Taxpayers have already been forced to give over $2,000,000 to a variety of unqualified and/or wacky far-Left Seattle political candidates, most of whom are seeking to become the city’s next mayor (where the eventual winner will likely become the 6^th straight elected mayor to be leave city hall in disgrace due to the multitude of problems created by the region’s dysfunctional liberal establishment in the state’s largest city).  If you follow the money, you’ll find most of the tax money that funds Seattle’s “Democracy Voucher Program” will end up in the bank accounts of ultra-liberal political consultants, who get paid to spin the lies that their candidates will solve the city’s increasing problems by giving away even more free stuff and taxing the wealthy (i.e., the same promises which have created and exacerbated the city’s never-ending and ever-growing social problems for the past three decades). (Click to read full Shift Article)

In 12 of the states where governors have wielded the most authority during emergencies, the legislature has successfully amended state laws to require more involvement from legislators, and in some cases, from local officials.  Unfortunately, Washington State remains one of the very few states which denies legislators and local leaders any input on the governor’s decisions even after the threat of the initial emergency has subsided.  The failure to fix this flaw in our state’s constitutional system rests solely on Governor Jay Inslee and the Democrats who currently control the Washington State Legislature, as they don’t see the need for a separation of powers when liberals have all the power.  Just consider that it has been over 475 days since the governor issued his first emergency order, and while some Democrats have threatened to join Republicans in curtailing the governor’s job-killing emergency powers, all of those threats have turned out to be public relations stunts to deflect criticism after their constituents became upset with the governor’s unscientific, harmful, and random orders.  Case in point, back in May, when Pierce County Democrat legislators sent a letter to the governor after he unfairly punished their constituents, while rewarding King County residents with nearly identical infection rates and hospital vacancies. While the legislators threatened to call a special session to fix Inslee’s emergency powers, they instead decided to sit on their hands even as their constituents were forced to suffer a few more weeks under the governor’s unfair, unscientific, and usually partisan decisions.

The impact of Governor Inslee’s unilateral control over the state continues, as Washington State remains one of four (Hawaii, New Mexico, and Hawaii are the others) still under emergency orders.  Nearly all other states, most with lower vaccination levels than Washington, have reopened their economies.  Despite the federal government, with far more comprehensive data, announcing two weeks ago that Washington had reached the 70% vaccination threshold, the governor continues to use the incomplete data (which the state admittedly knows does not recognize the hundreds of thousands of residents immunized by the federal government) compiled by his Department of Health. Yet, since the governor is the only person that legislative Democrats want issuing emergency orders, actual facts are ignored in favor of the faulty information his own office distributes. (Pew Trusts, Shift, Seattle Times, White House staff tweet, and Washington State Department of Health media release)

Selecting a new police chief will be a top priority for all of the major candidates seeking to become Seattle’s next mayor, but is there anyone qualified who would want lead Seattle’s embattled police department?  It’s the question that Seattle’s liberals just don’t know how to answer: who would want to become Seattle’s top law enforcement officer, since the city’s dysfunctional liberal establishment destroys police chiefs almost as fast as it discards mayors?  We’re sure that other police leaders across the country remember how the current city council so rudely treated its first Black woman police chief last summer. Any officer interested in this job might ask Chief Best why the council would not listen to her concerns or suggestions, but instead these cowardly councilmembers hastily caved into the demands of violent liberal activists to defund the police department (with many councilmembers breaking their months-old campaign promises to increase police funding).  Experienced and well-trained officers are leaving the department in a mass exodus, due to lack of support from city officials.  Liberal policies encourage homelessness, crime, and public drug use, and make it impossible for the police to provide the public safety most residents and businesses expect (and pay taxes for).  But most of all, who would want to lead a department after not one member of its city council condemned political violence by liberal activists which included an attempted mass murder of police officers? (Seattle Times, NPR, and Law Enforcement Today)

Point Roberts has become Washington’s newest ghost town, as the American and Canadian border remains closed for at least another month. The small town at the end of a peninsula extending South from British Columbia, has faced unique mobility  challenges, as border restrictions have made it exceedingly difficult for town residents to travel into either Canada or the American mainland.  The city has a year-around population of approximately 1,000 (which swells to 5,000 during the summer months) and nearly all of them have been fully vaccinated.  The owner of the lone grocery store says she may have to permanently close her store due to another summer without business, and is blaming Washington State and Canadian politicians for failing to come up with a workable solution. Ali Hayton says that political games are devastating her business and her community and claims political leaders “Don’t care about the people here.”     (Yahoo/Spokesman-Review and Global News)

The staff of an Olympia restaurant want to thank the public for helping them stand up to government overreach by Governor Inslee’s Department of Labor and Industry (L&I).  Acting on a single tip from a member of the public, L&I sent the Shipwreck Café a threatening letter in December, stating its owners could be fined or the business closed for violating whichever one of Governor Inslee’s random COVID orders was in place at the time.  Media reports detailed the government’s failure to provide actual evidence before sending the letter to the owner, whose business was barely surviving due to the governor’s restrictions.  As the result of public outrage, L&I apologized and said its uncaring bureaucrats would alter their processes in the future, in hopes of not getting caught again for political persecution. (Q13’s The Divide/Facebook video)

A man accused of a fatal stabbing was free to commit the crime because a liberal organization had previously paid his bail.  On June 17, Michael Sedejo was arrested for stabbing a man to death at one of the city’s homeless encampments.  The Northwest Community Bail Fund had previously bailed Mr. Sedejo out of jail on May 6, where he was visiting due to fourth-degree assault and second-degree robbery charges. (MyNorthwest)

The failed “Joint for Jabs” program was the brainchild of Governor Inslee’s former Chief of Staff David Postman, according to the Walla Walla Union Bulletin.  As the Chairman of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (the cushy $67,000-a-year position, for meeting a few times each year, was given to Postman by Governor Inslee as a reward for him not laughing at his boss too much), Postman convinced current members of the governor’s staff that it would increase vaccination numbers if marijuana retailers could give joints to those receiving the vaccine in their stores.  Unfortunately, like many ideas emanating from the governor’s office, this idea was not thought through.   Very few stores were willing to participate in the program (mostly because of hassles associated with having someone sitting in the shop to administer the vaccine), and those that did actually saw very few program participants.  As a Walla Walla shop manager stated, “People are already getting the shot for free anywhere else.  It would just be too much of a hassle for us.”  (Walla Walla Union Bulletin)

This week’s Newsmaker Interview is with Brian Minnich, the Executive Vice President of the Freedom Foundation.  Over the past decade, the Freedom Foundation has become one of the nation’s leading organizations combatting the ever-increasing power which government employee unions have over government decisions. While democratic governments were designed to serve the needs of the people, unions have used their large bankrolls to build their political influence and have now essentially made government a tool to serve their own selfish needs.  Unions leverage their control over the Democrat Party to exploit government’s taxing powers to fund larger governments with more government employees with higher salaries and expensive benefits.  Minnich discusses the Freedom Foundation’s successful efforts to promote workers’ rights by stopping the state’s automatic deduction of union dues from their paychecks, and the foundation’s lawsuit to strike down the unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains passed earlier this year by the Democrat-controlled legislature (which is strongly desired by the government employee unions to fund their larger state government strategy). (Click to read full Newsmaker Interview)

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