Shift used much of its Friday newsletter to put a spotlight on the scandal which emerged from a KING 5 investigative piece highlighting the first significant whistleblower of the Inslee administration, including some direct questions we hope to see the media and/or governor’s team answer in the coming days. Sure enough, other media outlets augmented Susannah Frame’s initial coverage over the weekend, with Crosscut making sure to update its Friday story with comments from Gov. Inslee’s lead flack putting a little cover-up on, finding out in the first 24 hours he knew about this story that the “appropriate OFM official does not recall discussing” asking the since-silenced employee to “jimmy” his gas price numbers to fit Governor Inslee’s public statements.

It’s interesting that Crosscut noted Inslee’s flack was burning the midnight (non-fossil-fuel) oil to get the governor’s spin into the next news cycle (receiving it Friday evening), yet the late response picks around the legal edges of the fired employee’s claims and does not address the significant questions he raised, like being told not to put anything in email about rising gas prices to avoid public records disclosure, or that he was being “bullied” for political reasons. You can read on to see how the scandal continues to unfold here… Shift, KING 5, Crosscut.

Last Friday, Shift first published two follow-up questions that jumped out from the initial Inslee administration whistleblower story, in hopes that other outlets might find a way to get them answered – or to add to them. Sure enough, the Seattle Times was kind enough to do the latter over the weekend, featuring Gov. Inslee’s lead apologist trying to separate his boss from the scandal by pretending that the allegations about silencing a state employee telling the truth regarding gas price increases was no big thing because “Ecology is the lead agency on the Climate Commitment Act, not WSDOT” and “the governor’s office ‘has always worked with Ecology on understanding price impacts’.”

The question raised by the Times story is whether the governor really did not receive any information about the impact of his carbon tax on gas prices from an economist charged with studying gas prices in his own Department of Transportation. Read on to see how his administration would evidently rather rely on some environmentalist at the Department of Ecology who will say carbon taxes do what their boss, not the actual data, says here… Shift, Seattle Times.

Folks over in Eastern Washington got to know Jay Inslee before most of us, since he was a congressman from Yakima in 1993-94, before he got beat and moved to Bainbridge Island to resume his political damage. Perhaps that’s why it’s from experience that editorial writers at the Tri-City Herald remind us of the irony that “Gov. Jay Inslee wishes the federal government had more respect for local priorities. Many Washingtonians can only hope that’s more than a governor’s passing fancy.”

The editorial wistfully asks does Gov. Inslee “now realize how Tri-Citians feel about unwanted projects being pushed on our community”? Read on to see whether “maybe now that Inslee has felt the sting of being ignored by distant policymakers, he’ll have a new appreciation for what it feels like to live in Eastern Washington” here… Tri-City Herald.

One of the many aspects of Washington state’s expensive carbon tax experiment which Shift has noted keeps continuing to raise questions about the basic fairness of the Democrat law is the inability of Department of Ecology bureaucrats tasked with administering the law to actually administer the law. That’s what you can find in the Capital Press story that the “Washington Farm Bureau estimates farmers have paid at least $153 million and likely far more this year in cap-and-trade fees, even though lawmakers intended to exempt agriculture from the tax on fossil fuels.”

This controversy continues because Gov. Inslee does not want anyone in his administration admitting just how costly his carbon tax is turning out to be, and he is helped in his deception that the “law’s design guarantees the public can’t know exactly how the increase in state revenue is affecting pump prices.”

Perhaps unintended deception aside, exempting farmers from the carbon tax was one of the final concessions which Gov. Inslee made to push his partisan law through the legislature in 2021, and now that the Democrats are cashing carbon checks, they have little interest in keeping those old promises. You can read on to see how the state is stumped on how to keep its promises because “Ecology doesn’t know how much cap-and-trade is costing fuel users” here… Shift, Capital Press.

Shift believes that when more fish are making it upstream to spawn, that’s a good thing. Especially when 100% renewable power is being produced even as “results from a month-long Chelan PUD study show an improvement in fish survival through the Rocky Reach Dam” as noted on the Pacific Northwest Ag Network.

Read on to see how “the combined adult and juvenile survival rate was 93.54 percent, which is better than the 91 percent standard required in the Rocky Reach Habitat Conservation Plan” here… Pacific NW Ag Network.

Shift’s Newsmaker Interview last week was with author, filmmaker, and former Levi Strauss & Co. executive Jennifer Sey, who will be one of the featured speakers at the 2024 Roanoke Conference (January 26 – 28 in Ocean Shores). Her new book. “Levi’s Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job but Gave Me My Voice” details her experience fighting liberal activists over her concerns distance learning was having on student’s education and social development.

In her interview, Sey described her concerns with isolating children during COVID and her fight with activists who attempted to silence her concerns. She detailed her experience within Levi’s where members of the management team (whose children went to private schools which continued in-person learning) told her that she must stop advocating for re-opening public schools. Finally, Sey talked about her upcoming documentary, “GENERATION COVID,” which focuses on the long-term damage the lockdown will have on our children… Shift.

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