Extremists spent a bunch of labor money during the 2021 election in order to buy elections to turn the City of SeaTac into Seattle 2.0.  Liberal/socialist policies have been so successful in bringing Seattle rampant homelessness, skyrocketing crime rates, and forcing small and big employers to move their jobs to other locations, so progressive activists wanted to spread these “gifts” to nearby communities and, unfortunately for the nearly 30,000 residents of SeaTac, their city was the first target.  Using government employee union money, the extremists bought three SeaTac City Council seats and (based on a glowing Seattle Times feature) are hoping to impose their failed policies, and experiment with a few more radical ideas, on SeaTac citizens. We can only hope that, two years from now, SeaTac voters will see through the liberal talking points and restore sanity to a city that had been on the economic mend with responsible leadership before the election. (Click to read full Shift article)

School’s out: Turns out plenty of parents learned that public schools were out as an option for their kids during the pandemic, and that’s going to be an expensive lesson for the state.  The state’s own data reveals that “Collectively, school districts will lose about $500 million in state funding in the next budget.” Of course, the state’s overmatched Superintendent of Public Schools Chris Reykdal is counting on a bailout from federal taxpayer dollars to cover the schools’ losses in the next budget, instead of addressing the real problem – the union monopoly over how the state’s public schools are run has driven students (and their parents) away, as they became increasingly aware during COVID lockdowns of the Left’s focus on political correctness instead of quality education. Of course, those students have to go somewhere, and according to the story, thousands are finding the solution is close by, as “the state’s home-schooled population has ballooned, nearly doubling in size during the first full school year of the pandemic, 2020-21.” (iFIBER One)

Since he wants to know if you’ve been sleeping (or vaccinated), the Washington State Republican Party has brought back its popular Governor Jay Inslee “window clings”  The party first offered these novelty items during the 2020 holiday season, and since the governor continues to impose even more “emergency” mandates a year later, the party has received many requests to make the Inslee clings available again.  A single cling can be purchased with a $10 donation (or two for $15) to the state party’s fund to elect more Republicans to the legislature in 2022. (Washington State Republican Party)

Republican state Senator Keith Wagoner (R – Sedro Woolley) announced that he is running to become Washington’s next Secretary of State.  Senator Wagoner will be running against current Democrat Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, who was appointed last month by Governor Inslee to replace Secretary Kim Wyman (who accepted a position in the federal Homeland Security Department to oversee election security).  Governor Inslee appointed former Democrat Senator Hobbs to the position – though Washington voters had elected a Republicans to the position since 1964 — not because the Lake Stevens lawmaker was well-qualified, but because it enabled the governor to remove a member from the State Senate Democrat’s very liberal caucus who didn’t always go along with whatever Inslee told him. The rest of the Democrat caucus, which is controlled by ultra-liberal Seattle members, can be counted on to rubber stamp any large tax increase, or increase the size of government, or ineffective environmental proposal made by liberal special interest groups.

Senator Wagoner is in his second term in the legislature, and is a former mayor and city councilmember of Sedro Woolley. He served 23 years as a Navy pilot after he graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Wagoner said the many problems associated with one-party control of the state is one of the primary reasons why he is running to become Secretary of State. “I am looking to provide balance and accountability. I don’t believe you get that when one party controls everything.” The election to complete the remaining two years of Wyman’s term will be included on the 2022 primary and general election ballots. (Everett Herald and Shift)

Death and destruction finally motivates Olympia officials to do their job. In a rather pathetic display of “too little, too late”, the city of Olympia announced it will finally remove (next week) a homeless encampment that “has become known as one of the more violent camps in Olympia” since its creation in 2019.  Evidently it took a murder at the camp in October to force the liberal establishment in Olympia to stop ignoring the problem, as “property owners in West Olympia have been trying to get the city to step in and dismantle the camp since at least the summer of 2020, to no avail.” It would be nice to think that city leaders had actually come to their senses about too-accommodating homelessness policies, but it sounds like they heard from the city’s insurer about the need to get their act together: “We have decided that there are too many risks associated with allowing that site to continue to operate,” said Assistant City Manager Keith Stahley. (The Olympian)

Talk show host Jason Rantz provides some interesting analysis on next week’s special election to recall Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant. While the Sawant campaign (and the Seattle Socialist’s friends at The Stranger and Crosscut) continue to spout the lie that the recall effort is part of some grand Right-wing conspiracy, the truth is that it is run and financially supported by many long-time local Democrats.  Rantz says he would not be surprised if Councilmember Sawant survives the recall effort, since the 3^rd City Council District (Capitol Hill, Madison Park, and Northern portions of the Central District) is one of the most liberal communities in the city (and thus the country), but “it sends an obvious message (that) can’t be dismissed as an anomaly or Republican effort” if the Socialist lawmaker is defeated next Tuesday, especially after Seattle voters supported moderate Seattle City Attorney candidate Ann Davison over radical Nicole Thomas-Kennedy last month. (MyNorthwest)

Our friends at Safe Seattle posted a 35-second video which reveals the current condition of the parking lot at Jefferson Park Golf Park.  Broken down RVs and homeless encampments now fill the lot of this Beacon Hill public golf course, where Hall of Fame golfer Fred Couples learned to play growing up.  Multiple break ins of vehicles have been reported by those brave (naïve?) enough to park their car in the lot.

And here’s where the waste really comes in. The city had spent millions to refurbish the golf course to allow access to the sport to those in nearby low-income neighborhoods. The city continues to pour taxpayer money into the park with more renovations. Yet this money is being flushed down a public toilet since many who might be interested in playing the course are afraid to drive their vehicles to a location where criminal behavior has become the norm. (Safe Seattle Facebook page and City of Seattle Parks and Recreation)

The paperwork is going to be hard on their hooves, as Ecology wants to require cows to get water rights permits. In a silly example of government bureaucrats trying to regulate something they do not understand, “the Washington Department of Ecology plans to adopt a policy stating that livestock owners whose animals drink from a creek need a water right.” This “pending policy” appears to be an attempt by the Inslee Administration to write water law itself, rather than following an actual law passed by legislators. “Washington State Dairy Federation policy director Jay Gordon called it an “ill conceived train wreck of an idea. This is a massive sea change. It’s affecting massive numbers of people around the state.” Of course, to Inslee’s bureaucrats, taking control from property owners is very simple: “Really, it’s black and white, a water right is required and always has been,” said an Ecology spokeswoman, suggesting the state has actually been getting it wrong since the state’s water code was adopted, in 1917 (which was even before Jay Inslee took over “emergency” control of the state.) (Capital Press)

Eastern Washington gets it: We need to be expanding, not knocking down, the world’s first renewable energy source – hydropower. In an opinion editorial in the Spokesman Review, labor and business voices joined to point out what should be obvious to anyone concerned about our power grid: “The abundance of hydropower is essential to the economy and the way of life of the Pacific Northwest. The world’s original source of renewable energy has become even more important in delivering affordable and reliable energy to homes and cities across the region while keeping our carbon footprint low.” If only more Seattle liberals understood the importance of the hydroelectric dams across the state, and that they do not compete with other renewable sources, but rather make them more affordable.  As the editorial highlighted, “Supporters of Pacific Northwest hydropower welcome the addition of other renewables to our energy mix. Indeed, no single source of energy will be enough to meet our future needs.” (The Spokesman-Review)

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