For years, Seattle salmon fisherman Pete Knutson has developed pioneering environmental alliances between commercial fishermen, Native American tribes, conservation groups, and even highly conservative Pentecostal churches, successfully defeating huge corporate interests. Pete's also been fighting the Port of Seattle to keep Fishermen's Terminal true to it's historic mission...

It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's environmentally disastrous tar...

Did you know Obama's health care bill contained a $20 billion a year tax on the richest Americans? I didn't until I stumbled onto a mention of this the other day, although writing about politics is my life and I knew enough to be angry at the gutting...

The Occupy movement has done something amazing, getting Americans to start questioning our economic divides. It's created spaces for people to come together, voice their discontents and dreams, creatively challenge destructive greed. It's created powerful political theater, engaged community, an alternative to silence and powerlessness.

But it also faces...

Will Obama ever hold the Republicans accountable for their reckless and destructive actions? No matter how outrageous their demands, he keeps giving them legitimacy, first resisting, then compromising, then praising the result as bipartisanship. He's forgotten the basic lesson of negotiation -- you don't hand everything over before you start,...

It's easy for mountaintop removal to seem abstract to those who don't live in coal country. I just saw the powerful documentary The Last Mountain, about mountaintop removal, and it brings the issue home like no other portrayal that I've seen. I've followed the issue through friends active...

Following the weather is beginning to feel like revisiting the Biblical plagues. Tornadoes rip through Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma -- even Massachusetts. A million acres burn in Texas wildfires. The Army Corps of Engineers floods 135,000 acres of farmland and three million acres of bayou country to save...

It's tempting to expect perfection from those we admire, but we romanticize lone heroes at our peril. A few years before one-time supporter Jon Krakauer challenged the truthfulness of Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, a professor asked me my thoughts on using the book as a reading...

Dear President Obama,

I'm glad you've opposed the attacks on Wisconsin's public workers, but you need to do more. You need to go there and speak out, or at least speak out again and more strongly, because Americans need to understand what's at stake, and those who are...

What if a quarter of the people who read this stood up today against Republican Greed?

Today is one of those times when we could actually take a step forward. We're not guaranteed that we'll begin to shift America back politically if we join one of the rallies

Does Olympia Snowe really want to be the target of waves of anonymous attack ads in support of some conservative primary challenger? Wouldn't a retiring George Voinovich prefer to leave some shards of our democracy off-limits to being sold to the highest bidder? Could John McCain remember why McCain-Feingold was...

I admit it. 2008 was a whole lot more fun. We were riding a wave of change. We had the political momentum. We reached into states and districts we thought we could win and turned them with our energy and commitment. It felt like we just might be launching a...

The Pew Research Center just released an immensely valuable poll, contrasting those who intend to vote this round with those who will likely stay home. Among all adults, the Democrats or those who leaned Democrat had a 50 to 39 margin, and Obama had a three-point plus in...

Everett Dirksen is one of my heroes. The Senate Republican leader from 1959 to 1969, he pushed strongly for Vietnam escalation and took conservative stands that I'd have strongly disagreed with on economic issues. But he joined Lyndon Johnson in going to the mat to pass the Civil Rights and...

Imagine if your actions made the difference in electing a Senator, Governor, or Congressional representative? Suppose the phone calls you made, money you donated, doors you knocked on, and conversations you initiated helped swing a critically close race, or two or three. Suppose the friends you dragged to the polls...

Helping students become engaged in the 2008 election was easy. Many had been involved since the primaries. Passionate and excited, they volunteered, debated issues and candidates, and streamed to the polls. Administrators and faculty helped them navigate registration and voting hurdles, and suggested ways to become involved, but it took...

As campaigns and volunteers hone their final electoral messages, the best flier I've seen asks a simple question -- "Will They Get What They're Paying For?" Created by the Washington State Labor Council, and proudly bearing their name, not that of some shadowy front group, it portrays a check from...

I've been going door-to-door canvassing, and it's not that bad -- really. It's actually kind of fun. But only because I've found a way to break through people's cynicism.

No wonder people are cynical. Crashing from the sky-high hopes of two years ago, people are worried about jobs, the...

In trying to get one-time Obama supporters to volunteer for the November election, I often hear this refrain: "The Democrats have sold us out. I'm tired of their spinelessness, their subservience to corporate interests. I'm staying home to teach them a lesson." Not everyone responds this way, but enough do...

"OK, so your heart's broken," as the old song goes. So's mine. But we have to get over it -- now -- and start taking action for the November election.

Granted, we're far from where we thought we'd be when Barack Obama was elected and people danced in the streets....