Mount Baker neighbors recently mapped nearly 50 tent encampments and 5 vehicle camps in just a few blocks, all near schools, grocery stores, and transit stations. What they found wasn’t “housing insecurity”—it was a public health disaster complete with human waste, fentanyl foil, used condoms, razor blades, and even live bullets.

Parents can’t walk their kids to school, disabled residents are being forced into traffic, and QFC had to hire armed guards just so people could buy groceries. The city’s response? Tell parents to “choose safety and take a different route.” That’s not compassion—it’s abdication.

Democrats love to pat themselves on the back for “investing billions” in homelessness, but the result is neighborhoods like Mount Baker drowning in crime, addiction, and lawlessness while taxpayers fund a revolving door of failure. The broken-windows theory is alive and well here: visible disorder isn’t just ignored, it’s endorsed by City Hall.

The tools exist—Ricky’s Law and Joel’s Law allow for involuntary treatment when people are too far gone to choose help. But progressives would rather protect the “right” to die on a sidewalk than actually save lives or restore communities.

Seattle voters are told this is compassion. But Mount Baker shows what it really is: cruelty, incompetence, and betrayal wrapped in progressive branding. Read more at Seattle Red.

Washington’s Department of Commerce just released its 2025 Point in Time Count, and the results aren’t exactly a victory lap for Democrats. Despite billions spent on housing programs, homelessness is still on the rise—up 4.4% from last year and a staggering 25% since 2022. That’s after lawmakers dumped another $1.8 billion into so-called “solutions” this biennium alone.

The state reported 22,173 homeless people on a single night in January, one-third of whom were unsheltered. And that’s without King County’s unsheltered numbers—historically half the statewide total—because Seattle couldn’t even get its act together to count in time.

The broader “Snapshot of Homelessness” report wasn’t much better, tallying nearly 159,000 people either unhoused or in emergency shelters. Even when the numbers briefly dipped in 2024, they shot back up this year, proving that Olympia’s strategy is nothing more than a game of whack-a-mole with taxpayers’ money.

Commerce Director Joe Nguyễn admitted the obvious—“the numbers are still too high”—but Democrats’ answer is always the same: spend more, get less. If $1.8 billion can’t move the needle, maybe it’s not a funding problem—it’s a leadership problem. Read more at the Washington State Standard.

The Freedom Foundation is making a final push before the September 1 deadline to remind Washington teachers they don’t have to keep writing checks to the Washington Education Association (WEA). Once that date passes, teachers who miss the window will keep bleeding dues for another year—whether they want to or not.

Outreach Director Erin Volz told The Center Square’s Carleen Johnson that teachers face heavy pressure and even bullying to stay in the union. Many don’t even realize they’re shelling out over $1,500 annually—money that WEA brags about funneling into left-wing political campaigns instead of classrooms. In its own filings, the union admits it spent over a million dollars from dues to prop up Democrats.

Meanwhile, WEA plays the victim, whining on its website that “extremist groups” like the Freedom Foundation are “attacking” teachers. Translation: they’re mad people are finding out the union is more interested in funding politicians than fixing public education.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, teachers are free to opt out. And this year, hundreds already have—despite the WEA’s scare tactics. The choice is clear: keep subsidizing partisan politics, or put that money back in your own pocket. Read more at Center Square.

Republican Councilmember Reagan Dunn is once again cleaning up the Democrats’ mess after a blistering audit exposed King County’s Department of Community and Human Services as a billion-dollar sieve for fraud and waste.

In just a few years, DCHS ballooned its contracting budget from $22 million to $1.5 billion while forgetting pesky details like oversight, receipts, or even making sure the money went where it was supposed to. The audit uncovered falsified invoices, improper payments, prepaid debit cards handed out like candy, and “high-risk” organizations given millions with zero accountability.

Dunn’s new legislation would force the department to do what should have been obvious from the start: monitor contracts, audit spending, and make sure taxpayer dollars aren’t being siphoned off by fraudsters. Meanwhile, Democrats shrugged as if waste and abuse were just the cost of doing business.

When it comes to King County government, the only thing that seems to grow faster than spending is corruption. Read more at Seattle Red.

Pete Serrano barely warmed the chair as interim U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington before Sen. Patty Murray declared his days numbered. Murray vowed to use the Senate’s century-old “blue slip” tradition to block Serrano’s confirmation, smearing him as an “extremist” for supporting the Constitution, defending the Second Amendment, and applauding the Supreme Court for returning abortion policy to the states.

Serrano, who resigned as Pasco’s mayor to take the role, has a solid legal record and is serving his district while awaiting confirmation. But Democrats don’t care about qualifications—they care about ideology. Murray made it clear she’d rather leave the office in limbo than confirm someone not toeing the progressive line.

The irony? The same Democrats who rail against “archaic Senate procedures” like the filibuster cling desperately to the blue slip process when it means blocking conservatives. Murray’s move isn’t about Serrano’s competence—it’s about silencing anyone who challenges Democrat orthodoxy on guns, life, or personal liberty.

Serrano is right: 120 days is a long time, and things can change. But right now, Washington Democrats are proving once again that when they preach about fairness and democracy, what they really mean is “as long as we’re in charge.” Read more at the Washington State Standard.

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