The state has lost another environmental lawsuit, likely because under Attorney General Bob Ferguson the state’s lawyers follow partisan instructions instead of legal ones. The Seattle Times leads with the decision that “Washington state can’t auction an East King County forest for logging without first analyzing the local project’s climate change impacts, a judge ruled last week, blocking the controversial timber sale and putting officials under pressure to change how they evaluate public lands for harvesting.”

This judge’s decision to ignore the state constitution – which the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was following in auctioning off logging contracts on public lands – puts at stake “how DNR generates timber revenue, which helps fund schools, county governments and other services.” Read on to see how liberals are celebrating this “significant win” over the state’s taxpayers… Seattle Times.

People in Washington who lived through the environmental debates of the 1980’s will remember a day when the spotted owl was a bigger fundraising attraction for extreme Seattle environmentalists than orcas are today. But, according to KUOW, it turns out those environmentalists didn’t care a bit about the survival of the spotted owl, as now a “proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to kill roughly half a million barred owls to protect the spotted owl has conservationists and animal welfare advocates debating the moral issue of killing one species to protect another.”

It seems that saving an endangered local species doesn’t matter to the extreme environmentalists who have a problem with solving any problem, as “a group of 75 organizations urged Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, to scrap what it calls a ‘reckless’ plan” to save the spotted owl.”  Read on for the sweet irony of one expert pointing out that “the letter opposing the proposal effectively means ‘We’d rather have barred owls than spotted owls’.” … KUOW.

Democrats often claim that they prioritize people in need when crafting their spending plans.  So Shift will point out that what KING 5 reports is the modest sum (for government) of less than a quarter million dollars this year, the state could have saved a lifeline called the “Transportation Assistance Program (which) serves the poor, disabled and elderly in remote parts of Snohomish County — averaging 80 to 90 people every day.”

However, because this program did not have a lobbyist asking Democrat legislators for the funds, or a climate change connection that might have made the governor pay attention, “it’s a program that may be a victim of its own success.” Read on to see how “the program needs someone to step in and save it.” … KING 5.

Shift reported earlier this year on the move by some Washington State Democrats to try and limit their party’s choices in the Fifth Congressional District, in hopes of sneaking a liberal into the general election. Now, according to a Spokesman-Review leak, it turns out that state Republican operatives may try to limit participation on their side as well, as “the state party wants to handpick candidates months before voters can weigh in and ask the rest to fall in line.”

You can read on to see how none of the six declared Republican candidates in the Spokane-centered Fifth Congressional District has any interest in signing on to a “pledge (which) states that a candidate who does not receive the state party’s endorsement will endorse the candidate who did and will not file for the office they intended to.” Read on to see how this silly idea even came up here, after Democrats had been holding in January “quiet conversations about quickly consolidating party support” but backed down when the candidates balked… Shift, Spokesman-Review.

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