The bill to impose a state income tax on capital gains is now moving through the Washington State Senate and there could be a floor vote of the full chamber in the next few days.  If SB 5096 passes the Senate, the Democrat-controlled House is expected to quickly pass the unconstitutional tax measure before the public starts paying attention.  This will certainly force a challenge in the courts, where Democrat lawmakers expect the liberal Washington State Supreme Court to ignore all evidence and previous court decisions that this is an unconstitutional tax (since the Washington State Constitution prohibits an income tax).  The Democrats are so afraid of the public backlash to creating a state income tax that they included in the bill a phony “emergency” clause, which forbids citizens from mounting a referendum campaign to stop the bill from becoming law. The Democrats justify this false “emergency” by claiming the funds are needed to provide COVID-19 related relief – which, of course, is false because the funds will not be even collected for another 2 years.  A new petition has been started by opponents of this unconstitutional income tax.  Those who sign the petition are stating that they do not want an unconstitutional income tax created in Washington State, and that they are upset with the Democrats for removing the citizens’ right to repeal the tax through the referendum process. (Washington Policy Center, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and Keep Washington Income Tax Free Petition)

We Could not help but comment on the quote regarding the slightly altered state income tax on capital gains made by Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins.  The Speaker said, “Capital gains (income tax) is something we’ve wanted a long time. I actually think we may very well be OK with it. I’m also confident the courts will uphold it.” Shift has often stated that the Democrats have wanted the state income tax for a long time.  Taxing people’s incomes is how the liberals plan to fund their never-ending expansion of state government. The Democrats are clearly concerned about how Washingtonians will respond to the latest effort to grab their income, because instead of calling it an “income tax,” the Democrats claim it is an “excise tax on capital gains”.  And Jinkins quote about the Supreme Court is also telling.  Have the Democrats already received assurance from court members that they will approve this clearly unconstitutional tax even before arguments have been made?  Also of significance in the short article by Everett Herald reporter Jerry Cornfield is the fact that Governor Inslee has been sidelined by members of his own party, so that he was unaware of changes in the most significant piece of legislation that will be debated during the 2021 legislative session. But then, Inslee is seemingly often unaware of the reality around him. (Cornfield Report)

A small group of computer techies quickly developed an application which to scans hundreds of websites so that Washington residents can go to one place to find available COVID-19 vaccination appointments – something the Inslee Administration did not find important enough to work on in the 10 months it’s been “planning”.  One of the many problems with the state-run vaccination program has been the inability of eligible recipients to find an appointment.  More than 300 different outlets are offering vaccinations, but it is difficult to find which ones have appointments available without continually checking all the sites – and this is especially challenging for less tech-savvy seniors.  Because of the failure of the Inslee Administration to manage a working scheduling process, a few techies developed in one weekend the covidwa.com website, which scans all available scheduling sites for appointments.  Since the columnist who wrote about this does not want to blame Jay Inslee for his obvious incompetence, he instead asked the site developer, George Hu, if the state could have had something similar set up prior to vaccinations being delivered to the state.  Hu responded, “I certainly wonder why someone wasn’t also figuring out during that time what we were going to do once the FedEx plane carrying the vaccines landed in our state.” Many Washington State residents have been asking the exact same question. But Jay Inslee never asked that question, as he was far too busy trying to get a job in a prospective Biden administration to actually do his actual job. (Seattle Times and CovidWA.com)

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 6,000 Washington State students have switched to online public schools, an option which has been available in the state for nearly 20 years.  Traditional public schools continue to have difficulties teaching students online, and the teachers’ unions continue to blockade in-person instruction, leading more parents to online public schools with a proven track record for distance learning.  These schools are managed by private companies, which contracts with an individual school district to operate its distance learning programs.  Students from anywhere in the state can enroll with that school district to receive their education, with the schools requiring the participation of an adult in the day-to-day education of their student. The parent works with a certified teacher, who controls the assignments and the grading of the students.  Even though teachers union members are employed in these online schools, the unions do not support them because each teacher works with more students than in a traditional brick-and-mortar school, which means fewer teachers are employed, and thus less dues money collected is by the unions to give to Democrat lawmakers. (Seattle Times)

In a statement that has frustrated many retailers and workers, Governor Inslee said that his administration has “not identified” what is necessary for the state to move forward to Phase 3, and what restrictions might be lifted to allow their survival.  While many restaurants and bars are relieved to be able to serve customers – even at 25% capacity – under Phase 2, that restriction will not allow them to hire back many of their workers or make a profit. Beyond businesses, many local health officials have also asked that they be consulted about what “Phase 3 will look like,” so that we don’t have the ongoing disaster of Jay Inslee making the decisions on his own. Unfortunately, history shows that the Inslee Administration will continue to ignore the advice and concerns of local authorities. (KXLY and Yakima Herald)

