OLYMPIA – State officials who ask the Legislature for more money or expanded programs could be fined, and pay the penalty out of their own pocket, if they don’t properly file lobbying reports with the Public Disclosure Commission.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, sets up a civil penalty of $100 per statement on a state agency head who fails to file lobbying reports with the commission and allows any state official or employee who improperly spends public money on lobbying to be fined.

Supporters say it’s a way to keep public money from being used to lobby for more public money. It doesn’t keep state officials from supplying information in response to legislative requests.

Signed Wednesday by Gov. Jay Inslee, it takes effect at the beginning of 2014.

OLYMPIA — House Democrats passed a two-year spending plan for the state's transportation system today, overcoming Republican objections about a controversial bridge over the Columbia River and the way tolls are set on roads and bridges.

Included in the bill is some $79 million for projects in Spokane County, including about $68 million for the North Spokane Corridor. In an amendment sponsored by Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, before the final vote, any money saved in the next two years on that project will be held and spend on future portions of the longtime Spokane road project.

Transportation budgets are often bipartisan bills in the Legislature, but this proposal had several elements that caused some Republicans to balk. One is some $450 million for the Columbia River Crossing, a controversial bridge connecting Vancouver with Portland that critics say is poorly designed and too expensive, in part because of the inclusion of light rail capacity. Light rail exists on the Oregon side of the river, but not the Washington side.

The other is the delegation of the authority to set fees on bridges and toll roads to the Washington Transportation Commission, rather than requiring the Legislature to set them.

'It's a solid budget. It doens't have a lot of frills,” Transportation Committee Chairwoman Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island, said.

Riccelli said it was a good budget for Eastern Washington, with money for transportation projects that help farmers and local businesses plus the “Safe Routes to Schools” program as well as the North Spokane Corridor.

But Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, said some of the priorities were misplaced, by spending money for the State Patrol to set up traffic cameras to control speeders in some areas rather than hiring more troopers and only supplying partial money for the North Spokane Corridor rather than the whole project. “Clearly this budget needs a lot more work,” Shea said.

It will get more work. After passing on a 68-28 vote, the bill now moves to the Senate which has some different plans on how to spend the state's transportation money

Rep. Matt Shea will have telephone town hall session Wednesday evening which will give voters a chance to call in their questions about the current legislative session.

The Spokane Valley Republican likened it to a radio call-in talk show, where voters from his 4th Legislative District can ask questions between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. from the comfort of their homes.

Interested citizens call a toll-free number, 1-877-229-8493, then enter the PIN number 15550 when asked.

Rep. Matt Shea will have telephone town hall session Wednesday evening which will give voters a chance to call in their questions about the current legislative session.

The Spokane Valley Republican likened it to a radio call-in talk show, where voters from his 4th Legislative District can ask questions between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. from the comfort of their homes.

Interested citizens call a toll-free number, 1-877-229-8493, then enter the PIN number 15550 when asked.

OLYMPIA – Some would-be voters would have more time to register online, and younger ones could “pre-register” as early as age 16 under election law changes approved Thursday by the House.

Often by large margins, the House passed and sent to the Senate a handful of bills that supporters said will increase participation in elections. . .

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, click here go inside the blog.

OLYMPIA — The cannabis plant could provide Washington state with two new agricultural crops: One for smoking, and one making rope and fabric.

OLYMPIA – A bill requiring almost all gun buyers in Washington to undergo a background check passed a key House panel Tuesday and will likely be part of a package of gun laws up for a floor vote in March.

Despite heavy criticism last week from gun-rights activists, the House Judiciary Committee passed the so-called Universal Background Check bill on a 7-6 vote.

It would require buyers in most private firearms sales either to submit to the same background check they would undergo if buying the gun at a licensed dealer or to produce a valid state concealed pistol license. . .

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog. 

OLYMPIA — Changing the way the state casts its Electoral College votes for president would be fairer to Eastern Washington voters, a Spokane Valley legislator said Tuesday.

It’s a way Republicans could win the White House through gerrymandered districts without a majority of the popular vote, said the Democratic chairman of the House committee considering the proposal.

Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, said a bill he’s sponsoring would award most of the state’s Electoral College votes based on the outcome of the presidential race in each of the Washington’s 10 congressional districts. Two of the Electoral College votes, which are given each state for its two U.S. senators, would go to the state’s overall winner. . .

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.

In August, state Rep. Matt Shea appeared to be mending bridges in the local Republican Party.

He attended a meeting of the Republicans of Spokane County and won the group's endorsement. The Republicans of Spokane County is an organization that formed a few years ago among some Republicans concerned that the official Spokane County Republican Party had been taken over by Libertarians and Constitutionalists not dedicated to party unity after the primaries.

Shea, who was an effective leader in the Ron Paul for president campaign, has been outspoken in his criticism of “mainstream Republicans.” In the primary, he declined to offer a recommendation for incumbent Republican and nationally recognized GOP leader, U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in the race for Congress. For governor, he supported Shahram Hadian over Attorney General Rob McKenna.

Candidates for Spokane County Commission will face off Wednesday evening in student-led debates hosted by the Central Valley High School’s Government Club.

The club also has invited the candidates in the hotly-contest Spokane Valley race for state House between incumbent Republican Matt Shea and Democrat Amy Biviano. Biviano is scheduled to attend. Shea has not responded to phone calls and emails inviting him to participate, said Central Valley teacher Bill Gilchrist.

If there were a political version of the TV show “Fear Factor,” Republican Rep. Matt Shea would make an excellent host. Fear of U.S. currency. Fear of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Fear of “FEMA camps” where, according to a conspiracy theory, citizens will be held once invading federal troops round them up. No wonder he keeps a gun stashed in his car. We would’ve liked to discuss these views and more, but he was alone among local candidates in declining to return our calls. So we’re left with lines like this from a speech to the Constitution Party, “How long will we continue to beg like dogs only to be satisfied with a few scraps from the king’s table?” Shea supported Constitution Party candidate Randall Yearout rather than Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in the 5th District congressional primary. His desire for states to unilaterally nullify federal laws shows he’s a fringe thinker. To borrow a phrase, he’s a Republican in name only/Spokesman-Revew Editorial Board. More here. (Rep. Matt Shea, 2nd from left, with Idaho Reps. Phil Hart, left, and Vito Barbieri, right, at Ron Paul rally in Spokane earlier this year.)

Question: Izzit just me, or does Shea sound as thought he'd fit in perfectly in Idaho's Legislative District 2 or 3?

The tipster called me midday Friday with two eye-popping political developments, namely that 4th District state legislative candidate Amy Biviano appeared topless in a 1995 Playboy magazine spread. Five words immediately came to mind. “Well, it’s about damned time!” (Contractions don’t count.) See, I’ve been around politics a long time. And the mantra of every politician is that they have “absolutely nothing to hide.” Which always turns out to be an utter falsehood when candidate so-and-so is found to be heavy into cross-dressing or addicted to toilet stall sex in airport men’s rooms. And those are just Republicans. So this is the first time in my recollection that a candidate really does have NOTHING TO HIDE!/Doug Clark, SR. More here. And: Previous thread: Topless photo? confidence building

Other SR weekend columns:

• George Will: Presidential debates dumb, but expected/Editor Gary Graham
• Spin Control: Times political ads might not be money well spent/Jim Camden
• The Slice: Classic tale of 2 viewpoints/Paul Turner
• Eye on Boise: Education reform opposition slams propositions/Betsy Russell
• 3-step plan to eliminate scourge of political malarkey/Shawn Vestal
• Smart Bombs: Fair pay skirts the bind/Gary Crooks
• Eastern's two-QB system works wonders/John Blanchette
• Outdoors: Fish survey not linked to liberalized limits/Rich Landers

Question: If you had the right stuff to pose for Playboy/Playgirl, would you?

