Washington State residents who have had their food benefits stolen are frustrated by the bureaucratic and unresponsive “assistance” they are receiving from the state.  According to the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), approximately 1,300 state residents have had their benefits stolen. Similar thefts have taken place in other states, with benefit recipients often finding out that their account has been wiped out when they are at the grocery store checkout counter.

Even with the large number of recipients being impacted, state fraud officials have been non-responsive to those who have evidence of who is responsible for the crime. One victim found out their benefits were used at a grocery store on Seattle’s Beacon Hill and contacted the store to see if the security cameras recorded the transaction. Video footage revealed that a couple had made two separate purchases at the store totaling $1,400 which wiped out the victim’s benefits.  The store manager then tried to contact the DSHS fraud division to report the evidence.  After going through the long automated process the state has in place, the store manager finally left a message.  No one from the state has called him back to obtain the evidence.   (MyNorthwest)

Five attacks at electricity substations have taken place in Washington and Oregon, and while there is no public evidence of who is responsible for these crimes, the Seattle Times immediately chooses to imply that it was Right-wing extremists who were responsible and never mentions that the attacks could have been carried out (as have others in the recent past) by Left-wing eco-terrorists.  Puget Sound Energy, the Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Bonneville Power Administration have all confirmed that attacks no their facilities occurred in November and that they are working with federal investigators to solve the crimes.

Repeatedly through the Seattle Times story the reader is informed that authorities have no comment about who is behind the attacks, yet this doesn’t stop the Seattle Times from recklessly speculating that the crimes were committed by Right-wing groups. The story quotes the author of a book about the “rise of the radical Right” and then described other attacks by Right-wing extremists.  Yet the story never mentions similar types of attacks which have been committed by Left-wing radicals here in Washington State, including the repeated recent acts of domestic terrorism committed by environmental extremists against railroads in Whatcom County.  If there is no public proof of who committed the attacks then isn’t the Seattle Times being very irresponsible for providing its guess on the political beliefs of the criminals? (Seattle Times and Department of Justice media release)

The News Tribune published an embarrassingly ridiculous op-ed from a former social service worker who is upset that the City of Tacoma placed barriers (specifically large boulders) to prevent new homeless encampments in his neighborhood because he can’t have a conversation with the large rocks.  After reading the op-ed, one first thinks it must be a Babylon Bee parody of liberal activists who continue to enable people to live the cruel existence of suffering on the streets. But no, this appears a legitimate expression of liberal thought in the City of Destiny.

The author laments that during his daily walks that he can no longer hold conversations with those who are homeless, all because the City of Tacoma has removed encampments and provided (a point the author fails to mention) campers the option of moving out of the cold weather into taxpayer-funded shelters. To prevent further encampments, the city has placed large boulders to keep new structures from being built.  The writer complains about the rocks stating, “They’re big, ugly eyesores that’ll soon become graffitied and surrounded by garbage and unruly weeds.”

Evidently the writer never saw the piles of garbage, drug needles, graffiti, and the incredibly unsafe conditions the homeless individuals were living in while he was having his daily conversations with them.  It is as if he is demanding that the city return the encampments, and the misery they brought, just so he can have someone to talk to.  It is truly a bizarre article. (News Tribune)

Yet another indicator of how local liberal public safety policies are resulting in higher crime rates is a national survey which revealed that the Seattle-Tacoma region ranks second in the country for doorstep package thefts.  The far-Lefties making these bad decisions can be proud, as this represents a move up two spaces from last year’s national survey which ranked the Puget Sound region fourth in 2021 for such thefts.  The survey was conducted by SafeWise.  San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (another hotbed of failed liberal public safety measures) is again the top region for package thefts.  (The Center Square)

More than 430 Seattle businesses have already applied for grants from the city to repair damaged storefronts ravaged by crime and vandalism.  Thousands of Seattle businesses have become the victims of crime since the Seattle City Council in 2020 caved into the demands of liberal violent rioters to pass anti-police legislation which has resulted in more than 400 well-trained police officers leaving the department and skyrocketing crime rates.  Instead of changing the policies, the city council admitted its inability to protect property by passing a measure to help some of the retail businesses repair the damage to their property. (KING5 News)

A popular restaurant in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood posted on social media that they have been broken into 18 times in the past couple of years.  The owners of Serafina posted on Instagram that their eatery was broken into again last weekend and the robbers stole expensive alcohol and broke their doors and locks. They posted a surveillance picture of the masked criminals and encouraged people to contact the police with any information – hopefully there will be enough available officers on duty to answer the call.  (Serafina Instagram account)

Governor Inslee claims to world audiences that Washington State will do more to reduce carbon emissions than any other state — without mentioning the fact that the state has the strong advantage of receiving 67% of its energy from carbon-free hydroelectricity, a power source which the governor’s administration (along with wealthy urban environmentalists) is attempting to tear down.  The Capital Press provides an in-depth article explaining the positive and negative aspects of the governor’s energy strategy (especially for the members of the agricultural community) and starts by mentioning that the governor’s previous climate policies have dramatically failed to meet their stated goals, since carbon emissions have actually increased 10% from their 1990 baseline amounts.

One of the negatives of Governor Inslee’s strategy will be the loss of productive farmlands, due to the Democrats and the governor preventing local authorities and residents from having any voice in deciding where large solar and wind farms can be constructed (though the 2022 passage of SB 5415).  The U.S. Department of Energy calculates that a solar farm needs seven acres to produce a megawatt of energy. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council states that Washington requires an additional 12,000 megawatts of solar energy to meet power demands. This means the loss of 84,000 acres (which the article claims is the combined size of Seattle, Moses Lake, and Sunnyside) of prime state farmlands in the flat, sunny areas of Central Washington. (Capital Press and Washington Association of Cities)

Our latest Newsmaker Interview is with the highly respected commentator and political operative Sarah Isgur, who will be a featured speaker at the 2023 Roanoke Conference (January 27 – 29 in beautiful Ocean Shores).  Isgur is currently working with two previous Roanoke Conference speakers (Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg) as a staff writer for The Dispatch and is a political commentator with ABC News.  Isgur is a Harvard Law School graduate and has worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina. She has also worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Republican National Committee and was the spokesperson for the Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In her Shift interview, Isgur discusses what her topic might be for her upcoming Roanoke Conference presentation, who the Republicans should nominate for president in 2024, the liberals’ war against free speech on college campuses, conspiracy theories about elections, and the media’s role in promoting political division in our country. Finally, we ask Isgur to provide advice to young people who want to become involved in politics. (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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