The Democrat governor of Nevada announced he was lifting his state’s emergency orders even as Washington State endured its 800^th Day of Governor Jay Inslee’s undemocratic and divisive abuse of his emergency powers.  Governor Steve Sisolak said Nevada will end its state of emergency on May 20^th, leaving Washington State the last location in the country to either end its emergency orders or announce when it will end.  Not only do Washington citizens not know when Governor Inslee will determine the “emergency” has passed, the governor won’t even provide any criteria for when his abuse of the “emergency” will be over.  The Democrats who control the legislature have enabled this abuse of power by again failing during the 2022 legislative session to pass any type of executive branch emergency powers reform.

Governor Inslee was asked recently what criteria he will use to end Washington’s state of emergency and he replied with the following arrogant know-it-all non-response: “It’s when it makes sense that we can eliminate any requirement and not experience more death.”  Evidently, Washington citizens must wait until Governor Inslee cures death before we can once again return to a democratic form of government which allows the legislature to go back to its constitutional role of writing laws.

Evidently Governor Inslee does not believe his fellow Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature are capable of leading the state safely.  If the governor feels his Democrat colleagues are incapable of performing their constitutional role as legislators, then why should the voters re-elect them in November? (KUTV News, National Academy for State Health Policy website, and Crosscut)

The Washington State government is making money off the paper bag fee despite the Department of Ecology stating on its website that “Businesses collect and keep the entire 8 cents to recover some of the cost of providing the bags.”  State and local governments collect sales tax from the mandated eight cents per bag fee because it is considered a “sales item.” Thus often the eight-cent per bag fee is actually a nine-cent fee. Washington State Representative Strom Peterson (D – Edmonds) sponsored the legislation which banned plastic bags and imposed the fee.  He was asked about the hidden tax, and he replied, “So really the way it’s set up is they are selling that bag. So that bag is a sale. So in this state we tax sales.”

Of course, a responsible legislator, who truly just cared about the environment and not about permanently increasing the government’s tax base could have added the fee to the long list of sales items which are excluded from state taxation (such as food, electric cars, newspapers, legal services, etc.)?  This is yet another example of how big government liberals have exploited a perceived environmental concern to increase tax revenue to fund their never-ending expansion of state government.  (Washington State Department of Ecology, KIRO7 News, and Washington State Department of Revenue)

In a victory for new Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, and for those who tired of the endless revolving door for Seattle’s many criminals, the judges on the Seattle Municipal Court have agreed to her request to keep a short list of repeat offenders from going through the city’s soft-on-criminals Community Court. This court was designed by previous criminal coddling Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes to give offenders a second chance by enabling them to avoid incarceration and providing them with social services. Those who complete treatment are allowed to stay out of jail.  It is City Attorney Davison’s belief that this system is fine for first-time offenders, yet the data showed that many repeat criminals were abusing the system and not serving any time despite being responsible for multiple offensives.

City Attorney Davison sent a letter to the Seattle Municipal Court judges a couple of weeks ago asking that 118 “high utilizers” be denied the privilege of going through the Community Court system in the future.  These 118 individuals are responsible for more than 2,100 criminal charges which include theft (1,019 charges), trespassing (589 charges), assault (409 charges), or weapons violations (101 charges).  The judges’ decision on Monday is a victory for those who supported change in Seattle’s criminal justice approach and voted former City Attorney Holmes out of office in last year’s primary and replaced him with a candidate who pledged to be tougher on criminals, especially the repeat offenders. (Q13 Fox News, MyNorthwest, and ChangeWA)

City of Seattle crews are expected to finally finish cleaning up a large encampment at Woodland Park on Tuesday, even as liberal protestors seek to block their efforts.  The encampment is one of many that has continued to overtake city parks and sidewalks, yet it has garnered much publicity due to constant complaints from neighbors and park users. The encampment was such a threat to public safety that last summer the city refused to provide permits for youth cross country teams to practice or hold cross-country competitions at the park.  Liberal protestors were already out yesterday attempting to prevent journalists from filming the encampment and promised to be active again today when crews start dismantling the encampment.  City officials have placed numerous notices around the encampments and have offered residents free shelter. (KOMO News, Seattle Greenlaker, and Jonathan Choe Twitter)

Seattle and Washington State taxpayers must pay a $3 million legal settlement to a Ballard High School student in a lawsuit against the Seattle School District for knowingly rehiring a coach and teaching assistant who had previously been fired by the district for inappropriate behavior with students.  Soccer coach Meghan Miller pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count of child molestation and two counts of sexual misconduct with a minor for her relationship with the Ballard High School student.  Miller was hired by Ballard High School after she had been fired at nearby Roosevelt High School where she repeatedly crossed boundaries with students.  The Seattle School District will pay $77,000 of the settlement while the rest is paid by the taxpayer-funded Washington Schools Risk Management Pool. (Seattle Times)

The City of Everett is having success in recruiting police officers partially because the city’s elected officials support those who serve in law enforcement.  The Everett Police Department has the support of such elected officials as Mayor Cassie Franklin as it seeks to hire 20 police officers to fill out its ranks. This is in sharp contrast to Seattle, which is currently debating between two separate expensive proposals to recruit officers to its police department. The SPD is down 520 officers (out of 1,400) and continues to see its well-trained officers flee for other more supportive communities.

Seattle would not be in this position if its city councilmembers supported its police officers during and after the 2020 riots by liberal activists.   Many Seattle city councilmembers chose to break their campaign promises to increase funding of the police department and instead recklessly caved into the liberal rioters’ demands to “defund” the police. Karma is not being favorable to them. (Q13 The Spotlight and MyNorthwest)

The Northwest RiverPartners is being forced to mount a public information campaign defining the benefits of the Snake River dams to counter the onslaught of misinformation currently being distributed in a coordinated (and expensive) public relations efforts by wealthy environmental groups, Native tribes, and liberal politicians.  The ads provide the facts that the power generated by the dams is clean, renewable energy and thus is necessary if our goal is to reduce carbon emissions. Also, the dams provide a safe and clean-energy method for transporting crops to market.  Without the dams, tens of thousands of carbon-emitting trucks would be needed to bring crops to the ports to be exported.

The ads don’t mention another important argument in support of the dams, which is that recent improvements in salmon runs have led to increased counts of Chinook salmon.  But more importantly, if the aim of the wealthy environmental groups is to increase salmon in Puget Sound, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists state removing the four lower Snake River dams would have little or no impact on the number of salmon in those waters or to help the Orca whales which feed off of them. The real threat to Puget Sound salmon comes from the City of Seattle dumping toxic sewage into the waters and the dams on the Skasgit River which power the homes/offices of wealthy Seattle environmentalists.  (Northwest RiverPartners, Washington Policy Center, and Tri-Cities Business Journal)

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