Leave it to a publication from the other Washington to highlight a local politician from a different time – and raise the question of why someone living in the South of France remains registered to vote in the city of Seattle? You can get all that from Roll Call’s lengthy retirement piece on former Seventh District Congressman Jim McDermott, who marvels that “I spent nearly 30 years in Congress trying to get single-payer. Then I came to France and in three months I had single-payer.”

Sponging off the social safety net in socialist France suits McDermott well, given his multiple government pensions help soften the experience. The professional politician even seems to see the failure of his life’s work on healthcare in his former country, claiming “France is like a drink of cold water. Once you’ve had this experience, it’s easy to see all the ways in the U.S. you’re getting screwed.” Thanks for clearing that up for us, Jim.

Of course, remaining the hyper-partisan that he was always known to be in office, McDermott bragged that his new French neighbors “stood up and said, ‘Up your ass, we’re not going your way, America’,” by enshrining abortion in the nation’s constitution. What someone forgot to tell the proud Lefty is that France allows that new right all the way up to 14 weeks in a pregnancy – a limitation that the U.S. version of Congressman McDermott would not exactly profanely praise… Roll Call, NPR.

Shift doesn’t want to scare you, but technically the legislature is still active this year, because the governor has not yet acted upon all the bills passed in Olympia during session. Many observers, as Shift noted, had been hoping against hope for a veto of one particularly bad bill – HB 1589 – but according to The Center Square it will get its time tomorrow, when the “bill that could eventually ban the use of natural gas in Washington state is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee.”

This bill allows Democrats to grease the skids for their green friends with a bill to “allow utilities – that is, Puget Sound Energy – to start planning how to move away from natural gas.” And by planning, the extreme environmentalists who pushed this bill through mean banning natural gas by forcing consumers (according to one legislator) to pay up, as “(I)n most homes you’ve got a gas water heater, maybe a gas fireplace, a gas cooktop and you would have to replace all of those with electric and that’s going to cost somewhere between $40,000 and $70,000 per home.” Read on to see how making other people spend all that money to make Democrat campaign donors happy is not a problem for Democrat legislative leaders… Shift, The Center Square.

It’s well-known that the carbon tax which Democrats jammed through the legislature in 2021 – at the time called “cap-and-trade” because that’s what Governor Jay Inslee had been pushing since he was in Congress – is facing a voter recall this November via Initiative 2117. Less well known is that the carbon tax remains in danger in the courts, as according to the Capital Press the “Inslee administration and PacifiCorp are locked in a lawsuit that may decide whether Washington’s cap-and-trade program raises electric rates for the utility’s 2 million customers in five other states.”

It turns out that in their haste to buy votes to secure the passage of the carbon tax, Democrat legislators gave “PacifiCorp free carbon allowances to cover greenhouse gas emissions from electricity used in Washington. (But) PacifiCorp must buy allowances to cover emissions from electricity sent out-of-state — 77% of the plant’s output.” Those taxes being passed on to out-of-state customers amount to “tens of millions of dollars each year”, so “PacifiCorp filed the lawsuit after Oregon and Wyoming regulators refused to let PacifiCorp raise rates in those states to recover the cost of complying with Washington’s cap-and-trade law.” Read on for more carbon tax woes here… Capital Press.

You have to hand it to Seattle politicians, as they sure can get creative when it comes to wasting taxpayer money helping their friends. The latest example is highlighted in a Seattle Times editorial about an upcoming closure of the West Seattle Freeway, suggesting that “City Hall should have thought twice about renting out a vital piece of public infrastructure to a special interest at a time when residents will be asked to debate transportation priorities and vote on a massive property tax proposal.”

The city hastily pointed out that the “Cascade Bicycle Club will pay a $1,210.41 fee for use of the (West Seattle) bridge. “ Of course, this pittance comes nowhere close to accounting for all other city costs for closing the bridge since it “doesn’t include fees associated with Seattle Police Department labor supporting the ride, or other permitting fees”, nor the time wasted by all those unable to use the freeway because of the fundraiser. Read on to see if you agree this little snippet of sleaze may linger as “the Move Seattle levy campaign already looks a little juiced.”… Seattle Times.

It’s been said that if you want to know a politician’s priorities, look at what they fund (or don’t) with your money. So, you can look at the woeful condition of so many pieces of our state’s transportation infrastructure, as highlighted by KOMO in connection with the tragic bridge collapse in Maryland, and perhaps be compelled to ask why the Democrats in control of state spending since 1985 “have been going for years with underfunded preservation and maintenance program(s) throughout the state of Washington” for the roads and bridges we all rely upon?

That concern is being voiced not by some radical Republican, but rather by State Bridge Engineer Evan Grimm in Jay Inslee’s Department of Transportation, who admits “we have been underfunded for so long we are more reactive and chase after different challenges as they came up.” Read on to see they have plenty to react to, as “there are 213 bridges listed in poor condition in Washington,” among other transportation defects the Democrats have allowed at a time of record-breaking state budgets… KOMO.

Shift will leave with little comment this funny piece from The Stranger about far-Left candidates in the Everett-based Second Congressional District that doesn’t contain many readers of The Stranger, other than to point out that one ethically-challenged candidate provides in one sentence the dangers of a Democrat Congress: he “would support Medicare for All, canceling student debt, packing the US Supreme Court, lowering military spending, prioritizing public transit over car infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, and playing defense when Republicans try to strip marginalized communities of their rights.”

Whew, that’s a lot for one 20-something Lynnwood City Council member mainly known for breaking campaign finance rules, but he’s that’s OK, because as  “a young, progressive Black man, right-wing, racist backlash unfairly follows him where he goes, he said.”… The Stranger.

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