Today will be the last edition of the Daily Briefing until after Labor Day.  The Shift Team will be taking a few days off during these late summer weeks to spend time with our families and to update our website. We look forward to returning next month, when we will continue keeping our loyal readers informed on the political news of our state.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page and our Twitter feed, for we will likely post more than a few small items that come to the surface while the Daily Briefing is on hiatus.  And, as always, we truly thank our followers and supporters.  Your continued support allows us to know there are many people seeking news and perspective rarely found in the old guard media. We thank you for allowing us to do what we do!

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview with first-term Senator Jeff Wilson (R – Longview) provides detailed information on how the police “reform” bills hastily passed by Democrats during this year’s virtual legislative session actually impact public safety.  Earlier this week, law enforcement personnel in Senator Wilson’s Southwest Washington district faced a dangerous situation with a holed-up suspect, where due to the Democrats’ bill, they could not use nonlethal force and had to resort to throwing rocks at a window (yes, you read that correctly). Sen. Wilson has helped lead the call for a special session to fix the bill, and this time he wants Democrat legislators to not make the same mistake they did earlier this year – he wants them to listen to the concerns of law enforcement to ensure suspects don’t go free and that police have the necessary tools to de-escalate dangerous situations. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview with Senator Jeff Wilson)

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview is with Senator Chris Gildon (R-Puyallup), whose Pierce County legislative district was home of a disturbing murder which has become the focal point in the debate over the Democrats’ partisan police reform package which they rammed through the legislature earlier this year on party-line votes. On the evening of Wednesday, July 28^th, Puyallup police responded to reports of gunfire and found a young man dead in a retail parking lot. Witnesses said they saw a man running East, yet police did not have enough information under the Democrats’ “reforms” to send a K-9 unit in search of the suspect. The murder suspect remains at-large today.  Senator Gildon, along with fellow 25^th District elected Representatives Kelly Chambers and Cyndy Jacobsen, immediately called for a legislative special session to fix the Democrats’ poorly written bill. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview with Senator Chris Gildon)

Attorney General Bob Ferguson wants police departments to ignore legal advice received from their own government attorneys, and instead wants law enforcement to accept his partisan opinions on how they should respond to incidents while adhering to the disastrous police “reform” measures jammed through by Democrats during the 2021 legislative session.  In a memo regarding the Democrats’ controversial soft-on-crime approach, which has forced police departments across Washington to not pursue criminal suspects and  abandon dangerous situations, the Attorney General’s opinion contradicts what multiple law enforcement agencies have been advised by their own legal counsel regarding “community caretaking” situations.  These are situations which usually involve individuals who are experiencing a mental episode or who are seemingly under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  While police departments have been advised by attorneys that the new laws severely restrict their ability to respond to such calls, AG Ferguson divines that the legislation “anticipated that officers may respond to calls that do not involve a crime.”,

Any neutral observer can see that the memo, which Ferguson even admits is NOT a “formal advisory opinion”, but is merely “client advice”, was issued so that his fellow Democrats could use it cover their soft-on-crime legislative actions. The hyper-partisan inspiration for Ferguson’s “opinion” is obvious by the way it was distributed by the two main pushers of the radical reform legislation, Representative Jesse Johnson (D – Federal Way) and Roger Goodman (D – Kirkland).  Many believe that this memo, which provides the AG’s partisan thoughts on some of the many controversial aspects of the legislation, was made public to try and mute the tremendous public outrage over the significant defects in the Democrats’ new mandates.

It is doubtful law enforcement agencies will abandon the legal guidance of their own attorneys for the “client advice” issued by the Attorney General.  Many law enforcement officials are still upset with Ferguson’s disappearing act last summer, when police officers were being physically assaulted by liberal rioters, and he even made no public comment after the attempted mass murder of police officers at Seattle’s East Precinct.  It did not go unnoticed that the state’s top law enforcement officer refused to condemn the extreme violence that was being perpetuated against Seattle police officers, likely because it was being committed by Ferguson and the Democrat’s own liberal supporters.  While the AG was busy filing partisan lawsuits against the Trump Administration on federal issues, he also refused to stand up for law enforcement or the public safety of Seattle’s 725,000 residents when his fellow Democrats on the Seattle City Council were recklessly defunding the Seattle Police Department (and we have seen how well that has done with skyrocketing crime rates).

Repeatedly, and sadly, AG Ferguson has place partisan politics over the public safety of Washington residents. Why would this memo be any different? (News Tribune KIRO7 News, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, and KING5 News)

We thought our readers would enjoy a 100-second video making the rounds on social media which was produced to promote a new wine.  While we cannot vouch for the quality of wine the video is promoting, we can say the video provides a message that needs to be heard. It is certainly not what you would expect. (YouTube)

After liberals at both the state and local levels continue to impose restrictions on and cut funding for police departments, auto thefts are yet another criminal act that is skyrocketing in Western Washington.  The Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force reports that there has been a 27% increase in stolen vehicles in Pierce County so far this year, compared to the same time period in 2020.  King County has experienced a 13% increase, and Snohomish County has had 7% more cars stolen.  And now that the Democrats have limited law enforcement’s ability to pursue criminals, one can expect we will see these rates climb even higher as more criminals enjoy the gift that keeps on giving – leniency – from liberal lawmakers. (Q13 News)

King County employees who are fed up with the lack of public safety around the King County Courthouse and Administration Building are holding a rally today to protest the lack of response from the far-Left King County and City of Seattle officials who have created this problem.  Employees said they have made numerous complaints about the lack of safety, but nothing has been done. Their frustration hit a boiling point when a 7-month pregnant employee was attacked in a women’s rest room a couple of weeks ago. (KING5 News)

Once again, the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has let down students, as it suddenly reverses course on offering online education.  Just weeks before students are to begin the new school year, SPS officials suddenly announced that it will not be offering online education option for 6th – 12th grade students.  The district is now notifying the families of those who had signed up for virtual learning, and attempting to place them in other online schools.  Many of these students have special needs.  The President of the Special Education PTSA said, “These are the very families who need the most support we can give them. To essentially tell them on the eve of the start of school, that the school program that they thought their student was going to attend is canceled… frankly, I’m just speechless.” Seattle school officials are overjoyed, however, as they have succeeded in showing these parents and students just who is the boss, by jerking them around just a little bit more! (Q13 News)

The Sound Transit board, dealing with a $6.5 billion shortfall, bailed out its liberal supporters in Seattle, by accelerating urban projects, while delaying several suburban projects for two-to-ten years.   The Northeast 130^th station, a Rainier Valley station, and a Boeing Access Road station all avoided being delayed, because Seattle (err, Sound) Transit has to somehow manage cost overruns which plagued the transit agency since inception, and what better way than to do it on the back of non-Seattle taxpayers . (Seattle Times)

Rain during the 2020 “bloom” season, and extremely hot dry weather during the early 2021 summer, are expected to result in a significantly reduced yield for this year’s wine grape harvest for Walla Walla Valley growers.  Les Collines Vineyard, one of the region’s largest grape producers, reported it is expecting to harvest about half the number of grapes produced during an average year.  The high heat is also expected to alter the quality of the wines, since the temperatures impact the sugar and acidity levels of the grapes.  (Walla Walla Union Bulletin)

The Grant County Commissioners approved a 6-month moratorium on new wind and solar power facilities, to give officials time to establish regulations for the new facilities.  Companies have been searching for locations throughout Central and Eastern Washington for locations to build large solar or wind “farms.”  Currently there are no projects pending in Grant County, but officials said that there have been many inquiries.  (Columbia Basin Herald)

BABYLON BEE FRIDAY

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