Criticism continues to pour in over Representative Sharon Shewmake’s arrogant tweets in which she attempted to blame Republicans for the failure of the Democrat-controlled Washington State House of Representatives to pass any type of emergency powers reforms. Shift was one of the first to call out on Twitter (you really should follow us!) the major factual error of Representative Shewmake’s initial tweet, in which she attempted to escape accountability by falsely stating, “Republican filibuster killed SB 5909 on emergency power reform.” The problem is there is no filibuster in the Washington Legislature and the representative’s tweet either indicates she is completely unaware how the House is run after spending four years in the body, or she purposefully stated a lie.

Brandi Kruse was very upset by the Twitter comments from Representative Shewmake, who is realizing she has many bad liberal policy decisions to defend as she runs for the State Snate seat vacated by the death of Senator Doug Ericksen (and is now held by Senator Simon Sefzik).  Kruse stated on her [un]Divided podcast why Representative Shewmake’s tweets made her so upset. “That Democrat lawmaker thinks you are stupid. She thinks you are dumb,” Kruse explains.

“Republicans weren’t to blame when you (Democrat legislators) didn’t do it (pass emergency powers reform) last year. Republicans aren’t to blame when the Democrats refused to advance any meaningful bills on the topic this year. And Republicans aren’t to blame when you tried in the middle of the night to shove through a tepid bill on emergency powers reform expecting them (Republican lawmakers) to shut up and take it and then you killed it when you realized they weren’t going to sit quietly without trying to make it better.  I am so exhausted with politicians who want to treat people like they are stupid.” ([un]Divided podcast, Shift Twitter, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, and Shift Newsmaker Interview)

Senate Democrat Leader Andy Billig (Spokane) believes giving Washington residents some relief from the state’s high fuel tax will only help oil companies.  Senator Simon Sefzik (R – Ferndale) once again brought up his measure (SB 5897) to temporarily suspend the state’s 49-cents-a-gallon tax (second highest in the nation) to help lower- and middle-income households who are burdened with paying the higher prices at the pump, even while the state has a huge tax surplus. As the Democrats’ energy and economic policies have caused gas prices to nearly double in the past few months, Senator Sefzik sought to use the $15 billion in surplus tax revenues to reduce or eliminate the state’s gas tax.

Yet Democrats would rather not provide low- and middle-income households with this much-needed assistance and have decided instead to use nearly all of the surplus to make Washington State government permanently larger and more expensive. Senator Billig said he was unconcerned with the benefits this tax break would provide Washington residents for he had read some report that oil companies would make more money if the price of fuel went down. (KING5 News and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

Representative Jesse Johnson (D – Federal Way), one of the authors of the Democrat’s disastrous 2021 “police reform” package, announced this afternoon that he will not be running for re-election this November.  Representative Johnson, along with Representative Roger Goodman (D – Kirkland), championed the Democrat’s pro-criminal legislation which led to a dramatic increase in crime in the state. His decision to not run must have been made recently by the one-term legislator, as his Public Disclosure Commission reports show he was still raising large campaign contributions right up until the legislators’ fundraising freeze in December.  Evidently Representative Johnson has seen the same polling information that we have seen which reveals that Democrats in swing suburban districts face very tough re-election bids due to their support of far-Left pro-tax, pro-criminal, and anti-worker policies. (Melissa Santos Twitter and Public Disclosure Commission report)

A last-minute tax scheme by Democrat legislators could seriously impact local investments in necessary improvements for developing countries.  A new report from the Washington Policy Center reveals that while liberals like to self-praise themselves for their “climate justice” beliefs, the truth is their actions often make it more difficult for developing countries to obtain investments which allow them to end some of their current environmentally damaging activities.

Democrat Senator Reuven Carlyle (Seattle) said he learned about taxing financial institutions who invest in fossil fuel projects at the recent Scotland COP 26 boondoggle (where wealthy international environmentalists hobnobbed at extravagant cocktail receptions).  The problem is that developing countries use these investments to improve the conditions of their citizens and end environmentally damaging practices such as cutting down forests to heat their homes.  One international energy analyst called cutting off these investments as “green colonialism” for they prevent developing nations from moving forward.

