In the latest example of Governor Jay Inslee’s partisan hypocrisy, his own 2019 quote attacking the president for using emergency powers has circulated today on social media.  The quote from the governor was in response to President Donald Trump’s one-time use of emergency powers regarding the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.  It is interesting to see how the governor (who is now on Day 717 of abusing his own emergency authority) doesn’t like emergency powers being used one time by some politician other than himself.  In 2019, the Governor Inslee stated that President Trump’s use of emergency authority “further divides Americans, erodes our system of checks and balances, and advances the president’s agenda of fear and misinformation. We should all be outraged by this president’s abuse of power.” All of these criticism apply just as much, if not more, to Governor Inslee’s own abusive conduct.  We will see if any member of the media is willing to question the governor on his hypocrisy.

We should note, that once again, Washington State is among the very last states to finally let the public know when a mandate or executive order will end. In this case, Washington is among the last three states to announce when facemask mandates will be removed. Also, as has often been the case throughout the past two years, the emergency-power abusing governor is not releasing what data he is using to determine when his mandates will be lifted or when he will end his one-man undemocratic rule of Washington State.  (Social Media meme)

Today is the “House of origin” cutoff in the Washington Legislature for all non-budgetary legislation.  Bills will die for the session unless they are passed by either the Senate or the House before this evening.  After today, the focus will be on fiscal bills, including the tax-increasing $16 billion transportation package and the supplemental budget, and on deliberating on legislation which has passed one of the two chambers.  Because lawmakers are having to spend so much time fixing problems in previous legislation (such as the “police reform” package and Long-Term Care payroll tax), the state House of Representatives had to work through the night and finally adjourned at 6:30 AM this morning.  (Washington Legislature Calendar and Representative Jacquelin Maycumber Facebook)

KTTH Radio host Jason Rantz is critical of Democrat lawmakers anti-democratic legislation in the Washington State Legislature.  Specifically he attacks HB 1727, which would eliminate the right of citizens to mount initiative and referendum campaigns in odd-numbered years.  The reason why Democrats want to do this is because liberal voters are simply too lazy to consistently fill out a ballot that was delivered directly to their mailboxes and has return postage paid.  As a result, rational Washington State citizens have a better opportunity to enact reasonable laws through an initiative campaign or to use a referendum to repeal an extremely bad liberal law passed by Governor Inslee and his Democrat legislature.

Liberals, like former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, use the ludicrous (and racial triggering) argument that odd-numbered year elections “suppresses the vote” without providing any examples of how any person’s vote is suppressed if they choose not to vote.  The truth is that the Democrats’ legislation is actual voter suppression, in that it eliminates the possibility for Washington voters to have a direct say on laws that govern our state. As of this morning, HB 1727 has passed the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Relations and is now in the Rules Committee.  If the bill makes it to the floor of the House, there will be great interest in seeing whether Democrats in swing districts are willing to remove their constituents’ rights just to please their party bosses. (MyNorthwest and Washington Legislature Bill Summary).

Residents of Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, and Wahkiakum County (the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th legislative districts in Southwest Washington) are upset that their transportation taxes are paying for projects in Democrat districts in the Puget Sound region, while they have been nearly shut out of the Democrats’ transportation package.  Only $240,000 of the $16 billion on state pending on proposed transportation projects (or 0.0015%) has been set aside for projects in these three legislative districts. This money is allocated for a Discovery Trail Route at the Port of Ilwaco. This is primarily due to current Democrat lawmakers breaking a long tradition in the legislature of proposing a bipartisan transportation package. This year, Democrats have selfishly ignored the needs of those outside of urban Puget Sound. Representative Jim Walsh (R – 19^th LD) points out the sad truth that  “Nobody outside the northern I-5 corridor was really consulted about this.” (Longview Daily News)

The Walla Walla Union Bulletin editorializes that the governor and Democrat lawmakers have not done enough to protect Washington residents, after Governor Inslee’s administration was again responsible for a significant data breach which compromised hundreds of thousands of state citizens’ financial information to criminals.  Governor Inslee’s Washington State Department of Licensing is slowly releasing information (usually late on Friday afternoons) admitting that it failed to protect the financial information of approximately 650,000 Washington residents who applied for various business and professional licenses.  This follows the 2020 massive security failure at Governor Inslee’s Employment Security Department, which resulted in the theft of $650 million dollars by foreign criminals in one of the largest heists in American history.  The Union Bulleting was critical of the Democrats’ limited efforts to improve security and stated, “our response needs to be more than establishing new rules and regulations and departments to oversee them.” (Walla Walla Union Bulletin and Seattle Times)

Incidents of illegal drug use on King County Metro buses has increased nearly 900% as liberal drug and crime policies have resulted in more public and brazen activities by addicts.  This increase in open drug use is yet another reason why many potential riders feel unsafe on the region’s massively wasteful public transit system.  In 2019, Metro workers reported 44 security incidents regarding drug use.  That number climbed to 73 in 2020, and skyrocketed to 398 in 2021. Often toxic smoke from the burning of fentanyl, meth, heroin, and other substances will fill the buses, causing physical reactions from other passengers and the driver. The increase in drug use is due to the lack of security on transit and because users know they will not be punished if caught. (Seattle Times)

Cannabis retail businesses continue to be a target for criminals due to the amount of cash they have on hand and because criminals seek the product they sell.  A Tacoma pot shop was the fifth retailer to be robbed in the city in the past week.  Cannabis retailers are cash-only businesses because federal laws prohibit financial institutions from conducting transactions with those who sell illegal drugs (like marijuana).  Thus consumers cannot use debit/credit cards or checks to buy pot, and thus the shops are more attractive targets for criminals. (News Tribune)

The Spokane Police Department had a significant increase in the number of applicants, especially among women and people of color, seeking careers in law enforcement.  Some 762 applicants took the department’s public safety test in 2021, which is an 84% increase over the 414 applicants it received in 2019.  The 2021 aspirants included 45 African Americans, compared to just 12 applications two years ago, and an increase from 29 Hispanic applicants to 90.  Female applications grew from 49 candidates to 78.  Isn’t it interesting that a city where elected officials support their police officers experienced a large increase in applicants who are more diverse, yet a city like Seattle (whose leaders took selfies celebrating violent riots against law enforcement) has seen a mass exodus of 300 police officers from its department? (Spokesman-Review and MyNorthwest)

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