Matt Shea – the Road Rage Republican running for re-election in Spokane Valley – has his knickers in a knot over his opponent’s supposedly dirty campaign tactics. Or in other words … “Hello, Kettle. Pot calling.” You know, I was really bummed a few months ago. Spokane’s perennial loser candidate Barb Lampert said she wouldn’t be running for office. It was unimaginable. We were about to have the first Lampert-free ballot since the forming of the League of Nations. Prayer seemed like the only option. Is anyone out there, I beseeched the heavens, who could fill the insanity void left by a Barbless election? The heavens answered, and along came Rep. Matt Dillon, I mean Rep. Matt Shea. Sorry for the confusion. I sometimes have to remind myself. Matt Dillon was the pistol-packing marshal on the old “Gunsmoke” TV show. Shea’s that pistol-packing pickup driver who pulled his gat during a road rage incident with another motorist last November in downtown Spokane/Doug Clark, SR. More here.

Question: Which legislators or legislative candidates in North Idaho amuse you more than the others?

Not shockingly, the Democrat challenging state Rep. Matt Shea's reelection bid made it extremely clear this week that she will highlight Shea's charge for carrying a loaded weapon in his pickup without a concealed weapons permit in the fall campaign. 

Amy Biviano's campaign mailed ads to voters this week that include the bold, red, all-caps headline: “lawmakers should not be law breakers.”

Both sides have at times misrepresented what's in the police reports about the road rage incident, so we present the police report, as provided to The Spokesman-Review through a public records request.

Documents:

It may have started as a joke but the controversial photo of state Rep. Matt Shea standing on his Democratic challenger’s property has become a political hot potato for Republicans.

The chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, who was characterized in The Spokesman-Review and other media last week as backing Shea’s decision to post the photo to his Facebook page, now says his position was misunderstood and that he’d actually been trying to persuade Shea to remove the photo.

“It is an extremely minor issue that has come to the forefront of the campaign,” Matthew Pederson said Monday.

Pederson said he asked Shea, a Republican from Spokane Valley seeking his third term in the state House, to remove the photo on Aug. 10. It was still posted on Monday.

Last week, Pederson called Democratic hopeful Amy Biviano’s request that the photo of Shea standing in the driveway of her Spokane Valley home be removed from the Internet an attempt to avoid addressing the important issues facing the state.

“I did try to return a call to Amy last week. She did not respond,” Pederson said in the statement he issued on the dustup last week. “This looks like a fabricated issue following a poor primary performance. Elected officials should be door belling all precincts in their district and that will include their opponent's precinct.”

Pederson said he now wants to correct the mischaracterization of him standing behind Shea’s posting of the photo.

He said Monday that he’d told The Spokesman-Review last week that he’d asked Shea to pull the photo off of Facebook but that it was during a cell phone call with a reporter in which reception was so poor that the reporter had asked him to try calling back. Pederson later sent the prepared statement instead that included no mention of his efforts to get the photo removed from the Internet.

Asked Monday why he asked Shea to remove the photo when he felt it was a “fabricated issue,” Pederson said Biviano is exaggerating safety concerns she has based on her husband’s former job as a federal deputy prosecutor. The photo was taken while Shea was door-belling the neighborhood where Biviano lives and came across his opponent's home.

“It could be construed as immature at best, but to say that it’s intimidating is just a stretch of the campaign narrative,” Pederson said Monday.

The chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party is standing behind state Rep. Matt Shea’s decision to post a picture of himself standing on his election opponent’s property on Facebook.

But Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, a Republican, says he wishes Shea would have pulled the picture at Biviano’s request.

Shea, a Republican from Spokane Valley, posted a picture of himself standing in front of the home of Democrat Amy Biviano on Aug. 4. Along with the picture of himself in her driveway, he wrote that he was doorbelling in the area and wanted to welcome the precinct to his district. The neighborhood was placed into the 4th Legislative District as part of the state’s redistricting in response to the 2010 Census.

