In this week's newsletter: Second part of my new series on Olympia’s parking lots, plus TRL crisis analysis & local reads. buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/... Subscribe for more local history & insight! olympiatime.com/newsletter/

The New York Times NYT and Wall Street Journal downplayed massive #NoKings protests, minimizing scale and pro-democracy framing, while local papers and some major outlets gave stronger, more prominent, and more inspiring coverage. mediaanddemocracyproject.substack.com/p/new-york-t...

Block 46 in Olympia has evolved from shoreline to rail hub to parking lot. Now, a 5-story apartment project replaces stagnation with density. Though tax breaks cost short term, they spur housing and yield far greater long-term revenue and urban vitality. olympiatime.com/2026/04/11/t...

Oh look. It's the Mayor of Red Lodge, Montana that just buzzed the Olympic National Park this afternoon.

This guy was definitely not flying above 2,000 feet above the Olympic National park just now. He literally flew between the rocks at Hole in the Wall and the cliff shore. registry.faa.gov/AircraftInqu...

Critics who called Biden’s disinformation efforts a “Ministry of Truth” are silent as Secretary of State Marco Rubio directs U.S. embassies to run coordinated counter-propaganda campaigns using Elon Musk’s X, tied to military psyops and influencer networks abroad. www.techdirt.com/2026/04/08/r...

"If asking for a correction to a false factual claim counts as censorship, the word has been stretched so far that it no longer means anything... The more the term gets diluted, the easier it is to weaponize against anyone who challenges you on the facts." www.techdirt.com/2026/04/06/j...

Kentucky Republicans launched impeachment efforts against two judges, including one case against Judge Julie Muth Goodman for noting racial disparities in charging and sentencing. ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

Free speech absolutists: weeks after Mark Zuckerberg criticized government censorship on Joe Rogan’s podcast, texts revealed he offered Elon Musk help removing content about DOGE staff. www.techdirt.com/2026/03/31/w...

I'm glad a statewide ban didn't pass. Device rules should be balanced and as local as possible. Blanket rules remove agency and drive us into the moral panic that is framed on the parents rights campaigns that are about controlling than allowing discovery. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Timberland Regional Library’s crisis reflects deeper issues: a 1% property tax cap, $3.8M deficit, and urban Thurston County subsidizing rural branches. Trustee fights are a sideshow to a bigger question: levy funding, governance reform, or possible district breakup olympiatime.com/2026/04/04/t...

Free speech absolutists. An Alabama grandmother faces trial after police arrested her at a “No Kings” protest for wearing an inflatable penis costume and holding a “No Dick Tator” sign. theintercept.com/2026/04/03/p...

1/ Rantz provides an excellent framework to look at the work of supposed journalists like Brandi Kruse. Using his critique of "journalism-as-advocacy," we see Kruse has moved from reporting news to creating it by volunteering to collect signatures for a Referendum seattlered.com/jason-rantz/...

The claim that social media addiction is caused by dopamine “hits” is pseudoscience. Experts say platforms deliver speech, not drugs, and behavior online doesn’t affect dopamine like substances do. The myth fuels moral panic and pushes censorship and surveillance laws www.usermag.co/p/dopamine-i...

FCC chair Brendan Carr approved Nexstar’s $6.2B purchase of Tegna behind closed doors, letting the combined company exceed media ownership limits and control stations reaching 54.5% of U.S. homes. www.techdirt.com/2026/04/01/b...

WA’s story: from railroads to the Sonics, why we don’t subsidize billionaires, how the NBA returns on our terms, and why we should fund local sports instead. Plus: courts, tech myths, Lewis County. buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/... Subscribe to Olympia Time: olympiatime.com/newsletter/

The prevailing reaction to the "social media addiction" trials are rife with myths. The $400M fine is actually a win for Big Tech. These legal actions are backed by far-right groups, will ultimately lead to increased surveillance and censorship via age verification. youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6...

How it started vs how it's going. Stay informed about what is next by subscribing to Democracy Docket now. bit.ly/4qmEiFz

From railroad regulation to the Sonics’ return, our history is a story of resisting corporate ransom: refusing subsidies, trusting the state’s value, and arguing public money belongs in community recreation, not billionaire handouts. olympiatime.com/2026/03/28/w...

This case is a textbook performance of participatory disinformation. By illegally requesting ballots, he moved from consuming a narrative to manufacturing proof. This crowdsourced evidence is then looped back to influencers to validate the original signal. boingboing.net/2026/03/26/c...

A Texas federal judge dismissed X’s lawsuit claiming advertisers illegally boycotted the platform, ruling it failed to show an antitrust violation. The case was dismissed with prejudice, blocking refiling or appeal. www.engadget.com/social-media...

AI facial recognition led Fargo police to wrongly arrest Tennessee grandmother Angela Lipps for a North Dakota crime. She spent nearly 6 months jailed before records proved she was home in Tennessee. Charges were dropped; civil rights lawyers are weighing a lawsuit boingboing.net/2026/03/26/c...

A journalist was arrested for asking police questions, using an anti-corruption law that wasn't intended to cover reporters. Courts granted officers qualified immunity, and SCOTUS declined review, greenlightingnrbetaliation against journalists. ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/lagor...

Compare the speed run through renaming everything that was named for Cesar Chaves in like a week to the years long temper tantrums over renaming anything named after a slave holder or a traitor. What is the primary difference?

