In the first of three interviews Shift will be conducting with Republican candidates who are challenging incumbent Democrat U.S. Representative Kim Schrier in the 8^th Congressional District, we speak with candidate Matt Larkin.  Many people first heard about Larkin when he challenged Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in 2020. The former aide in the George W. Bush White House and local prosecutor, Larkin currently works for his family’s 550-employee company. Larkin jumped into the race last May, stating it is important to be backing law enforcement since liberal policies have led to increased crime and homelessness. In his Shift Newsmaker interview, Larkin asserts the current incumbent “votes with Nancy Pelosi and AOC every chance she gets,” and “has made it clear that she serves her party, not her constituents.” (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

Washington State Senate Democrat “leadership” finally admitted its poorly crafted Long-Term Care Insurance payroll tax will be a disaster if  it begins as scheduled next month, and asked Governor Jay Inslee to delay its implementation for at least a year (i.e. until after the 2022 elections).  Republican legislators have been warning since the tax was first discussed that it contains many significant flaws (most notably that hundreds of thousands of Washington State workers would pay into the plan but would never be eligible to receive the benefits), and suddenly Democrats have realized this is one political liability they need to delay, at least until after the midterm elections.

Democrats in swing districts will already have a tough time next November defending the passage of a “police reform” package (passed to reward liberal rioters) which has allowed many criminals to remain free, a state income tax on capital gains (which included unprecedented language to deny voters the right to repeal it by referendum), expensive and ineffective climate bills which will hurt low-income families the hardest, and allowing Governor Inslee to abuse executive emergency powers for nearly 650 days. Removing the Long-Term Care payroll tax will give them one less unpopular item to have to defend to frustrated voters.

Notable in the Senate Democrat leadership’s letter to the governor is that the lawmakers attempted to place blame for the failure of their poorly crafted legislation onto insurance companies for failing to offer to every Washington worker a private insurance plan allowing them to opt-out of the state’s plan.  Evidently to the liberal legislators, insurance companies should be willing to lose a considerable amount of money so that the same legislators can please the greedy demands of the Service Employees International Union bosses, who will significantly benefit from the creation of another state entitlement program which drives union dues into their treasury. And,  like all government entitlement programs, this one is expected to grow considerably larger and become much more expensive in the coming years. (Seattle Times, Shift Newsmaker Interview with Representative Joe Schmick, and Senate Democrat leadership letter)

The Washington State Supreme Court announced that it will allow the congressional and legislative district boundaries approved by the Washington State Redistricting Commission to stand, and that they will decline to redraw the maps. This morning the court released an order which stated, “we conclude it is not necessary for the court to assume responsibility for adoption of redistricting maps under the present circumstances.”  The court noted that the commission members had essentially completed its responsibilities before the November 15^th midnight deadline (despite the many delay tactics used by the Senate Democrats’ appointee Brady Walkinshaw).  It was the Senate Democrats’ strategy to eliminate both the public and the Republicans from the redistricting process by having Commissioner Walkinshaw use various tactics to force the commission to miss its deadline, and thus allow the nine liberal justices on the court to decide the boundaries.  On this occasion, it appears the justices were unwilling to comply with the Democrats’ partisan political desires to eliminate the public from the process.

As noted by Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner, the court also stated that it had not “render(ed) an opinion” on whether the commission’s boundaries comply with legal requirements not related to the deadline, and that they could still be challenged by lawsuits which would enable the justices to make changes to the maps.  The countdown now begins as to what liberal special interest group will file the first lawsuit to have the boundaries redrawn to give themselves an advantage. (Everett Herald, Washington State Supreme Court Order, Washington Observer, and Jim Brunner Twitter)

