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Emmett O'Connell

@emmettoconnell

Blogger, podcaster, local government communicator, rec soccer defender OlympiaTime.com theolympiastandard.com

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Latest posts by Emmett O'Connell @emmettoconnell

For one thing, it's the loneliness epidemic, not the male loneliness epidemic. Plenty of lonely people out there that aren't guys.

Also it isn't about romantic relationships, plenty of lonely people out there getting dates.

Stop missing the point.

07.03.2026 17:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Idaho secretary of state won’t give US Justice Department sensitive voter information • Idaho Capital Sun Idaho’s secretary of state said he will not give the Trump administration access to sensitive personal information about registered voters.

The Idaho (Idaho!) Secretary of State refused a DOJ request to share voter data for 1M residents, including SSNs and driver’s license numbers, citing state privacy laws and security concerns after reports sensitive federal data was shared on an unsecured server

idahocapitalsun.com/2026/03/03/i...

07.03.2026 17:00 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
HB 2554 and the Long Shadow of Initiative 456 – Olympia Time

HB 2554 would remove leftover language from 1984’s Initiative 456, a ballot measure rooted in backlash to the Boldt Decision and tribal treaty rights. The repeal marks a symbolic end to decades of anti-tribal politics still lingering in Washington law.

olympiatime.com/2026/03/07/h...

07.03.2026 14:26 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Women’s hockey players join AFL-CIO PWHLPA affiliation expands the nation’s largest labor federation to 65 unions and AFL-CIO Sports Council to 10 players associations The following is from the AFL-CIO: WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 6, 2026) ...

The Professional Women’s Hockey League Players Association joined the AFL-CIO, becoming its 65th affiliate and the 10th union in the Sports Council. Representing 184 players across 8 teams, the move aims to boost equity, fair pay, and worker power in women’s sports.

www.thestand.org/2026/03/wome...

07.03.2026 12:45 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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KGW workers stand firm against anti-union campaign How far will Tegna go to avoid accepting workers’ choice to unionize?

KGW-TV news producers voted 17–3 to join IBEW Local 48 despite an aggressive anti-union campaign by parent company Tegna. The NLRB rejected company objections and allowed the vote. Tegna is now filing challenges as workers push for union recognition and bargaining.

nwlaborpress.org/2026/03/kgw-...

07.03.2026 12:37 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Could a tribal lawsuit erode colonial borders? The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is a tribal nation located in north central Washington state composed of 12 Indigenous bands, including the ščəl'ámxəxʷ (Chelan), sx̌ʷýʔłpx (Col...

A lawsuit by the Colville Confederated Tribes in BC argues Canada must consult the Sinixt, a tribe forced south into Washington. Citing the 2021 Desautel ruling, the case challenges colonial borders and could expand cross-border Indigenous rights in Cascadia

www.cascadia-journal.com/could-a-trib...

06.03.2026 13:54 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Demolition of last NW aluminum smelter marks end of era Ecology Department and Alcoa are taking public comment on cleanup of Ferndale smelter.

Demolition of Alcoa’s Intalco smelter near Ferndale (closed since 2020) is about 45% complete, ending the Pacific Northwest’s aluminum smelting era. Once powered by cheap Columbia River hydropower, the industry faded as energy costs rose.

salish-current.org/2026/03/05/d...

05.03.2026 13:47 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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An Alternative Approach to Creating Affordable Housing: Inside-Out Urbanism - PubliCola By Josh Feit The city of Seattle was supposed to be done with its 10-year comprehensive plan update more than…

We should advance inside-out urbanism: adding units within existing building envelopes via code tweaks. Reforms like parking cuts, single-stair rules, setback exceptions, and elevator changes can boost density citywide without full rezones.

publicola.com/2026/03/03/a...

04.03.2026 13:57 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Brendan Carr Can’t Explain Why ‘Equal Time’ Rule Doesn’t Apply To Right Wing Radio We’ve noted repeatedly how Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr has been abusing the FCC’s “equal opportunity” (or “equal time”) rule to try and threaten daytime and late…

FCC chair Brendan Carr threatens TV over “equal time” for Republicans but won’t explain why it doesn’t apply to right-wing radio because it only applies to certain perspectives and you can guess which ones.

www.techdirt.com/2026/03/04/b...

04.03.2026 13:36 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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New Sounders podcast with @soccerwithshane.bsky.social and @podfish.bsky.social!

