Governor Jay Inslee has once again insulted the intelligence of Washington citizens and demonstrated he is unsympathetic to the pain his administration continues to needlessly cause. Finally reemerging in public – a week after he forced an appointee to publicly confirm that the Inslee administration was responsible for one of the greatest losses of public funds in American history – the governor was asked if he stood behind his embattled Employment Security Department (ESD) Commissioner Suzi LeVine (whose primary qualification for the job was she had been quite a Democrat fundraiser).  The governor thought he was clever when he avoided the serious question by giving this obviously well-rehearsed response, “What I stand against is the moral outrage of this international conspiracy that turned the virus of COVID into the virus of crime.” Thus, Inslee chose to be flippant and take absolutely no responsibility for the failure of his administration to protect tax dollars meant to assist people who suddenly lost their wages. Governor Inslee appears most concerned about his political standing, even while thousands of Washington residents are avoiding phone calls from creditors as they stand in line at food banks, and is hoping people ignore that his ESD failed to deliver promised financial relief.  As Brandi Kruse tweeted, “This is where the ability to ask a follow up would have been handy.” (Jim Brunner Twitter)

The lack of real “science” in Governor Inslee’s decisions is the focus of a Wall Street Journal article. Utilizing the rhetorical clichés he has used to promote his failed environmental agenda for the last decade, the governor says he bases his coronavirus decisions on “science”.  But, of course, he fails to provide the actual scientific data behind his choices – most likely because there is no science behind his partisan decisions. The article accurately points out that the infamous dashboard dials Inslee produced provide “no indication of how each is calculated or where the dials need to be to begin the various phases of reopening.” (Wall Street Journal)

After the Employment Security Department scam that costs state taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars,” many state Democrat lawmakers first concern was about themselves.  Following the data screw-up revelation, Senator Sam Hunt (D-Olympia), powerful Chairman of the Senate’s State Government, Tribal Relations, and Elections Committee, jumped into the kind of action one might expect from a politician who serves himself before the public. Senator Hunt sent an email to the Public Disclosure Commission saying, “Stop online posting of F1 data.”  F1 forms are public documents which allow citizens to know the approximate financial holdings of public officials, to provide some sunshine on possible conflicts of interest. Even though the F1 data provides no financial account numbers or social security numbers, the PDC immediately knuckled under to the politician that controls their budget and removed the forms from public view.  Makes you wonder who the watchdogs think they are supposed to be watching over, if not powerful professional politicians who like to keep things in the dark. (NW News Network)

Well-respected University of Washington Professor Cliff Mass writes that how state officials are conducting COVID-19 tests – only on those who asked to be tested – is not exactly scientific: “Washington State is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in ignorance.”  Professor Mass states that, due to the lack of random testing, “We are driving blind…and our state leadership doesn’t seem to understand what needs to be done.” While other states are successfully employing random testing, Mass believes, “Our state leadership is throwing away a tremendous opportunity to defeat the virus.” (Cliff Mass Blog)

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industry announced it will fine businesses and employers more than $10,000 if they defy Governor Inslee’s orders.   While the state is doing absolutely nothing to force tribal casinos to stop defying Inslee’s orders allowing thousands to gather and gamble, the state is applying different standards to non-tribal small businesses who want to safely open their business to far fewer customers.  Consider that Jay Inslee and Democrat legislators recently gave the state’s tribes the monopoly on the extremely profitable sports gambling business, while forbidding non-tribal businesses to participate.  And consider that Inslee has already accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from tribal governments for his campaigns.  Thus, instead of condemning the opening of the casinos while neighboring non-tribal businesses are laying off employees and facing bankruptcy, the governor reacted to the opening of casinos by stating, “I hope that they are very, very successful.” (News Tribune, Public Disclosure Commission, and Seattle Times)

Tacoma School District officials admit that the coronavirus outbreak has had only a small impact of school revenues, yet they expect to have a $7 million dollar shortfall for the 2019-2020 school year.  A little math here. Salaries make up 85% of the district’s budget.  After a seven-day illegal strike in 2018, teachers received a 14.4% raise.  That meant the district faced a $30 million deficit last year, forcing reductions in educational programs.  (News Tribune)

Snohomish County health officials are preparing to ask the state for permission to move to Phase II in its economic recovery. The county, which originally was thought to be the home of the country’s first known coronavirus patient, will seek approval from its Board of health and County Council before making the appeal to the governor.  If Inslee denies the application, many residents will be upset that he has done nothing to stop the county’s Angel of the Winds Casino and Tulalip Resort Casino to draw thousands, while nearby small businesses are not allowed to return workers to their payrolls. (Everett Herald)

The Babylon Bee has fun at the Seattle Mariners’ expense. The satirical website (which all of us at Shift thoroughly enjoy) poked fun at our region’s loveable, yet win-challenged Major League Baseball team for not having a losing record going into June.  The amusing article states, “managers, players, and fans are all very excited with the current record of 0-0.” (Babylon Bee)

