Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson takes a stand for breaking the law, stops the City of Olympia from removing people living in cars and recreational vehicles along Ensign Road.  The city was planning to inform the dozens of individuals living in these vehicles that the city was going to actually enforce its own laws and clear the street. But that was before officials received a letter from Ferguson, who had evidently run out of lawsuits to file against the federal government.  The Attorney General informed Olympia city leaders that removing these individuals from public land would be breaking Governor Jay Inslee’s eviction ban (which he recently extended through the end of the year).  The letter says, “Given that the Ensign Road residents have resided in that location for a period of months, these notices violate the Proclamation as to any resident not demonstrated by affidavit to be causing a significant and immediate risk to the health, safety, or property of others.”  The city, since it can’t enforce its own laws because of AG Ferguson,  has resorted to bribery, attempting to clear the road by offering gas cards and paying for limited vehicle repairs to encourage people to leave.  (Olympia Tribune)

Leading law enforcement unions announced they will mount a statewide initiative campaign to force local government officials to establish specific rules on how to handle protests.  While every community will be free to determine its own set of guidelines, the initiative will require local governments to meet certain minimum requirements. The initiative states that all local governments must ban protestors from setting fires or damaging property, carrying explosive agents or fireworks, blocking traffic, and must adhere to specific time restrictions (no protest after 10 PM in residential areas and no protests anywhere after midnight).  The group, “Team Blue – Washington,” consist of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the King County Corrections Guild, and the Washington Council of Police & Sheriffs, with more groups likely to join.  Team Blue – Washington hopes to collect 250,000 signatures by next July to place the “Protect Free Speech and Safe Streets,” initiative on the November 2021 ballot. Just as Democrat officials and politicians have refused this past year to condemn the ongoing violent acts against police officers — for fear of alienating the far-Left activists behind the protests — this initiative will likely be one issue liberals will attempt to avoid next year. To read more about the initiative, you can visit Team Blue’s website.  (Seattle Times and Team Blue)

Remember the Democrat-only “Western States Pact” that Governor Inslee promised would lead us to economic recovery, but then we never heard about it again?  Well, it appears Inslee has run out of new ideas, so it’s back, and now it could cause a future delay in the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine.   At Inslee’s taxpayer-funded campaign press conference today, he announced that he joined other Democrat Governors to independently review the safety and efficiency of any drug the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves to combat the virus.  For a party which believes the government is the answer to all problems, these Democrat governors appear hypocritical in not trusting government scientists. If the Democrats do cause a delay in the delivery of the vaccine, with their photo-op “independent” approval process, you can bet there will be many people heading for the Idaho border where a governor who actually manages his own state’s affairs will allow his citizens to be immunized by an FDA-approved vaccine. (Governor Inslee (Campaign) Media Release and News Tribune)

A collection of Democrat campaign workers say they are unhappy about the conditions they currently must work under – which is understandable given they work for Democrats – and have drafted a list of demands they want to have met by next year.  The Democrat campaign workers are demanding guaranteed health care, minimum pay of $30 an hour for campaign managers, guaranteed days off, and no contact from their bosses past 9:00 PM (or before 8 in the morning).  The group also stated that Democrat campaigns discriminate against those in the LBGTQ community, the disabled and people of color. The group says that if future candidates don’t agree with their demands, they will encourage party organizations to not endorse such bad Democrats.   (Crosscut)

A new video demonstrates how the Colville Tribe manages its forest to prevent catastrophic wildfires, preserve wildlife habitat, observe tribal cultural practices, and earn revenue for the tribe.  The tribe uses the revenue generated from timber sales to manage its lands.  There are many lessons Washington State forestry officials could learn from the Colville tribe, as poor forest management practices have created the conditions that have led to many devastating fires in recent years. (Washington Policy Center)

Neighborhood community leaders from across Seattle have sent a letter to Mayor Jenny Durkan and the Seattle City Council asking that the city act to clean up the parks that are currently filled with illegal tent encampments.  Conditions are so bad in many of the parks that children cannot play in them because garbage, broken glass, and drug needles litter the playgrounds.  The letter stated that conditions were worsening before the pandemic, but have now become “a spiraling public-health and public-safety crisis.” As with previous concerns of this type, we can fully expect Seattle’s elected officials to either raise taxes to pay for another ineffective homeless policy or simply blame Amazon before ignoring the problem. (Seattle Times)

While it is common for Democrat legislative candidates to receive most of their contributions from Seattle and Olympia liberal special interests, Olympic Peninsula Senator Kevin Van De Wege (D – Sequim) has taken it to a new level.  In the hotly contested 24^th Legislative District Senate race, Democrat incumbent Van De Wege lists 105 contributions of more than $1,000 and only one (from the Jamestown S’Kallam Tribe) comes from his district.  The majority of Van De Wege’s $1,000+ contributions come from King County (44) and Olympia (11).  Van De Wege has received more large contributions from the state of Ohio (two) than he has from his own district.  His Republican opponent, Connie Beauvais, has run TV ads asking, “Where’s Kevin”, because local residents rarely see him   Chances are the senator is in Seattle picking up another special interest contribution.  And he needs that check, because one of Van De Wege’s largest expenditures has been staff salaries, and his staff is his family.  His high school-aged son and college-aged daughter have received over $10,000 in wages from the campaign. (Peninsula Daily News and Washington State Public Disclosure Commission)

King County Democrats are attempting to take control of the Sheriff’s office away from the public and put it in the hands of far-Left politicians.  King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht said that the charter amendments on the ballot are, “the scariest piece(s) of legislation” she has seen.  One amendment would stop the public from voting directly for the sheriff (instead, the County Executive would appoint the sheriff),  while another would allow the King County Council to dictate daily operations of the department. (MyNorthwest)

Tri-City health officials say we must consider students’ mental health when determining whether to re-open schools.  A study shows one out of seven students nationally have suffered mentally from not being able to attend a school.  Dr. Amy Person with the Benton Franklin Health District says, “Many of our students get the support they need in schools, so when schools are not open that limits that access.”  Dr. Person also stated that the evidence shows that there has not been a significant rise in COVID-19 cases in a community when schools have reopened. (KNDO TV)

Many Wenatchee area landlords have decided to sell their properties instead of coping with the reality of not receiving rent payments. This trend is caused by Governor Inslee continuing to extend his emergency order prohibiting evictions due to failing to pay rent.  Even though the governor’s orders do not forgive the actual rent payments, landlords are concerned that their tenants will not pay once the moratorium is lifted.  Combined with the housing market doing well, many landlords have determined that selling their rental properties is the best course to take.  Thus, the predictable result of the governor’s moratorium is that there will be fewer options available for renters, and those units which remain will have higher rents. (Wenatchee World)

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