CENTER

WHERE: 10510 5th AVE. NE

WHEN: 7pm, Monday, November 30th

 

LANGSTON HUGHES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

WHERE: 104 17th AVE S

WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, December 1st

 

PAUL ROBESON PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AT RAINIER BEACH HIGH SCHOOL

WHERE: : 8815 Seward Park Ave. S.

WHEN: 7pm, Wednesday, December 2nd