Well. I wouldn't say its "hidden" newjerseymonitor.com/briefs/profa...

Under all of the excitement this week is this fact: Washington and Seattle refused to shell out public funds to build a new arena. Private funds restored the arena we already had to the standards the NBA and NHL required When they threaten you, don't blink mynorthwest.com/mynorthwest-...

As Oregon nears an $870M public deal for the Portland Trail Blazers arena, records show incoming owner Tom Dundon pushed risky lending at Santander, tied to a $550M predatory lending settlement, raising concerns about taxpayer-backed negotiations. www.propublica.org/article/tom-...

You were told that we should give the oligarchs what they want. They'd give us jobs. Good jobs. The kind of jobs that your grandfather had. Just give the billionaires more and it will all be better. That was a lie. www.gallup.com/workplace/70...

Two thoughts on this www.thebulwark.com/p/why-tech-t... 1. Citing Marcus Aurelius as an example against introspection is interesting since you got the advice from his journal, a stoic practice of introspection.

WA courts rarely discipline guardians ad litem despite claims of bias or misconduct in custody cases. Reports can sway outcomes, yet oversight is minimal, complaints are rare and risky, and discipline is usually just reprimands www.investigatewest.org/washington-c...

Alarm bells: a sheriff seized 650,000 ballots over debunked fraud claims. Experts warn chain of custody is at risk. This isn’t how elections work, there are legal recount processes. Sheriffs are not election officials. This is dangerous territory. www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

On my newsletter, I launches series on Olympia parking lots as “civic negative space,” replacing dense, productive blocks with car storage that erodes tax base. I trace housing loss, scandal, demolition, affordability, and sea level rise. Subscribe for more. buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/...

read about an alternative reality where reducing reliance on oil & gas is seen as a national security imperative👇

Federal prosecutors indicted Harvest Plus for luring migrant workers to WA under false contracts. Victims were forced into unsafe labor at a vineyards owned by the billionaire family behind the Vancouver Canucks where they faced wage theft and cartel threats. www.inlander.com/news/washing...

Olympia’s downtown is now dominated by parking lots, but it was once a dense, tax-rich hub. Case in point: the Carlton Hotel. It provided "naturally occurring" affordable housing before being razed for car space, a shift that eroded both economic health and vitality. olympiatime.com/2026/03/21/t...

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson is using unverified Experian credit data to flag voters as "inactive," affecting 50,000 people. The data is unreliable, lacks government verification, and disproportionately impacts Black and border-county residents. mississippitoday.org/2026/03/09/c...

“VoTe-bY-mAiL tAkEs tOo lOnG tO cOuNt” hand counts 3,000 ballots by choice, misses deadline “nOt sUsPiCiOuS aT aLl” Speed depends on method, not legitimacy. Calhoun County hand count delayed election results until Friday - Votebeat www.votebeat.org/texas/2026/0...

I love stories like this when bold election claims unravel under basic facts: an Arizona official accused bias, but missed key spreadsheet tabs showing many more voting sites, turning a political firestorm into a simple failure to check the data. www.12news.com/article/news...

The river doesn't change its behavior, the river is going to do what is has always done. We just learned eventually to get out of its way. We never controlled the river, we just learned that we never controlled the river. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Algorithmic pricing is already changing what we pay. Rent pricing tools enabled coordinated hikes. Grocery apps can show different prices to different users. States are acting, but enforcement—and oversight—remain uncertain, says Georgetown University Tech and Public Policy Scholar, Max Morgan.

This is absolutely true. The same Grays Harbor that exists today is the same Grays Harbor that elected Albert Johnson who collaborated with eugenicists and the KKK to create our modern immigration system. olympiatime.com/2026/01/31/t...

Adam Smith's free market required a moral framework and the rule of law. He argued that markets fail if self-interest leads to "injustice or oppression." www.techdirt.com/2026/03/19/p...

USPS cuts to same-day postmarking mean rural residents face higher risks of late bills and uncounted ballots. Longer distances, older populations, and limited internet access make mail delays especially harmful, raising equity and voting concerns. otherwords.org/rural-reside...

Wow, I actually agree with Brier Dudley for once: A nonprofit structure, funded by philanthropy, is not the only (or the most sustainable) framework for local news. www.seattletimes.com/opinion/big-...

New on Olympia Time: how the collapse of local newspapers created an algorithmic “mist” around our communities and how tools like email and RSS can restore discernment. Plus: Seattle school history, Olympia stories, and more. Subscribe to get it weekly. buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/...

The collapse of local newspapers and rise of algorithm-driven social media has created an “information mist” of rumors and outrage. You should reclaim discernment by choosing sources directly (via newsletters or RSS) instead of letting algorithms decide what you see olympiatime.com/2026/03/14/m...

Leigh Finke is right: internet age-verification laws framed as child protection expand government control over online speech, threaten privacy, and may block youth (especially LGBTQ+ youth) from accessing lawful information and community. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

If you're not listening to Adults in the Room, you're missing a lot. 4 episodes in, it explores a Seattle SD crisis 25+ years ago over abuse by a respected HS teacher and how fiercely communities and institutions attack those seeking accountability from the powerful www.kuow.org/podcasts/focus

Republicans who spent years warning about foreign influence in media are now quiet as Larry Ellison’s bid for Warner Bros. draws billions from Saudi funds and China’s Tencent, a reversal that exposes the politics behind the earlier TikTok panic. www.techdirt.com/2026/03/10/m...