Spokane Valley Rep. Matt Shea must be feeling pretty low about “the media.” Shea — the same guy who pulled a gun on another driver in an apparent road rage incident and took photos of himself standing in his opponent's driveway — has blocked multiple reporters from following his Twitter account. Arts Editor Mike Bookey and reporters Daniel Walters, Chris Stein and myself have all been shunned from following or communicating with Shea on Twitter. Seriously, what did @Bookeyblender ever do to Shea? But it's not just us. Spokesman-Review columnist Shawn Vestal also says he's been blocked — and that Shea posted correspondence with Vestal to the legislator's blog. The Twitter blocking is only the latest talk-to-the-hand by the conservative legislator. He hasn't responded to a request for comment by The Inlander on any story we've called him for in 2012. (Daniel Walters did, however, speak to him in person during a February Ron Paul event)/Joe O'Sullivan, Pacific Northwest Inlander. More here. (Phantom Photographer photo from Ron Paul rally in Spokane this winter: Phil Hart, Matt Shea, Paul staffer and Vito Barbieri)

Question: Do you think this guy would fit in well as a representative for Kootenai County's 2nd Legislative District (Hart, Barbieri & Vick)?

State Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, is refusing to remove a picture of his election opponent's home from his Facebook page.

Amy Biviano, the Democrat who is challenging Shea's election bid, said Friday that she left voicemails with Shea and with Spokane County Republican Party Chairman Matthew Pederson requesting that the photo be pulled but hasn't received a call back. She said she and others also have posted comments on Shea's Facebook page asking that the photo (left) be removed, but those comments have been deleted.

Late last week Shea posted the picture of himself standing on Biviano's property along with the comment: “I wanted to give a special thanks to all of those in the newest 4th District Precinct ….Thank you all for the overwhelming show of support, what a great neighborhood! Oh…and that's my opponent's house in the background. =)”

His post listed the intersection near where she lives.

For candidates in a two-person primary like Republican Matt Shea and Democrat Amy Biviano, this week's election gives them a snapshot of how they are doing right now with voters.

This map shows the precincts that each won, and demonstrates that Shea piled up larger margins of victory in many of his precincts.

For a closer look, check out the PDF.

Documents:

Posing at the Ron Paul visit to Spokane during his presidential campaign earlier this month, are Idaho Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, Spokane Valley legislator Matt Shea, a Paul campaign aide, and Idaho. Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens. Shea has been charged with weapons violations in an alleged road raid incident.

Nothing says “Welcome back from vacation, Doug” like a Road Rage Republican. So thanks to whoever gifted the newspaper with court documents about the firearms violations that were issued to Matt Shea after the Spokane Valley legislator’s dustup with another driver last November. Yeah, I realize this hubbub’s a bit long in the tooth. But you learn to settle for whatever you can get in this game. The sad truth is that we’ve been in a dry spell as far as ill-behaving politicians go. It’s a cyclical thing, I believe. A few years ago, for example, we were up to our fedora feather in GOP cross-dressers, toilet stall toe-tappers and city council psychos. It was a glorious time to be a columnist. Then something really disturbing happened: Many of our elected officials started behaving responsibly. Too many, if you ask me/Doug Clark, SR. More here.

Thoughts?

Some readers of Sunday's story about Matt Shea's continuance of a charge of having a loaded handgun in his pickup without a valid concealed weapon permit, which stemmed from a “road rage” incident, have wondered why the story appeared now rather than in November when the incident occured, December when the charge was filed or January when the continuance was signed.

The answer is simple: We didn't know about it until Friday, when copies of documents were delivered to the newsroom in Spokane.

The news media is not given access to the daily police incident reports, like the one that was filed on this case on Nov. 25. We do receive daily reports from Municipal Court for our Official Records column, but only those convictions that result in jail time or a fine of $500 or more. This case was given a “Stipulated Order of Continuance” until next January, which means there will be no conviction if he doesn't have another criminal charge by then.

Because they are court records, they likely would have turned up  in the routine court checks we do for all candidates. But because Rep. Shea is in a primary with only one opponent, Democrat Amy Biviano, and both will advance to the general election regardless of the primary results, we have been concentrating on candidates in contested primaries at this point.

The documents arrived Friday. We checked Municipal Court records to verify they were authentic, and contacted Rep. Shea for a comment that afternoon, and held the story until he responded. Late Friday night, he directed us to his attorney, Bob Cossey, who we were unable to talk to until late Saturday afternoon and add them to the story, which then ran Sunday.

