The team at Shift couldn’t resist one April Fool’s Day jab at the green governor’s expense with the headline on top, but we are not joking about his last act of over-spending at the close of his last scheduled legislative session. The Washington State Standard reported the joke is likely on taxpayers, as the three different budgets Gov. Inslee signed spent billions more of their money, and the “$2 billion in new spending is on top of the $69.8 billion operating budget that passed the Legislature last year.”

Indeed, it’s not enough for Gov. Inslee to have doubled the size of the state budget during his 12-year reign of error, but as he heads out the door, he is setting the stage for future budget deficits by spreading his beloved carbon tax across all three budgets as “the source of $1.2 billion in spending, of which $249 million is in the operating budget, $324 million in the transportation plan and $688 million in the capital budget.” Read on for more fiscal disaster thanks to Jay here… Washington State Standard.

Perhaps the release of the Attorney General’s “public safety” plan was actually his attempt at an early April Fool’s Day joke, as even he has to realize no one will buy a pro-cop makeover from the pro-drug AG.  That’s one theory after Jason Rantz pointed out the obvious flaw that the “Bob Ferguson drug crisis plan is a real head scratcher. He was one of the first and loudest voices encouraging drug decriminalization.”

Indeed the evidence is clear that AG Ferguson had legalization of all drugs on his mind when he wrote in 2021 that “I’m hoping the next step is for Washington to change course and move away from a war on drugs that has utterly failed and try a new approach.” You can read on to see that AG Ferguson’s “new approach is to eliminate the criminal penalties associated with possessing a non-commercial amount of drugs” because why would he want to penalize any potential voters just for using drugs? … Jason Rantz KTTH.

It is particularly sad to realize that a story about volunteers finding dead bodies along Seattle’s streets is not a sick April Fool’s Day joke, but a more introspective piece. Take time to listen to the KIRO Newsradio story about volunteers so committed to cleaning up the city that one would report earlier this year that “I was checking in on the camps that were still set up, and I happened to come across a fully decomposed body” and yet their group, I Heart Seattle, is still out doing the work – and being rejected by the Seattle Left.

You can read on to see how former Shift newsmaker interviewee Andrea Suarez is still out there leading “a handful of staff and rotating teams of volunteers in an ‘action-based, boots-on-the-ground movement that organizes trash cleanups in our public spaces and offers resources to those in need.”… KIRO Newsradio.

You have to be careful on April 1, to avoid falling for the well-crafted April Fool’s Day prank. That’s why the Shift team did a double-take while reading the Seattle Times lead editorial today which pointed out the uncomfortable reality for Mayor Bruce Harrell that with his “big labor agreements now pending at council, the new budgeting practices look a lot like the old budgeting practices — kicking the can down the road and making even tougher the day of fiscal reckoning that will almost certainly include city job cuts, tax increases and service reductions.”

Of course for big-city Democrats, “the day of fiscal reckoning” never involves their own money, so they do not care. Instead, Mayor Harrell is paying off the unions that put lefties in office despite that blowing his budget as “the (labor) agreements are expected to add $10 million to the deficit, bringing the total gap to more than $240 million (in 2025). The same goes for 2026, with an extra $15 million growing the deficit to more than $245 million.” Read on for more dismal deficit news that even the Times is upset about here… Seattle Times.

You can’t even make up the arrogance of some environmentalists, who love to demand solutions that they prefer while ignoring risks and impacts that they will never endure.  A prime example of this type of reality disconnect comes from the (Everett) Herald’s highlighting that the “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service last week announced their final analysis of plans to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades, a species whose last confirmed sighting was near Snohomish County’s Glacier Peak in 1996.”

The Herald thinks it’s a fine idea to bring back the grizzlies, though some closer to the action expressed a different attitude “at a public hearing in November in Darrington where some at the meeting held signs reading ‘Hell no to grizzles’.” One liberal blew off such concerns, sniffing that “(P)eople have learned to live with all these wildlife and predators in their midst”, though of course he is not one of those people expected to have “learned to live” with something trying to kill him. … (Everett) Herald.

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