Standing beneath towering shelves of kegs in the back of Vancouver’s Loowit Brewing, U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has just given a thank-you talk to her supporters after squeaking through another tight election. As she wraps up her remarks in that December gathering and pauses for questions, a man in the crowd speaks up: “I’d like to see you expand the Blue Dog Coalition … I think that’s exactly what we need at the broader level.”
Joseph O’Sullivan, Cascade PBS

Patty Murray is pleading her case. Except she’s pleading it to better angels that have long since left the building.

Multiple times per day now, when the U.S. Senate is in session, Murray, the senior senator from Washington, troops to a microphone at the Capitol to say that something the Donald Trump administration has done is abnormal, unethical, indefensible or downright illegal.
Danny Westneat, Seattle Times

Legal residents of the United States sent to foreign prisons without due process. Students detained after voicing their opinions. Federal judges threatened with impeachment for ruling against the administration’s priorities.

In the Opinion video above, Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why America is especially vulnerable to a democratic backsliding — and why they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto.

The "Concrete Mama" podcast that originated inside the walls of the Washington State Penitentiary serves as a looking glass through which the free world can see inside the prison and into the humanity of those who reside there. 
Editorial Board, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

You likely know that House Republicans passed their dreadful bill out of an important committee last night. There’s a Rules Committee vote next, late on Wednesday night, and then it’ll go to the floor for a full vote immediately after that. Republican leadership is itching to pass it quickly but—and notably—Johnson still doesn’t have the votes sewn up. House Republicans are still, in fact, hammering out provisions as they go.
Jessica Craven; Chop Wood, Carry Water

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump regime cannot deport a group of Venezuelans while the matter is being litigated in the courts. The regime can’t merely allege that they’re members of a violent gang; it must give them sufficient time to challenge their deportations. Score a big one for the rule of law.
Robert Reich

Trump just cut tariffs on China from 145 to 30 percent. What just happened? Four points.
1. A 30 percent tariff is still really, really high.
2. This wasn’t a case of both sides backing down.
3. The prohibitive tariff has been paused, not canceled.
4. This retreat probably hasn’t come soon enough to avoid high prices and empty shelves.
Paul Krugman

I’ve reprinted below an email I received on May 7th from the office of U.S. Representative Michael Baumgartner (R-CD5, eastern Washington). If your only window on the goings on in Congress were Rep. Baumgartner’s email you would be sadly misinformed. Most politicians are pretty good at “tooting their own horn”, but, on the basis of this newsletter, Mr. Baumgartner should be offering tutorials.
Jerry Claire, Indivisible - The High Ground

Today, on the second day of the papal conclave, the cardinal electors—133 members of the College of Cardinals who were under the age of 80 when Pope Francis died on April 21—elected a new pope. They chose 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was born in Chicago, thus making him the first pope chosen from the United States. But he spent much of his ministry in Peru and became a citizen of Peru in 2015, making him the first pope from Peru, as well.
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

Correspondent Scott Pelley focuses on President Trump’s use of executive orders to target major law firms he accused of “weaponizing” the justice system against him. 

The report highlights interviews with legal professionals, including Marc Elias, who compared Trump’s tactics to mob intimidation and described the executive actions as retaliatory and harmful to the legal profession. 
60 Minutes, CBS

In an interview aired today on NBC News’s Meet the Press, reporter Kristen Welker asked President Donald J. Trump if he agreed that every person in the United States is entitled to due process.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump answered.
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

In the dark corners of America’s halls of power, something sinister is unfolding. Attorney General Pam Bondi has just launched an assault on one of the most sacred pillars of our democracy: the freedom of the press. And make no mistake, this isn’t just another policy change. It’s a deliberate strategy straight from the dictator’s playbook.
Thom Hartmann, The Hartmann Report

This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report showing an abrupt reversal in the U.S. economy. The shift is the first time in three years that the economy has contracted. The slump appears to have been fueled by a surge in buying overseas goods before Trump’s tariffs hit.
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

How do we sell tax increases? We should talk about services instead of taxes. Talk about how rural counties receive more from the state than we pay – a lot more – and that cuts will hit us first and hardest.

Don Schwerin, chair, Washington State Democrats Ag & Rural Caucus

Episode Seven of the podcast “Concrete Mama” includes an eye-opening summary of new programs enthusiastically embraced by inmates, staff, and administrators at the Washington State Penitentiary.
Walla Walla County Democrats

Rosalia Manuel had worked for McDonald’s for more than 20 years when she was suddenly fired in 2022. Until then, she had been considered “the best employee,” she said, and had worked her way up to shift manager at a location in Saratoga, California. It was a role she took seriously.
Bryce Covert, The Nation

If you eat, you should understand how your food is grown, processed, transported, and marketed. You may be shocked by the impact the foods you eat have on our environment.

Two films are now available on Amazon Prime that will help you understand this important topic: Kiss the Ground and Common Ground.
Walla Walla County Democrats

The emergency is here. The crisis is now. It is not six months away. It is not another Supreme Court ruling away from happening. It’s happening now. Perhaps not to you, not yet. But to others. Real people. We know their names. We know their stories.

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. A prison known by its initials — CECOT. A prison built for disappearance.
Ezra Klein, The New York Times