For readers who want more information about the documents, we're posting them here. Newspaper policy is to redact personal information, such as addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, and I've done that with these documents.

To read Sunday's story, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.

Documents:

Mark Richard announces he won’t seek 3rd term

Former City Councilman Bob Apple and former KREM-TV weatherman Daryl Romeyn are contemplating bids for Spokane County Commission.

Both would run for the seat held by Republican Commissioner Mark Richard. He announced last weekthat he would not seek a third term. Republican Shelly O'Quinn, who works for Greater Spokane Inc., immediately announced her candidacy and earned the endorsements of all three county commissioners.

Apple said on Monday that he is talking to Democrats about running. He ran as a Democrat for state House in 2010 but the party declined to endorse him. He said he would consider running as an independent if the party is not open to his candidacy.

Apple said his bid is dependent on the amount of support he gets before the May 18 filing deadline.

Romeyn appears more certain about running.

“I do plan to run, but it's not in stone,” he said Tuesday.

Romeyn, a former weatherman who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2010, owns a farm in Greenacres. He also owns Green Acres Grown, which sells dried fruits to area grocery stores in the bulk section.

He said he would run as a Democrat, and his top two issues are cutting property taxes and preserving open space.

“That's our biggest problem — getting our property taxes down,” Romeyn said. 

OLYMPIA – With all the examples of disharmony in the Legislature, it’s nice to tell a tale of folks with different agendas finding common ground and working together.

Although it doesn’t involve such high-profile issues as taxes or budgets or gay marriage or abortion, there is such a tale with two sides as diametrically opposed as Puget Sound liberals and Eastern Washington conservatives or the state Labor Council and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

The issue involves off-road vehicles, also known as four-wheel all-terrain vehicles or off-highway vehicles. In one corner, we have the people who love to ride them, wherever they can; in the other, we have the people who want them ridden less, in fewer places, with more controls.

Put another way, we have on one side people who believe in their God-given right to enjoy the outdoors and regard their opponents as tree-hugging, whiny busy-bodies. On the other, we have people who believe it’s their life’s mission to protect the environment against loud louts and their fume-spewing machines.

One might expect them to reach a meeting of the minds about as often as Planned Parenthood and the Catholic bishops. . .

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, go inside the blog

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. rally Friday evening at the Spokane Convention Center, and is picking up endorsements in and around Spokane.

State Rep. Matt Shea, Spokane County Treasurer Rob Chase, and Republican Central Committeemembers John Christina of Spokane and Karen Skoog of Elk all endorsed Paul, the campaign announced today.

Many of those endorsements come as  no surprise. Chase, like Paul, was once a Libertarian candidate; he became active in the Paul campaign in 2008 and was part of the Texas congressman's delegation that helped shape the Spokane County GOP platform.

Shea, R-Spokane Valley, shares many of Paul's views on state's rights, limited government and less spending. He was among legislators who met with GOP contender Rick Santorum on Monday, when the former Pennsylvania senator was in Olympia. Shea was complimentary of Santorum but said he wasn't endorsing him, adding he thought the Spokane Valley's 4th Legislative District would probably split between Santorum and Paul.

Christina was an alternate delegate to the 2008 convention for Paul.

Paul's visit is the latest sign of the increasing interest Washington and Idaho are drawing this year, as the GOP nomination contest continues with four candidates. Santorum was in Washington on Monday and Idaho on Tuesday.

Mitt Romney is scheduled for a fundraiser in Seattle on March 1, and either Romney or one of his family members may be in Spokane before the March 3 caucuses.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has no campaign events scheduled in the region at this time. “Stay tuned,” campaign spokesman Lew Moore said. Gingrich does expect to make a stop in Washington, and the campaign would like to have him visit both sides of the state, Moore added.

OLYMPIA – Republican leaders in the Legislature have been uniformly critical of the same-sex marriage bills as the proposals worked their way through the two chambers on what can only be described as the fast track.