Brandi Kruse highlighted an interesting comment made by Governor Inslee during his media event yesterday.  In discussing how he will respond to COVID’s Omicron variant, the governor said the state, “will be active no matter what the science tells us.”  It is refreshing for many that the governor displayed a rare moment of honesty and admitted that science is not an important factor in his random COVID-related decision.  To be fair, Kruse did ask the governor’s handlers for clarification on this statement, and they responded that Governor Inslee misspoke and that he meant to say, “we will always follow the science. He meant that the Delta variant is still killing people.” Yet for those of us who have been chronicling the governor’s many partisan decisions related to COVID, the governor’s Freudian Slip was very revealing. (Brandi Kruse Twitter and Shift Article)

Leaving their high-paying government jobs cannot come soon enough for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, as expensive efforts to obtain missing texts from the mayor’s phone (made during the “Summer of Love” liberal rioting the city enjoyed in 2020) have thus far failed to make the messages available to the public – or identify who illegally altered the mayor’s phone to erase the texts.  Seattle taxpayers have already paid a cyber security contractor (The Crypsis Group) hired by Holmes’ office more than $400,000 to uncover the missing texts from city officials’ phones, which are being sought by members of the media (through public records requests) and by many attorneys who have filed lawsuits against the city for its various actions/inactions during the riots.

Neither the city attorney’s office nor the cyber security firm were willing to say how much longer it will take to recover the texts or if they will eventually be obtained.  But since the company is making $300 – $700 an hour in a deal “negotiated” by an irresponsible liberal politician who will likely never run for office again after his embarrassing primary defeat, our guess is the company will drag this out for as long as possible, to allow Durkan and Holmes to ride off into retirement sunset without ever having to answer for this mess. Beyond the missing tests is a simple question really – who illegally changed the settings on the mayor’s phone to delete messages she did not want the public to see? Since we could assume that the mayor might know to whom she loans her phone, perhaps we could start by asking the people who benefit from deleting the texts? (Seattle Times)

Violent crime continues to skyrocket in Seattle, as the understaffed Seattle Police Department is investigated five separate shootings (four of them in lower-income neighborhoods) from Thursday night alone. The irresponsible actions taken by the Seattle City Council to defund the police department in 2020, and further cuts this year, continue to impact the public safety of Seattle residents. The council made severe budget cuts to the police department in the clearly misguided belief that a community-based policing effort would be more effective in reducing crime.  Yet irresponsibly no community-based program was put in place (in fact, no one even knows what it will look like) before the cuts were made.  (MyNorthwest)

The Recall Sawant campaign is looking for volunteers during the last few days before next Tuesday’s election deadline. The campaign is looking for volunteers to make Get-Out-The-Vote phone calls and doorbelling, as well as people to wave signs.  If you are interested, please contact [email protected] or call 517-214-3030. (Recall Sawant Campaign)

According to a Pasco farmer, Governor Inslee’s Department of Ecology (DOE) is applying different sets of rules on water rights which financially benefit the state at the expense of private farmers.  The DOE has imposed a $304,000 fine on the Frank Tiegs Company for doing the same legal thing which the Washington State Department of Natural Resources did without repercussions on a neighboring piece of land.  Both Tiegs and DNR applied their own unused water rights from the pool behind the Columbia River McNary Dam to irrigate their nearby farms, in advance of filing required paperwork.  While DNR was allowed to finish its paperwork after obtaining the water, Tiegs was denied the same rights. Tiegs as filed an appeal of the fines. (Tri-City Herald)

Chelan County rejected almost 1% of the ballots that were returned in last month’s 2021 general election.  Some 211 of the 24,00 returned ballots were rejected, with 92 invalidated because they were postmarked after the November 2nd deadline, another 60 were unsigned, 56 had signature matching problems, and 3 had other reasons. Chelan County Auditor Skip Moore said the number of unsigned ballots was especially large and he attributes it to people “testing the system” to see if county elections offices were properly doing their jobs in light of recent unsupported allegations of voter fraud made by 2020 losing candidates.  (Wenatchee World)

BABYLONBEE FRIDAY!

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