Seattle’s anti-car liberals have a great post-COVID idea: let’s pave over a city golf course! It often seems like the far-lefties running our state’s largest city have a well-defined anti-car (and even anti-people) political agenda.  The latest example of liberal wackiness is the suggestion from folks at The Urbanist, who propose destroying the city-owned Jackson Park Golf Course. Their proposed solution is to turn what is now defined as a city park into a car-free urban village.  The story relies on data from 2014 to show that golf is too male-and-Caucasian-dominated to be worthy of public space in the city. But that’s likely enough for likely mayoral candidate Teresa Mosqueda, who The Urbanist notes has “brilliantly proposed leveraging surplus public properties for dense affordable housing.” Will she pick up this nutty idea to add to her campaign platform? (The Urbanist)

The Seattle City Council asks why tents should ever be removed from city property. Evidently the most important issue facing the Emerald City, now that the council has decided to follow state guidelines and not consider raising taxes on businesses throughout Seattle, is to make it easier for people to pitch a tent in the city. That’s why the city council heard two hours of public comments on “An emergency city council bill to restrict homeless encampment removals.” Councilmember Tammy Morales proposed the legislation because she does not want homeowners and businesses to be able to ask that homeless encampments be removed from city sidewalks, parks, etc., unless the homeless people there “are active health threats (excluding the transmission of communicable diseases like COVID-19).” Let that sink in – the council wants to exclude coronavirus health concerns from being a reason to clean up a tent city.  However, sanity may yet prevail, as the “council declined to take action on the legislation at the end of Wednesday’s 5 1/2-hour meeting and planned to pick it up again at a committee meeting June 10.” (Seattle Times)

State economists project the budget will be bad, very bad. The state will formally make its next revenue report public on June 17, but it provided a little advance notice of what to expect with its preliminary money projection – and the news in not good. A few “highlights”: “We now expect (the state’s) Real GDP to decline 5.8% in 2020.” Additionally, like we hadn’t been paying as much attention as Nigerian scammers, “The decline in Washington employment in April was unprecedented in its depth and speed…Washington’s unemployment rate soared to 15.4% in April from 5.1% in March and 3.8% in February. The April rate was an all-time high in the series that dates back to 1976. The February unemployment rate was an all-time low.” However, the state’s economists did leave us with some better news: “We expect above-average growth through the remainder of the forecast as the economy recovers from this deep recession. We expect employment growth to average 4.1% per year in 2021 through 2025.” (Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council and Shift)

A Facebook post from a Wenatchee businessman has been shared by thousands, as it accurately articulates the emotions he and many others are experiencing due to the decisions Governor Inslee is making during the coronavirus outbreak. Shon Smith talks about the destruction of a business he has “painstakingly built 7-days a week for the last 24 years” and the 2 loans he has taken attempting to keep it open. He spoke about the harsh reality of laying off “all 63 employees that have families, mortgages, rents, diapers, food and the list goes on.” When Governor Inslee attempted in his interview with Brandi Kruse to dismiss the concerns of hundreds of thousands Washington residents by saying they all want to see everyone over 60 die, he is insulting the hard-working businesspeople and employers like Mr. Smith. And, Inslee does not care. (Facebook and Q13’s The Divide)

It takes an Eastern Washington legislator to remind us that COVID impacts will be around for awhile, as “Everybody likes to eat.”  Liberals on the West side of the state often take our state’s agricultural community for granted, as we’ve seen in the extreme environmentalists’ desire to rip out the Lower Snake River Dams that our farmers depend on to get their crops to market. Now, State Representative Mary Dye is sounding a warning about coronavirus impacts that will last beyond whatever phase Jay Inslee has us in today, as ““Everybody likes to eat, and it’s important that we keep the food supply robust and the distribution chains working, the supply chains working, so we can recover from this horrible pandemic sooner.” (Washington AG Network)

Visit Spokane estimates the region lost $21 million in tourism revenue as more than 35 major conventions were canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.  This resulted in 30,000 hotel rooms that were previously booked being vacated.  This does not include other events, such as the NCCAA Basketball tournament, that were booked by other organizations. (Spokesman-Review)

Democrat congressional candidate Carolyn Long is so desperate to have an outside source validate her very thin resume that she is willing to falsely attribute a quote about herself to a newspaper.  In a fundraising email, her campaign used the logo of the Longview Daily News above an affirmative quote about Long, to make it appear the newspaper had made the positive comment about the Third Congressional District candidate.  Problem is, by searching the quote on the paper’s website, we found the quote it did not come from the newspaper’s employees. Rather, the quote is pulled from an obvious campaign-driven letter to the editor from campaign volunteers Patricia and Michael Downey.  We trust that when the Daily News deliberates on who they will endorse between Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler and Carolyn Long they will remember that one candidate falsely attributed a quote to their publication to promote herself.  As her quote says, “Imagine what she can achieve when she becomes our elected official.” (Long Campaign’s Fundraising email and The Daily News’ Letters to the Editor)

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