Dick Lilly

It is the status-threatened, outsider and alienated groups where Trump likely has left us with unusually lasting damage. Trump brought them into politics, a place they hadn’t – at least in an organized way – been before. He gave them a role.

Property tax exemptions designed to lower rents for street-level businesses may be just what’s needed to resuscitate stores and restaurants gasping from Covid 19 restrictions and restore vitality to downtown and neighborhood business areas.

Trump stressed the fear of change from the Democrats and the street protests. But that cut two ways, since he was a hugely disruptive force himself.

Pence pushed hard with claims about what good things Trump supposedly has done. He lost that point on the trade war when Kamala Harris hit him with job losses and the impact on farmer incomes.

So Biden looks like he reaches the people and Trump at best is sending messages only to his base.

The potential for inequity, for continuing the systemic racism already – and for decades – built into public schools (all schooling, really), is staggering.

Chapter 47 Picnic Friday July 4, 10 a.m.               Falconer, Danny and Theresa drove to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal early to make sure they caught a boat to Vashon before 10:30,...

Not the phone this time. This was the real deal. No denials left. Falconer wanted to meet the governor away from her office, which he figured would be buzzing with curious and potentially indiscreet staffers and thoroughly wired to send every pin drop to a hard drive somewhere. He drove a couple hours over the pass to Yakima where she was attending a conference on irrigation and water rights. When she came out of the hotel, Falconer was standing by her car shooting the shit with the trooper behind the wheel. “Walk with me a bit?”

Harms said nothing when Falconer finished telling him about Vancouver. After a moment, he got up and very slowly and deliberately collected the empties and went into the kitchen. Falconer heard the bottles clatter into the recycling bin, then silence. After a while he heard a toilet flush in the back of the house. The refrigerator opened and closed, bottle caps rattled into the recycling and Harms reappeared, carefully setting two bottles of Redhook between them on the picnic table.

“Well, so, what do we know?” It was Monday morning. Sun poured through the penthouse office windows, burnishing the bamboo floors and varnished fir window and door frames. They were drinking coffee, Falconer, elbows on the small conference table, holding a large ceramic Starbucks mug imprinted in green with the Seattle skyline.