Former Governor Jay Inslee is back on national TV doing what he does best: blaming President Donald Trump for high gas prices while conveniently ignoring his own signature climate policy.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Inslee claimed Americans are being “hammered” by energy costs because of Trump and pushed renewable energy as the solution. He left out the inconvenient fact that Washington drivers have been paying some of the nation’s highest gas prices since his Climate Commitment Act (CCA) took effect in 2023, adding an estimated 50–60 cents per gallon after Inslee repeatedly promised the impact would be only “pennies.”

Social media users were quick to remind him that Washington’s gas price problem started in Olympia, not D.C. Neighboring Oregon shares many of the same supply chains but doesn’t have the costly cap-and-trade scheme, resulting in significantly lower prices at the pump.

Even Washington’s record-high gas prices in 2022 happened while Inslee was still governor. Yet here he is, echoing the same blame-Trump script now being used by Governor Bob Ferguson, who continues to reject Republican calls to suspend the CCA and provide relief.

This is the familiar Democrat strategy in action: impose expensive green mandates, watch prices soar, then point fingers anywhere but at their own policies when voters feel the pain. Read more at Seattle Red.

The Seattle Times is practically giddy over Washington’s capital gains tax raking in a staggering $1.5 billion in fiscal 2026 — roughly $750 million above forecasts and nearly triple last year’s take. Supporters are treating it like vindication that taxing the wealthy was a brilliant idea all along.

As the Washington Policy Center rightly points out, they’re missing the forest for the trees.

The real story isn’t that the tax raised money. It did. The real story is what that says about Olympia’s reckless spending habits. Even this massive windfall would cover less than 10% of the state’s projected $7-10 billion budget shortfall. If an extra three-quarters of a billion dollars barely moves the needle, the problem was never a lack of revenue.

Washington’s tax collections have more than doubled over the past decade. Democrats keep inventing new ways to extract money from taxpayers, yet the state remains stuck with a structural deficit. New taxes don’t solve anything when spending grows even faster than the revenue.

This is the predictable failure of one-party Democratic rule: explode the budget with new programs and mandates, then celebrate when a punitive tax on successful people brings in record cash — while still running massive shortfalls.

The Seattle Times deserves a little credit for asking whether lawmakers will spend this money wisely. Washington taxpayers already know the answer. A record-breaking tax haul isn’t proof that Democrats have solved the budget problem. It’s proof that even record revenues can’t keep up with Olympia’s insatiable appetite for spending. Read more at the Washington Policy Center.

In a column for Center Square, Mountain States Policy Center’s Bob Pishue is calling out yet another brilliant idea from Olympia Democrats.

Washington’s gas tax — already among the highest in the nation — is set to climb again on July 1 thanks to an automatic inflationary adjustment signed into law by Governor Bob Ferguson. This comes as drivers are already paying some of the highest prices at the pump, thanks to a toxic mix of state taxes and climate policies like the Climate Commitment Act.

Pishue rightly notes that the claim from supporters — that indexing will somehow prevent future tax hikes — doesn’t pass the laugh test. Instead, it creates a permanent, automatic tax increase that bypasses normal public debate and accountability. Lawmakers never have to vote on it again. Government just keeps collecting more while pretending it’s not their fault.

Despite years of tax increases, Washington still ranks near the bottom nationally for highway performance. Olympia’s solution, as always, is to reach deeper into taxpayers’ pockets — this time with a mechanism that guarantees the gas tax keeps rising year after year without any real scrutiny.

This is classic one-party Democratic governance: create the problem with bad policy, then institutionalize higher taxes so you never have to answer for it. Washington families stuck paying more at the pump deserve better than this rigged system. Read more at Center Square.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washougal) loves playing the role of the grease-stained small-business mechanic fighting for working families. There’s just one problem: an archived version of her family’s auto shop website described her as handling the business side of operations — with zero mention of her turning wrenches.

This latest ad is just another example of Gluesenkamp Perez carefully cultivating a blue-collar brand that doesn’t quite line up with the facts. Questions keep surfacing about embellishments in her personal story, and voters have noticed her family’s shop is actually located across the river in Oregon while she campaigns as a champion of Washington workers.

With her seat shaping up to be one of the most competitive House races in the country, Gluesenkamp Perez is doubling down on the mechanic persona. The question for voters is simple: do they believe the slick campaign commercials, or the details her own website once provided before the political makeover?

Another day, another Democrat trying to sell a working-class image that seems more fiction than fact. Read more at Seattle Red.

Two Alaska Airlines flight attendants with clean records were fired for the unforgivable sin of expressing Christian beliefs on the company’s own internal messaging board.

Lacey Smith and Marli Brown simply questioned the Equality Act — one asking if a company could “regulate morality,” the other warning it threatened religious freedom and the church. The airline branded their comments “hateful,” “offensive,” and “discriminatory.” Even their own union privately cheered their termination, with one rep suggesting they be put in a “burlap bag and dropped in a well.”

Thankfully, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just delivered a stinging rebuke, ruling the women deserve a jury trial. The court noted the airline created a forum for discussion on controversial issues, then punished employees for doing exactly what they invited — sharing ideas rooted in their faith.

This is the inevitable endpoint of the modern left’s “tolerance”: you’re free to believe whatever you want, as long as it aligns with progressive dogma. Disagree on gender ideology or religious liberty, and you’re labeled a bigot worthy of professional destruction — even if you have an exemplary work record.

The case now heads to trial, but the broader cultural message is clear. Corporate America, egged on by leftist activism and compliant unions, is increasingly hostile to traditional Christian beliefs. Alaska Airlines learned the hard way that the Constitution still has something to say about that.

A small but important victory for religious liberty in the face of woke corporate tyranny. Read more at the Daily Wire.

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