An issue like this generates lots of buzz, both for and against, captures attention inside and outside the state, and – in a phrase that risks becoming overused – “sucks up all the oxygen.”

In floor debates, few opponents of the bill who objected to the change for religious reasons failed to mention that the Legislature should be doing the important work of fixing the budget rather than tinkering with a social construct that went back at least to time immemorial . . .

To read the rest of this column, or to comment, go inside the blog.
  

OLYMPIA — By a single vote, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill to allow same-sex marriage in Washington, turning down a pair of amendments by a Spokane Valley legislator.

Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, argued that all business owners with a religious objection to same-sex marriage should be given protection from any civil suit for refusing to participate. That would be in keeping with the state constitution's guarantee of “absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment,” he said.

Without it, “private businesses will be subjected to massive new lawsuits,” Shea said.

But Judiciary Committee Chairman Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, said such concerns were raised years ago when the state first began considering anti-discrimination protections for sexual orientation and didn't materialize: “We don't have any evidence of any abuse.”

Shea also proposed changing the bill to require couples getting married be residents of the state for at least six months. He said he was open to a lower time limit, but one should be placed in the law because “we don't want people abusing our marriage laws here in the state.” The provision would cover all marriages, not just those involving same-sex couples.

But Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood, said residency requirements “don't work in ther real world.” It would put restrictions on all couples in which one is from out of state, and members of the military “would have a very difficult time meeting that requirement,” she said.

The committee also rejected an effort to place the law on the November ballot through a referendum.

After all three amendments were rejected on voice votes, the bill itself passed 7-6 on a party-line vote.

OLYMPIA – After tying the Legislature in knots for much of the last three months, changes to the state’s century-old workers compensation sped through both houses Monday with comfortable margins. It passed the House 69-26, and the Senate 35-12.
The changes, which also have the support of Gov. Chris Gregoire and should soon become law, are projected to save the disability system some $1.1 billion over the next four years and stave off double digit rate increases for businesses.
To read the rest of Tuesday's print edition story, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.

OLYMPIA — A key piece to the puzzle of making changes to the state's workers compensation system came from Rep. Matt Shea, who suggested negotiators drop the idea of “lump sum” payments in favor of structured settlements.

Shea, R-Spokane Valley, suggested a system that is more common in settlements over tort claims, or lawsuits involving damages. Rather than giving an injured worker the full amount of any agreed payment all at once, the state could give workers the money over time through a structure set by statute.

Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, complimented Shea during floor debate on the bill and explained later in a prepared statement the suggestion became a key to negotiations because House Speaker Frank Chopp had refused to consider lump-sum agreements that were included in other bills. “It's an innovative suggestion that gained acceptance among negotiators and it was a key piece of the puzzle that allowed us to move forward on needed workers compensation reform.”

Shea, an attorney, said he talked with other attorneys and labor representatives about the concerns with lump sum settlements, that some workers wouldn't have money left for later. He suggested a system used in damage lawsuits that pays out a settlement over time. “The governor accepted the idea and it was written into the agreed conference legislation.”

OLYMPIA — Police could not park their unmarked cars on private property and do routine administrative work under a bill introduced by two Valley legislators.

The bill, a reaction to the shooting of Pastor Wayne Scott Creach in the Spokane Valley, isn't likely to get a hearing in what's left of the special session. But Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, said he wanted to get a conversation started on the issue and have law enforcement raise their concerns during the interim. He expects to reintroduce a bill on the topic in the 2012 session.

The special session, which today finished the 15th day of the 30-day session, was called to finish work on the 2011-13 budgets and any legislation needed to implement those spending plans. Bills that aren't tied to the budget require agreement of both parties' leaders in both chambers to come to a vote.

OLYMPIA – Three dozen legislators are taking the Washington State Patrol to task for sending a letter to gun dealers that they fear is an unconstitutional “fishing expedition.”
The patrol, which is searching for one of its semiautomatic rifles that might be stolen, concedes the letter from an investigator “was not as well worded as it should be,” WSP spokesman Bob Calkins said. “We touched a never we had no intention of touching”. . .

To read the rest of this post, or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.