As you watch the election results this evening, remember there is one very important measure the Democrats kept off the ballot – whether or not to impose the Democrats’ unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains.  Even though the new state income tax money will not be collected for a couple of years, and even though the state treasury is already overflowing with tax revenues (currently there is a $3.8 billion surplus), Governor Jay Inslee and Democrat legislators used an extremely rare procedure to declare their state income tax an “emergency” which thus denied voters the right to repeal the legislation (SB 5096) through a referendum. This is because the Democrats know the voters of Washington State have rejected a state income tax the last 10 times it was on the ballot (nine times by more than 64%).  SO, the Democrats just removed voters from the tax-raising process, in order to create a huge new revenue stream (i.e. taxing your income) to finance their liberal utopia of a larger state government (which, conveniently for Democrats, means more state employee union dues being available to elect Democrats). (Opportunity for All Coalition Facebook Post, Washington Policy Center,  Washington State Legislature Bill Summary, and Olympia Watch Twitter)

While Governor Inslee is out of the country during the next couple of weeks, Lt. Governor Denny Heck has the opportunity to show true non-partisan leadership by standing up for the legislative branch of the Washington State government and ending the state of emergency imposed over 600 days ago by the absent governor.  According to media reports, Governor Inslee will be jetting off to the Glasgow 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference this week, where we can be sure he will embarrass us all by making more unscientific claims (like Seattle “will be 130 degrees” in the future, which the governor posted on  Facebook last June, though it has since been conveniently deleted by his staff). While Governor Inslee is out of the state, Lt. Governor Denny Heck assumes the full powers of the governor, including the ability to end the 600+ days of Inslee’s partisan and arbitrary “emergency” orders.

Lt. Governor Heck has served in the legislative branch at the state level (from 1977 – 1985) and federal level (2013 – 2021) and thus understands the importance of having the people’s representatives represented in decision-making and the dangers of one-man rule.  We encourage our readers to contact Acting Governor Heck’s office (360.786.7700 and [email protected]) and ask him to do what Governor Inslee and Democrat legislators have refused to do, and end the unprecedented state of emergency and allow the people’s representatives in the legislature have their rightful say on state decisions.

And here’s a point worth raising with the Acting Governor over why the time is now to stand up for the people of the state: if the “emergency” is so dire in Washington State that our governor feels justified in removing basic democratic principles such as legislative oversight, then how can he defend spending a week halfway across the globe attending photo ops and cocktail parties?  (Capital Press, Seattle Times, and Governor Inslee Facebook post)

On Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman’s last day supervising state elections, she expressed her views on why distrust is growing over how elections are administered.  Secretary Wyman pointed out that, after the 2016 elections, Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton were skeptical about how elections were carried out. After the 2020 campaign, many Trump supporters also became cynical about the process. Wyman said, “I think that that emotion can overtake people, and they don’t necessarily take in data in a non-emotional way.”

Wyman added some people can’t believe that their candidates lost, because on social media they isolate themselves with others who think like they do and thus don’t always obtain a realistic perspective of the race. Thus they are shocked when their candidate loses. Wyman says this causes “people’s attention to (focus on) election administration, and so they want to hold election officials accountable because, again, it’s easier to believe that they committed felony offenses and did their job in an illegal way than maybe your campaign lost.” (MyNorthwest)

An average of almost 10,000 Washington State workers per day filed (the first month they could) for exemptions to the Democrats’ unpopular and poorly designed Long-Term Care payroll tax, despite a number of computer crashes and severe difficulty in finding private insurance plans.  As of October 28^th, some 279,465 Washington workers had filed for exemptions. No figures were available for the last three days of the exemption period, when there was likely another mad rush of people not wanting to pay for a useless plan, which state officials have already admitted needs more tax funding. (Seattle P-I)

The Seattle Public Schools is hoping those living in tents on their Bitter Lake property (adjacent to Broadview-Thomson K-8 School) will move into a hotel recently purchased by King County.  The school district maintains that officials will never show any respect for the parents and students at the school by asking for a “sweep” of those illegally living in the encampment.  Now 15 rooms at a nearby recently-purchased hotel are set aside for those who are currently living on school district property.  Since hotels and other government housing options often have rules against drug use and requirements for checking in with staff, it is not known if all those currently in the encampments are eager to move. (Seattle Times)

Lame-duck Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an emergency declaration for the Seattle Police Department to authorize hiring bonuses for new recruits, yet the extremists on the Seattle City Council appear poised to kill the order.  The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 300 officers due to lack of support from Seattle’s elected officials. Violent crime rates have skyrocketed, especially in lower income neighborhoods. Mayor Durkan authorized $25,000 for each new “lateral” recruit (i.e., those coming from other police departments) and $10,000 for new recruits. Immediately Socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant began working on legislation to reject the order. It was telling that current Seattle City Council President and current mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez told her colleagues to “spend some time” thinking about the bonuses before acting on them.  Obviously Councilmember Gonzalez did not want to take a position which could impact people’s choice for mayor before the election. A real “profile in courage.” (MyNorthwest)

While cattle ranchers in Northeast Washington State can do nothing to stop wolves from attacking their herds, Idaho is handing out a total of $200,000 to those who kill wolves in that state.  One Ferry County rancher in Northeast Washington has had his herd dwindle from 40 cattle down to 11 in the past decade, much of it due to attacks from the wolves. Meanwhile, across the border in Idaho, where the wolves are not endangered, one large rancher said she has never lost any cattle to wolves. She credits the fact that many Idaho lawmakers have experience in farming for why she is able to maintain her business. (KREM2)

A West Richland homeowner said someone purposefully drove a vehicle through their yard attempting to destroy yard signs for school board candidates. This act of political violence led the homeowner to say, “We should be able to protect those even if you disagree with them, protect those and ensure they also have the freedom to voice their concerns or their viewpoints even if you disagree with those as well. I’m not going to tear down their stuff. I don’t want them to tear down my stuff, I mean let’s be civil together.” (YakTriNews)

The Washington State Democrat Party sent out a “Get-Out-The-Vote” email today (to make sure their supporters vote for candidates like the violent extremist Nicole “police should eat covid-laced sh*t” Thomas-Kennedy) under the subject heading “Voting is the groundstone of our democracy.”  Those of us at Shift were curious as to what a “groundstone” is and the online Webster’s Dictionary said it was not a word. We then went to the online Urban Dictionary to see if it is some new slang term, and it also said “groundstone” was not a recognized word. We then went to Wikipedia which also said “groundstone” is not a word, but a “ground stone” is an archeology term for a Neolithic category of tool.

Since Democrats support Governor Inslee’s one-man rule without legislative oversight and denying citizens the right to repeal legislation passed by Democrat legislators through a referendum, then it is understandable how the staff at the Washington Democrat State Party has such difficulty remembering the very basic phrase, “Touchstone of Democracy” since democracy appears to be a forgotten theory by the party’s elected officials.  (Washington State Democrat Party email, Webster’s Dictionary, Urban Dictionary, and Wikipedia)

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