Senator Carlyle has proposed the tax (SB 5967) for Washington State financial institutions. Despite the tax not making it out of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, it could be added as an amendment to the supplemental budget during the last remaining hours of the 2022 legislative session. (Washington Policy Center and Washington Legislature Bill Summary)

A University of Washington study found that the use of fentanyl skyrocketed as Governor Inslee’s unilaterally decided to forbid 12-step addiction recovery groups from meeting in person.  The study found a 78% increase in those who admitted using the potentially lethal drug during the past two years. Also Seattle police seized 10 times the amount of fentanyl pills last year than they did the year before. Drug and alcohol use has dramatically increased during the past two years, yet Governor Inslee forbid recovery groups from meeting in-person, while allowing other groups to use the same church and community facilities while adhering to safety guidelines. The toll on that decision will be difficult to determine as it impacted the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of Washington State residents in many different ways. (MyNorthwest and Shift)

Drug use is rampant in Seattle’s “Tiny House Villages” while their administrators fail to respond to questions regarding their success rate in moving people into non-subsidized housing – even as Governor Inslee is seeking $350 million to expand the questionable program.  As the governor has often done when confronted with a tough question (here is his response to a question on Antifa and here is his response to a question on the on-going liberal riots in Seattle), Inslee appeared clueless about the many legitimate concerns people have over how Tiny Villages are administrated and their lack of success in actually helping people. When asked about these concerns the governor said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. People are thrilled about this type of investment,” before staff whisked him away from the reporter.

While drug use is prohibited in common areas, residents often abuse substances behind closed doors. One man died at the Georgetown neighborhood Tiny Village from drug use and the smell of his decaying body was covered up by the stench of the accumulated garbage. Meanwhile the administrators of the Tiny Villages are refusing to respond to inquiries of their success rate and are angrily threatening reporters who ask about the conditions.  This is how liberals want to solve the region’s homeless crisis which their policies created in the first place and continue to make worse. (MyNorthwest, C-Span, Rebecca Perry Twitter, and KOMO News)

In an announcement which surprised many people, the Seattle Public Schools will not require students or staff to wear facemasks after both the state and King County indoor mask mandates end this weekend.  Starting next Monday, wearing a facemask both in school and on the bus will be optional, yet the district “strongly encourages” students to keep their masks on.  This seems like a mixed message from the district as the liberal administrators attempt to please everyone with their nonsense. (Seattle Times)

A Tri-City area police officer is a leader in a national effort to help law enforcement officers in the Ukraine as “they are literally fighting for their lives.”  Captain of the Hanford Patrol Rudy Almeida, who recently worked to train Ukrainian officers, has joined with police officers from across the country to send much-needed supplies to their counterparts in Ukraine. They have an Amazon wish list of items the Ukrainian officers need.  Financial contributions can also be made, please click this link to learn more. (YakTriNews and Amazon)

Democrats in the Washington State Legislature are providing every false excuse they can think of for why they have failed to pass any reform of the emergency powers which Governor Jay Inslee has now abused for more than two years – and counting.  During the past couple of years the Democrats have used their legislative majorities to pass many unpopular and unwanted pieces of legislation which even they admit need fixing (such as their disastrous “police reform” package, their unconstitutional state sales tax on capital gains, a state budget that doubles the size of state government in just nine years, and Governor Inslee’s ineffective climate measures which will increase the cost of gas even further).  Yet apparently it is too difficult for Democrats to use their majorities in both legislative chambers to pass a much-desired reform of the governor’s emergency powers.

Representative Sharon Shewmake embarrassed herself on Friday by tweeting a completely false excuse for why the Democrats failed to pass a reform bill.  She wrote that a “Republican filibuster killed SB 5909 on emergency powers reform.”  Representative Shewmake is described in her biography as being a Western Washington University economics professor and a four-year member of the Washington State House of Representatives. You might think she would know there is no “filibuster” in the chamber she serves in. The real reason the bill died was the Democrats did not want to be on record voting against Republican amendments which would have ended Governor Inslee’s undemocratic abuse of power. (Click to read full Shift Article)

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