In this week’s Newsmaker Interview, Representative Joe Schmick (R-Colfax) discussed the recent federal court decision that fined the Inslee Administration $100 million for not providing legally required “competency treatment” for suspected criminals before they stand trial. The court case, known as “Trueblood,” revealed that the state failed to provide mental health treatment within the required 21 days, leading to overcrowding in local jails and substantial court fines. Rep. Schmick highlighted the Inslee Administration’s broader track record of failures in managing mental health policies, including issues with state hospitals, safety guidelines during COVID, and hiring a felon who later became the prime suspect in theft from patients. READ MORE ON SHIFT.

In an embarrassing footnote to yesterday’s embarrassing “fill-in-the-blame” press conference, Governor Jay Inslee’s staff had to admit today that a major component of the governor’s attack on private industry was factually incorrect. The Washington State Standard reported today that an industry spokeswoman “said in an email that maintenance on its Olympic Pipeline lasted three-and-a-half days and it was fully operational by June 27. There is no maintenance underway now.”

That little fact has not stopped the governor and his extreme allies from using the pipeline maintenance work as a reason for higher prices some three weeks after it re-opened, to deflect attention from the state’s expensive new cap-and-tax program. Yesterday, according to the Standard, Inslee said, “‘That pipeline is going to come back. When it comes back, there’s a fair chance these prices can be ameliorated.’ On Friday, an Inslee spokesman said in an email their office had not been advised of the pipeline opening and that the governor’s comment on prices going down was an ad-lib.” You can decide for yourself if Inslee’s ad-lib was actually a continuation of his false spin about gas prices here…Washington State Standard.

In a development too sad for state Democrats and transportation bureaucrats to make fun of, almost, the Seattle Times is reporting this afternoon that the “Fauntleroy ferry dock in West Seattle is out of service after a mechanical failure has prevented crews from moving the span that allows cars to drive onto the boat. As a result, no state ferry service is running from Seattle to Vashon Island or Southworth.” Unfortunately for riders on the maritime portion of the state’s highway system, this is not an unexpected development, even though the Times reports that “this weekend is expected to be among the busiest for travel in some time.”

The Times adds that the Fauntleroy “three-stop route has been hobbled for years by ongoing maintenance and workforce problems at Washington State Ferries. Instead of the normal three-boat service, the route functions with two. The state ferry system has struggled to keep up with attrition of its workers after losing many to retirement, resignation or firing over the state’s vaccine mandate.” You can read more about yet another example of Inslee administration mismanagement here… Seattle Times.

In the latest update on a story that Shift has been following, more dismal news is coming out over the standoff between illegal homeless campers and state officials that has left a neighboring senior citizen housing complex under virtual siege for months. KOMO reports that Governor Inslee “said Thursday the state is doing everything possible to get people out of an illegal homeless encampment near a senior apartment complex in West Seattle. The encampment has grown for months and has been the scene of shootings, a homicide, drug use, and theft.”

Yet, the encampment remains in place, while the governor whistles past a problem his administration has allowed to occur on state land around the state, telling KOMO “We’ve invested a billion dollars this year and been very happy. We’re rapidly housing as fast as humanly possible. We’ve reduced our encampments by the dozens in the state of Washington.” Read more on the sad story here… Shift, KOMO.

There was a reason that Washington state voters put a Republican in the Secretary of State’s office from 1964 to 2021, and competence sure seemed to be it. Unfortunately, as soon as Governor Inslee could un-do the voters’ six decades-long will, he appointed a Democrat to the position. Now we get to read, in a Washington State Democrat email, that the extreme leader of the state’s Democrats “had the pleasure on Wednesday to meet with the first Democratic Secretary of State in over 60 years, Steve Hobbs, to discuss how we can work together to protect the right to vote, counter misinformation.”

You can decide for yourself how comfortable you are with a partisan Secretary of State and the leader of his pollical party meeting to discuss how to “counter” information they don’t like (perhaps higher gas taxes caused by cap-and-tax policies are just misinformation, right?)… Washington State Democrats email.

Most of the Puget Sound mainstream media treatment of the “let’s lie to the voters” press conference that Governor Jay Inslee and various legislative Democrats held yesterday on their lack of a response to higher gas prices was predictably kind to the majority party. So, leave it to KONA radio from the Tri Cities to provide access to a dissenting voice: “GOP House Representative Mary Dye, who is the ranking Republican on the House Environment and Energy Committee, released a statement following Inslee’s remarks, saying in part, ‘Washington state has the highest gas prices in the nation because of the governor’s cap-and-trade program that took effect in January. Governor Inslee’s new climate mandate, which is the most expensive of its kind in the nation, has forced fuel prices to rise by 50 cents per gallon in our state.'” You can decide which version of the truth is closer your own here… KONA.

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