The Democrats’ proposal to attract more impaired voters to their party, by legalizing “personal use amounts” of drugs like heroin and cocaine, barely passed the House Public Safety Committee.  Supporters say that HB 1499 would decriminalize the act of possessing a small amount of the drugs, and also expand intervention, treatment, and recovery services for those with substance use disorder.  Amendments to remove the portions of the bill that legalized possessing the drugs, but kept the expansion of treatment services intact, were defeated by Democrat legislators. (Seattle P-I and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

Was the Seattle Times acting on behalf of the Democrat party when it chose to run and then market a story about frivolous ethics charges filed against Republican legislators, or was it because the phony complaints were made by a Black Lives Matter organization?  It’s pretty clear from the story that the charges were filed because the Republican legislators had the audacity to ask the activists’ questions during their public testimony on police reform and gun control bills.  That’s right, these legislators were actually representing their constituents, and using questions to point out their disagreement with the bills in question. Even worse for those interested in fair journalism, the Times went out of its way attempting to make the legislators look bad, but the story contains no actual hint of evidence of the Republicans asking questions that were any different than any legislator would ask a witness they might disagree with.  After walking through the usual Democrat talking points of “Republicans are all racist”, the Times reporter admits at the end of the story, “Though many ethics complaints get filed, they rarely result in action.” So, if this phony complaint is unlikely to “result in action”, then why is the Times featuring the story? We look forward to the Times doing the same type of reporting when a member of a conservative group files a complaint against a Democrat legislator simply because they were sad after being asked a question during public testimony.  Also…if the Republicans asking legitimate questions of witnesses is treated in this way, why wasn’t Democrat Representative Noel Frame’s action of shutting off the microphone of a woman of color (Kshama Sawant) during her testimony last week also treated by the Times as a racist act? (Seattle Times and TVW)

We found more of the Seattle Times’ liberal bias in full effect on its story that QFC will be closing two of its locations thanks to the Seattle City Council imposing a $4-an-hour wage increase on grocery store employees as “hazard pay” during the pandemic.  The Times strongly implies that the grocery chain is acting in bad faith, since it was planning to close these locations for a long time, and is using the government-imposed wage hike as an excuse.  What is the Seattle Times’ source for this storyline?  An 82-year-old shopper.  The Times uses her quote, “Their plans have been to close down long before COVID,” as the basis for this liberal narrative that the closure is unrelated to the city council overstepping its authority and imposing this random wage hike on grocery stores (while the city council also cuts funding for its police officers who face greater COVID-19 exposure risks). Apparently, this woman is privy to the inner workings of the grocery chain’s store strategy. For a more balanced report, in which QFC executives are asked some tough questions, we encourage people to view Q13’s Brandi Kruse’s story on the closures. (Seattle Times and Q13 News)

The Mercer Island City Council voted 6 to 1 to extend its current ban on “homeless camping” in parks to cover all public property in the city.  The police department admits that there have been very few incidents of people sleeping in cars.  Many see this move as a preventative move to ensure the city does not develop an uncontrollable homeless situation like Seattle. (KOMO News)

The Washington Farm Bureau and the Washington Farm Labor Association have filed a lawsuit against the State of Washington for continuing to use emergency COVID-19 related regulations instead of going through the normal procedure to set guidelines.  The suit claims that many of the current regulations are not fair or reasonable.  As has been expressed by many industries, agriculture representatives have been frustrated by the Inslee Administration’s reluctance to work with those who operate farms to develop realistic guidelines that keep employees safe, yet allow work to continue. (Pacific Northwest AG Network)

Many Tri-City area restaurants were able to quickly prepare their operations to reopen their business at 25% capacity.  While most regions of the state were given a few days’ notice that their establishments could resume serving customers indoors, those in the South Central region were given less than 24 hours.  State health officials had originally used faulty data from one hospital to keep businesses closed throughout the region.  When local officials brought this error to the Governors’ attention over the weekend, the state recalculated the figures and allowed the region to advance to Phase 2. (Tri-City Herald)

Governor Inslee likes to argue that his policies have kept the state’s COVID-19 death rates low, but he conveniently ignores the fact that Washington State began the pandemic with a younger and more healthy population, the far more likely reason for the state’s lower mortality rate than Inslee’s random “emergency orders”.  COVID-19 is more fatal to those over 65 and those with existing respiratory problems – two classes of people which Washington State has a smaller population of than other states.  While the governor claims his numerous error-filled actions (including a failed contact tracing effort and a disastrous vaccination plan) are the reasons for fewer COVID-19 related deaths in Washington, the health and the age of the state’s population are a more significant contributor to fewer deaths. But, the governor cannot take credit for that, so he hopes you will ignore it.  (Click to read the full Shift Article)

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