Listen: linktr.ee/talkinders

03.03.2026 14:44 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 1
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Stressed out by politics? You’re not imagining it, and research shows that social media is largely to blame Political content on social media finds you even if you’re not looking for it, and it tends to do so through a sensationalized and emotionally charged lens.

We are tricked into obsessing over things we can't change. By engaging with outrage, we hand our peace to algorithms and strangers. True calm comes from focusing only on our own actions and character, letting go of the digital noise we have no power to control.

theconversation.com/stressed-out...

03.03.2026 14:03 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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‘Mass Confusion’: Government Texts Reveal Chaotic Response to Shutdown of El Paso Airspace One El Paso airport executive summed up the situation with the image of a cartoon bunny rabbit holding a walkie-talkie and remarking, “WTF.”

Party balloons triggered an 8-hour shutdown of El Paso airspace after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a 10-day restriction tied to anti-drone ops by DOD and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Texts show local officials scrambling amid “mass confusion.”

www.notus.org/defense/el-p...

03.03.2026 13:45 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Bush, Billings and the Peace That Forces Out This is the last essay I wrote specifically for Black History Month. Looking at the origin story of Tumwater and how George Washington Bush moved north to...

This week's Olympia Time explores Tumwater’s origin via George Washington Bush and William Billings, a Yankee/Appalachian truce forging a pragmatic, exclusionary “Left Coast.”

Plus reads on racial covenants, climate-smart density & alt media.

Subscribe for more.

buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/...

01.03.2026 15:13 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Seattle’s No-Cost Climate Pollution Cut » The Urbanist # A Sightline Institute study quantified the impact of growing up, not sprawling out, estimating that the Seattle metro area’s slightly less-sprawling growth since 2000 was keeping 1 million tons of g...

From 2000–2020, Seattle cut ~1M tons of GHGs a year, about 5% per new resident, by adding homes in existing neighborhoods instead of sprawling. Infill meant less driving, smaller, efficient homes, and preserved green space, all with no new climate spending.

www.theurbanist.org/2026/02/28/o...

01.03.2026 14:37 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Bush, Billings and the Peace that Forces Out – Olympia Time

South Puget Sound’s identity is a truce between Yankee order and Appalachian independence. From George Washington Bush to Chinese exclusion and timber unions, elites bent rules to protect stability for insiders. The result: pragmatic, regulated, exclusionary peace.

olympiatime.com/2026/02/28/b...

28.02.2026 15:19 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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ICE’s Plan to Monitor Social Media 24/7 + PewDiePieAI, sustainable abundance, MAGA influencers go solar, disappearing summer break, YT's newest teen sensation, giving birth on livestream, a plan to bathe entire cities in sunlight from space

Sitting on the Twitter Files Gang to sign into this one.

ICE’s Plan to Monitor Social Media 24/7
www.usermag.co/p/ices-plan-...

28.02.2026 13:50 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Invasive blackberry bushes being sold at Costco

Invasive blackberry bushes being sold at Costco

Do they sell daffodils?

28.02.2026 01:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Anxious Generation

finally listened to the if books could kill episode on “the anxious generation” - outrageous how much this pop psych book & its shaky, error laden interpretations of data are driving policy & giving well meaning people wrong info about teen mental health. open.spotify.com/episode/3cxP...

28.02.2026 00:58 👍 63 🔁 14 💬 4 📌 1
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Texas Spent Years Screaming About ‘Snowflakes’ On Campus. Now It’s Building The World’s Biggest Safe Space. For the better part of a decade, conservative politicians—and Texas politicians in particular—have been absolutely apoplectic about the state of free speech on college campuses. You’ve heard …

After years attacking “safe spaces,” Texas leaders backed a rule letting students avoid “unnecessarily controversial” topics, requiring syllabus disclosures and “balanced” views. The vague policy chills speech and undercuts the GOP’s past campus free-speech crusade.

www.techdirt.com/2026/02/24/t...

27.02.2026 14:04 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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2025 saw more evictions than ever in Washington state - Gig Harbor Now In Pierce County, 3,655 eviction actions were filed last year, 87 more than in 2024. But the rate of growth has slowed.

WA hit a record 23k eviction filings in 2025, up 57% from 2019. Growth slowed but remains high, with King, Pierce and Snohomish leading. Many cases end in default judgments despite the state’s right-to-counsel program, as renters don’t respond or appear in court

www.gigharbornow.org/news/health-...

