A reverse financial windfall is about to hit Washington state, but it is not one that Democrats in Olympia will be bragging about since it highlights a reality the Left willingly ignored when they jammed through a state income tax (starting with capital gains) in 2021. That is the takeaway from Center Square coverage: “Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell 50 million shares of Amazon stock, which would have cost him hundreds of millions of dollars had he not moved out of Washington state.”

It turns out that “Bezos adopted the trading plan on Nov. 2, six days after announcing his move from Seattle to Miami,” which commits him to saving (based on today’s stock price) about $600 million this year as a reward from not having Jay Inslee as his governor. Read on while contemplating that Washingtonians can undo this type of damage by repealing the state’s income tax at the polls this November… Center Square, Let’s Go Washington.

The Shift team has been happy to write over the years about University of Washington Professor Cliff Mass, who is one scientist willing to stick his neck out to speak truth to power. Unfortunately for the Seattle Times and Governor Jay Inslee, Professor Mass often brings his atmospheric sciences credentials to bear in refuting their strident advocacy, such as when he writes about another “Seattle Times front-page story pushing a false narrative on climate change came out on Sunday.  A story that is full of scientific errors.”

Professor Mass takes on the Times recent climate alarmist “reporting” by pointing out the “article is guilty of acts of omission.  Of citing questionable sources.  And of wrong and inaccurate statements.” Read on to understand that this is not the first time the Times has shown the public “the dangers of advocacy journalism.”… Shift, Cliff Mass Blog.

The stunt that was Governor Jay Inslee’s effort to take attention away from his gas-price raising carbon tax has officially failed in this legislative session – in part because of how expensive it would be to set up a new bureaucracy.  That’s the news from the Washington State Standard reporting that “Gov. Jay Inslee’s drive to require oil companies to reveal more about their gasoline prices and profits ended Monday when a bill to impose new transparency rules on the industry lapsed in a Senate budget committee.”

The Democrats’ so-called transparency bill was little more than a fig leaf to try and cover for how embarrassed they were by the 50-cent-per-gallon rise in gas prices last summer. Read on to see how now they don’t even have that because, as one environmental lobbyist understated, “It’s a complicated bill,” and its sponsor admits the “bill as drafted gets us in the right direction, but also the right direction is very expensive.” … Washington State Standard.

Legislative Democrats have been working their way through a variety of unimportant bills to be able to claim there is no time for any hearings on the six citizen initiatives that have been certified for priority legislative action. One such waste of time covered by KUOW is that “lawmakers in Olympia are once again considering a proposal to establish a bottle deposit program for Washington state.”

This time the effort to charge people money to recycle their bottles is being guided by the misguided State Representative Monica Stonier, who explains, “I was really surprised to learn about how all of the things I’ve been telling my children about the recycling process — how important it is to sort and take our stuff down to the curb — how unclean that process is.” If she really wants to see “unclean,” she can read on about how her bill is stirring up plenty of opposition… KUOW.

If you need a good laugh, read the latest from the very Left-Wing blog The Urbanist, which is very sad that King County’s “own report measuring progress from the 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan points toward a need to rapidly start making progress in the area of transportation or risk missing climate targets laid out in the plan.” That’s bureaucrat-speak for “we’re already missing targets again that we knew we’d miss, and no one cares.”… The Urbanist.

Shift has long watched how the problems of Seattle have moved into the suburbs over the years, often with the help of Seattle activists who like to spread the misery. Unfortunately, the latest update out of Burien, from KOMO News, is that “Dozens of people living in a sanctioned homeless encampment at a Burien church are trying to figure out where to go after ‘Sunnydale Village’ closed Monday.”

Those following the news know that “Burien has been the center of a divisive fight over homeless encampments.” Part of the reason why is the lack of trust captured by one neighbor, who said, “Don’t have a code of conduct if you can’t hold accountability for the rules – they need rules.”… KOMO.