Did recent radical police reforms go too far, to the point where someone in a mental health crisis will not receive desperately needed treatment?  In a guest column, Caitlin Bassett of the Discovery Institute describes a recent terrifying episode in Sedro Wooley, where the police were called multiple times due to the violent behavior of a man either suffering a severe mental episode or under the influence of drugs.  Recent Democrat reforms, which were hastily rammed through the Washington State Legislature to placate the often-violent liberal activists who are key drivers of the Democrat base, have constrained what law enforcement can do.  Police officers were forced to leave the scene while the man was still a threat to himself and his neighbors. Prior to the recent legislative actions, the man would have been taken into custody, where he would have received the medical attention he desperately needed. (Click to read full Shift Article)

We admit, we are confused by many points made in Governor Inslee’s announcement this morning regarding a new vaccine lottery for military members and veterans.  Last week many people (including Shift) asked why the federal government had the state over the 70% vaccinated threshold, yet Jay Inslee and his state health officials were reporting a 64% vaccination rate.  The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) issued a media release in an attempt to clear up this error. The DOH’s first reason for the 6% difference in reality  was that, “The federal government gets data from the Department of Defense (DoD), Veterans Affairs (VA), Bureau of Prisons, and potentially a few other sources of vaccines allocated directly from the federal government that do not get shared with DOH.” This means that the federal government was accurately stating that hundreds of thousands more Washington residents had received the vaccine than the state’s inaccurate numbers, which included these individuals in the “unvaccinated” category.

Today,  governor said the state now has the ability to obtain the names of the vaccinated veterans so they can be entered into his new vaccine lottery gimmick (the state is still unable to obtain the names of those currently active in the military, because why would the federal government trust Jay Inslee with such confidential data).  Our major question is whether the numbers of the veterans who have been vaccinated been added to the state database, or does the state still consider them to be unvaccinated?  There are more than 520,000 veterans residing in Washington State.  If just one-third (140,000) of them have their status correctly labeled by the state as vaccinated, then even the under-reported and inaccurate state government figures would be above 70%, and the state should be fully reopened this weekend and no longer under the exclusive control of Jay Inslee.

Unfortunately, in a desperate bid to maintain his one-man control of the state, Governor Inslee made several untrue claims about the impact and effectiveness of his vaccine lottery program.  While we here at Shift fully support government providing incentives for doing good deeds (since that is much better than the Democrats’ preferred approach of penalizing people with higher taxes), it is hard for us to imagine that many people who had so far refused to obtain the vaccine would suddenly change their mind due to the remote possibility of receiving a gift card – and this view has been validated by the fact that a large share of the prizes have gone unclaimed.

The governor claimed that vaccinations had increased once his lottery scheme was announced.  What the governor conveniently failed to mention is that, during the same time period, vaccinations for the 250,000 state residents who are 16- and 17-years-old had finally begun, and that the 68% who have received the vaccine have driven the vaccination numbers up, not his vaccination lottery gimmick which few are paying attention to. (Seattle Times/TVW video, Shift, WA State Department of Health June 7th media release, Statista, Q13 News,

The Seattle Times has apparently woken up from a long COVID-induced slumber, and decided to point out Governor Inslee’s lack of leadership was very apparent when he shirked his responsibilities by allegedly signing two conflicting bills at the same time. By signing two separate bills, based on his silly claim that he signed one with his left-hand and one with his right, at exactly the same time, the governor stuck state taxpayers with a big legal bill, due to Secretary of State Kim Wyman being required to ask the courts what her obligations were in filing the bills.  Thsee bills, regarding broadband internet service in rural Washington (one originating in the House and the other in the Senate), provide conflicting regulations, and thus the bill signed last would take effect. Yet, when Inslee pulled his stunt (which the Times wrote has never been done in the 131-year history of our state) the decision fell to the Secretary of State’s office, which must file the bills.  Regarding Inslee’s actions, the Times’ editorial said, “Governor Jay Inslee needs to consult a primer on proper governance when it comes to signing bills. Repeatedly, he has exceeded his authority in line-item vetoes and been hauled into court by legislators more than once over it. This spring, he overcorrected, making an error of executive underreach.” That’s Jay – he can’t get it right whether he is grabbing for too much, or too little. (Seattle Times)