27.02.2026 14:02 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Candace Owens’s Erika Kirk Docuseries Is, Predictably, NUTS It’s also fairly humiliating for right-wing media’s biggest stars, who may abhor Candace but can’t seem to beat her at her game.

It i possible to ignore someone making up claims about a kind of significant political media figure. But Candace Owens has been held up for years, despite just making stuff like this up. So now that she's taking swings at the legs of her own chair, let's watch.

www.thebulwark.com/p/candace-ow...

27.02.2026 14:00 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Bipartisan effort to tax social media gains momentum – Pluribus News

Taxing the advertising from digital monopolies is the best, most direct policy regarding social media platforms. Second to actually breaking up the digital advertising platforms.

Bipartisan effort to tax social media gains momentum
pluribusnews.com/news-and-eve...

27.02.2026 13:41 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Police Contract Has Prevented Unarmed Crisis Responders From Doing their Jobs, CARE Chief Says - PubliCola By Erica C. Barnett During a tense meeting of the Seattle City Council’s public safety committee on Tuesday, Community Assisted…

Seattle CARE Chief Amy Barden says the police guild contract blocks unarmed crisis responders from most 911 calls, limiting them to 10 to 20 of 2,400 daily calls. Restrictions require police control and bar responses in many scenarios, leaving CARE at just 28% capacity

publicola.com/2026/02/24/p...

25.02.2026 13:55 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Sign-ins on state bills aren't scientific evidence of public opinion, but Republicans are obsessed with "winning" them anyway - NPI's Cascadia Advocate Sick of losing elections and legislative floor debates to Democrats for decades, Republicans in Washington State are furiously encouraging anyone who'll listen to them to go the Legislature's website ...

WA GOP touts 100K+ “con” sign-ins against the millionaire tax, but the list is riddled with fraud, bots & 11K+ duplicate namesO. One person signed 140+ times. Sign-ins aren’t scientific public opinion, yet Republicans obsess over “winning” them anyway.

www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/...

24.02.2026 13:47 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Racism in Housing in Olympia and the Importance of the Local Grind I’ve told this story before, about how Olympia downzoned its way into a housing crisis over 40 years and rode the wave of emotion to pass an open housing...

Subscribe to the Olympia Time newsletter: from open housing after MLK’s murder to downzoning that reshaped race & class.

Plus: school guide w/ OSD4All, Urban Future Farms on Washington Grown, ID independents, Rainier’s 1507 mudflow & regional political culture.

buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/...

22.02.2026 15:33 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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mattsrebecoming on Instagram: "UPDATE: I just got off the phone with the Tarrant County Board of elections and they say that my registration is in pending status.…" UPDATE: I just got off the phone with the Tarrant County Board of elections and they say that my registration is in pending status. Still in pending even though I put in the application on October 7 of 2025, which was over four months ago, and that there are, in her words, hundreds of thousands of people that are in the same situation because Tarrant County is one of the top 10 counties that people in the US are moving to. Spread the word! #fyp #texaselections #tarrantcounty @jasmineforus

Matt registered to vote on October 7, 2025, in Tarrant County, TX. Four months later, his registration is still pending. When he contacted the county, he was told that he was one of hundreds of thousands.

Check your registration, TX!

#DemVoice1 #ProudBlue #Pinks

www.instagram.com/reel/DU_r3Wt...

22.02.2026 02:22 👍 722 🔁 493 💬 26 📌 25
Racism in Housing and the Importance of the Local Grind – Olympia Time

When the battle seems far away and out of control, we need reminding the fight for justice remains local and ongoing.

After MLK’s assassination, Olympia confronted local racism. Black residents exposed housing discrimination and forced 1968 open housing laws.

olympiatime.com/2026/02/21/r...

21.02.2026 15:35 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A murder warrant based on "possible" cause: "Person B bought aspirin. If they intended to poison a relative, it's a crime." This replaces evidence with a hypothetical, allowing a raid to find a crime that may exist.

www.techdirt.com/2026/02/19/i...

21.02.2026 13:34 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I believe the New York Times’ bad take on how long vote-by-mail states take to count ballots reflects its New York, precinct-voting lens. In Washington and Oregon, the only media figures who complain seem willfully obtuse about why counting takes time.

20.02.2026 20:49 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Misinformation thrives in a vacuum. If we don't explain why it takes 20 days (to verify signatures and allow for mail transit) people fill that silence with conspiracies. We shouldn't blame the voters. We should transparently defend the process.

/8

20.02.2026 14:55 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0