Cascadia today: Seattle city attorney prosecutes crimes of poverty + $15 billion hit to OR + octopus takes a selfie 🐙
Seattle city attorney failed on promises
An investigative project I've been working on for months involved gathering data from the Seattle Municipal Court to see just what Republican Seattle city attorney Ann Davison's "tough on crime" image she's projected looks like in real life. You can read the full article at PubliCola. The TLDR version is: while Davison did reduce filing decision times (the time between when SPD arrests someone and the decision whether to file charges or not), filing times for domestic violence have more than doubled.
In addition, on many of the metrics she and her supporters criticized her predecessor for, Davison's office is doing about the same or worse, including decline rates and rates of dismissal. In addition, many more cases are not resulting in guilty verdicts, and in response, public defenders are more willing to take cases to trial rather than settle. The upshot is that the city attorney's office (which only prosecutes misdemeanors) has increased prosecution of people for crimes of poverty which could better be addressed through diversion and improved social services and mental health care.
Trump budget claws $15 billion from Oregon
OPB reports on the dire situation for Oregon after passage of the federal budget will eviscerate $15 billion in federal funding from the state, including $11.7 billion in cuts to the Oregon Health Plan and $3 billion evaporating from the SNAP food assistance program. "Oregonians will see less of their federal tax dollars coming back to our state for things they count on," governor Tina Kotek said. It's a double hit to a state that's also reliant on global trade – and Trump's capricious tariff policy is already raising costs for Oregon businesses, OPB reports. Meanwhile, the state of Washington is suing the feds over unconstitutional cuts to NOAA and climate change funding.
When you consider that even before this current Trump administration, Oregon and Washington together paid $37 billion more in federal taxes each year than they received back in funds and services, it's time to consider how independence would better serve the people of Cascadia. Freed from having to pay billions of our tax dollars for a bloated military, thousands of masked immigration agents and alligator- infested concentration camps, Cascadia could truly meet the needs of those who live here.
Andrew Engelson
Octopus grabs camera, takes selfie
Yeah, you read that headline right. CBC has a video from two divers who photograph underwater sealife and who encountered a very curious giant Pacific octopus in Nanoose Bay off the coast of Vancouver Island. Demonstrating the ingenuity, strength and intelligence of these critters, the video shows the octopus grabbing the diver's video equipment and investigating it. If you want to learn more about octopus intelligence, I definitely recommend The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery.
Mortuary poles returned to Tla’amin Nation
IndigiNews reports on the return of two traditional mortuary poles once held in the collection of the BC Museum of Anthropology to the Tla’amin Nation located on the Sunshine coast of British Columbia. The return of the stolen statues – one depicting a man and one depicting a woman holding a child, was celebrated on Indigenous People's day and also marked the opening of the Ɂəms ʔayɛ , a cultural center for the Tla'amin.
--Andrew Engelson
