Attorney General Bob Ferguson thought that the only campaign finance news he would be making this week was how much he raised before the state’s elected official fundraising freeze kicked in today. Instead the Public Disclosure Commission reminded everyone, as the Washington State Standard covers, how much the AG tried earlier this year to hide old contributions so he could accept new illegal ones, and the “state campaign watchdog put off action Thursday on a proposed deal to dismiss complaints against Attorney General Bob Ferguson stemming from his handling of $1.2 million of contributions to his gubernatorial campaign.”

It remains to be seen if the AG will actually be punished for the sleazy scheme which Shift highlighted even before the PDC got involved. Read on to see how AG Ferguson’s lawyers hoped to avoid accountability for the governor wannabe breaking the rules by cutting a secret deal, since all the commissioners were selected by Jay Inslee, but the PDC appointees, “after briefly deliberating behind closed doors, said a written decision would be issued by the end of the month” here… Washington State Standard, Shift.

Former U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, currently running for Washington State Commissioner of  Public Lands, discusses her candidacy in this week’s Newsmaker Interview. Having served 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Herrera Beutler aims to enhance the management of public lands to mitigate wildfires, emphasizing the need for proactive measures like clearing brush and removing downed trees. Herrera Beutler criticizes Democrat leadership for increasing the damage of the state’s recent devastating wildfires and suggests a more science-based approach to resource management. In addition to her political insights, she shares her favorite book—a classic biography of one of the nation’s founding fathers. Read more.

Shift warned you last week that the mainstream media might just let Governor Inslee off the hook after a whistleblower filed a claim that the state forced him to quit for telling the truth about Gov. Inslee’s carbon tax. Even though Shift has provided four easy questions about the case (so far) for any reporter to ask the governor, he continues to go unchallenged as he rolls out this week his annual wish list of new government spending.

You can see how the Seattle Times and Washington State Standard, among others, are willing to give the governor free publicity to demand new money to fix problems his policies have created, without any follow-up on the scandal here… Shift, Shift, Seattle Times, Washington State Standard.

Scared legislators, at least those who don’t represent downtown Seattle, have for months been running away from the fallout of their carbon tax raising our gas prices to the highest in the nation. Now that they have seen, as Shift covered, over 400,000 voters signing an initiative to repeal the expensive law, the Capital Press is reporting that “Washington Democrats Sen. Mark Mullet and Rep. Mike Chapman have introduced cap-and-trade reform legislation in the House and Senate to hold down energy costs.”

This last-minute attempt to take the air out of the initiative effort is unlikely to find a friendly reception in Olympia, despite Sen. Mullet warning “that if we don’t fix this, the voters are going to repeal it.” You can read on to see that even Democrats know the “implementation of the Climate Commitment Act (the carbon tax) has been a complete disaster” here… Shift, Capital Press.

It seems like Sound Transit spends a lot of time promoting news about its trains that don’t quite ring true.  The latest is the report from the Seattle Times that “Sound Transit is one step away from ditching light rail fares that vary by distance, in favor of charging passengers $3 for all destinations,” as if the troubled transit agency actually cared about collecting fares.

What the reader is left to piece together for themselves is the reality that the fares charged by Sound Transit are illusory, because nobody actually ever has to pay to ride as Shift has pointed out. Even in different parts of the story the bureaucrats admit “54% (of riders) are using employer subsidized, or discounted ORCA cards” and out of the rest “as few as 55% of riders have been paying lately” even though “fare income covered 40% of operating costs, the agency’s own target” last in 2018.

So, it appears Sound Transit’s numbers add up to nothing more than a pending fiscal disaster. However, Dave Upthegrove, a board member who bizarrely believes himself qualified for statewide office, is promising everything will be fine because of “tools we can adjust financially in the future”, like higher taxes on non-transit users.  You can read on to see how the real problem is identified in the last line of the story, as “(F)are gates (to collect money from people before they get on the trains) are not on the agenda.”… Seattle Times, Shift.

It didn’t take long for the administration at the University of Washington to take all the joy out of the football team’s success in winning the Pac 12 title last week, with President Ana Mari Cauce deciding this week to allow pro-Hamas protestors to occupy her office for hours to publicize their pro-terrorist hatred. Slices of the charade were captured by KIRO 7, which after a 5 pm deadline passed finally reported “dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were physically removed from the University of Washington’s Gerberding Hall.”

The removal of the small gang of largely non-UW students came long after the loudmouths had marched around campus disrupting finals for actual students, and their stunts threatened to drown out “a menorah-lighting ceremony (which) took place at Red Square to mark the beginning of the Jewish festival Hanukkah.” Try not to tear up when you read how “protesters claim university police were too forceful with them” when the profanity-spewing terrorist sympathizers actually had to go home here… KIRO 7.

A story from South Puget Sound shows how far down the list that public education has slipped for some elected officials. The (Tacoma) News Tribune highlights that the “Peninsula School District’s Transportation Department told parents certain bus routes will be canceled and they’ll be notified the day of when that happens.”

So, even though the state is rolling in money, passing record-breaking budgets throughout Jay Inslee’s decade in office, it turns out some public education basics are not being covered if no Democrat campaign donor has been making enough noise demanding it. Now parents will “be alerted via text message and ParentSquare by 5:30 a.m.”, leaving “students who typically get picked up at 6 a.m. with a 30-minute notice that the bus isn’t coming.”

But the bureaucrats aren’t heartless, as “(S)tudents who arrive to school late because of a bus route cancellation will get an excused tardy or absence.”, because as one actual driver notes in highlighting the problem that “we simply can’t pull drivers out of our butts to cover routes.”… (Tacoma) News Tribune.

Shift will let this KOMO News story sit with little comment, other than to say that even though the state is not funding public education like it is constitutionally required to do (see story above), it doesn’t appear like the Democrats in control are spending any of the record-breaking amount of money coming in to make our streets safer, when “what was believed to be four shootings (Thursday) turned into six.” … KOMO News.

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