Teachers’ union bosses are threatening to block the return of full-time in-person education for Washington State schools in the Fall.  In the latest example of the unions’ belief that their political needs outweigh the education of our children.   We have just seen teachers’ unions in multiple districts successfully delay for many months the implementation of a hybrid schedule to bring students safely back to the classroom, even if part-time.  Sure, Governor Jay Inslee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal talked tough about the unreasonable demands of the union bosses (their major campaign contributors), the reality is they dragged their feet for months and allowed the unions to control school districts’ decisions. The unions clearly demonstrated that their demands should be placed above the mental health of students (due to being isolated from their friends) and the poor education they were receiving via distance learning.  As students look forward to a return to a full-time, in-person schedule next Fall (as Inslee and Reykdal have called for), the union officials are once again saying their needs are far more important than the students’ education and well-being.  (Q13 News)

KTTH host Jason Rantz argues that a City of Seattle program to distribute 2,000 free ORCA cards (ie, free transit passes) is racist and that it openly discriminates against white residents.  Rantz quoted a Seattle Department of Transportation blog entry which states it is selecting recipients who live in areas “where there are high numbers of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC)-owned businesses and in neighborhoods most significantly impacted by COVID-19.” Rantz goes on to criticize the process the city is using, suggesting that while there may be many minority owned businesses in the International District, that is not where the low-income employees reside. (MyNorthwest)

The Seattle Mariners have announced that they will be making all seats available for sale starting with the July 2^nd contest against the Texas Rangers. The team also announced that the July 2^nd game will be called “Grand Re-Opening Night”, with special promotions and fireworks after the game. The one major COVID-related restriction that will remain in place is no printed tickets, as all of those former souvenirs will be digital to save the team money, which is using the claim that this is to ensure there will be less mass contact through ticket-takers (who are still standing in the same place, breathing the same air, as they digitally process the ticket).  We hardily applaud the resumption of this semi-normal normal activity, yet with the governor’s history of constantly and randomly changing restrictions and data requirements during the pandemic, we hope the team is not caught off-guard if he changes his mind in the next couple of weeks about fully reopening the state by June 30^th. (Seattle Times)

A dead “murder hornet” was found in Marysville on June 4^th.  State entomologists say that this renegade does not appear to be connected to the nest of hornets which was found and destroyed last year by the Canadian border.  Officials have not yet found evidence of other such hornets in the area, and that this could be a solo flyer which somehow managed to reach Snohomish County. (Everett Herald)

Rarely do federal elected officials become involved in state issues, but Congressman Dan Newhouse has again stepped forward to argue against the Democrats’ state income tax on capital gains.  During the legislative session, the Central Washington congressman testified against the unconstitutional tax bill during its brief legislative hearings.  Representative Newhouse, as he did during that testimony, pointed out in this Sunnyside Sun op-ed, that every state in the country and the Internal Revenue Service consider a capital gains tax an income tax, and that categorization makes this tax unconstitutional in Washington State.  Newhouse asserted that it shouldn’t have been necessary for lawsuits to be filed to prevent this illegal tax, and that Democrat lawmakers should understand by now that both the voters and the courts have repeatedly rejected a state income tax in Washington. (Sunnyside Sun)

While we have witnessed a significant increase in recall efforts against elect officials in the past couple of years, we have not seen an effort to recall an entire city council, as is currently taking place in the City of Bridgeport (just Northeast of Lake Chelan).  A resident is attempting to recall every member of the city council due to public financial reports on transportation projects not being made public.  The Douglas County Superior Court will hear the complaints on Friday, and rule whether they are legally sufficient to move forward to collecting signatures on a recall petition. (Wenatchee World)

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