Your daily briefing may be a bit shorter than usual because the entire staff at Shift has a ballpark to get to. To fill the information gap, here’s how you can follow your Seattle Mariners all the way to the World Series (for the first time ever)! Remember, Julio sees you, hears you, needs you: “They mean the world to me. They bring the energy, they bring the heat every time that we step on the field. Having that support as a player, it feels really good. Every time that you play in your house with your fan base and you see how they get so happy about it, it brings you joy. I feel like they mean the world to me.” (Seattle Times)

You can tell when legislative Democrats from non-urban districts know their party’s Left-wing policies are unpopular – they start complaining, like Representative Mike Chapman, about the “you know, bait-and-switch on me. The state does not appear willing to follow through with their commitment to the ag community, and I think that needs to be put on the record, loud and clear.” Of course, the veteran legislator from the Olympic peninsula made that up for the Capital Press to try and cover his backside from the response in his district for his support for the cap-and-tax law now hitting his constituents’ wallets. That’s because Rep. Chapman knew exactly what he was voting for when he voted to raise the cost of fuel for all his constituents, just to give Governor Jay Inslee a talking point when he’s wasting taxpayer money on his international climate vacations/speeches. Now that the increased fuel bills are coming due, and the Democrat claims about the cap-and-tax program costing “pennies” have been exposed, Rep. Chapman is running for cover. Perhaps, if he can be fooled this easily by even Governor Inslee, it’s time for him to retire and let someone more awake fill the seat. (Capital Press)

Of all the reasons that the State Supreme Court could come up with to define an unconstitutional state income tax as a legal excise tax, systemic racism was not on most people’s bingo cards. But, as Jason Rantz points out, though it has nothing to do with the law, “the court argued their new definition is necessary because the state’s ‘upside-down tax system perpetuates systemic racism by placing a disproportionate tax burden on BIPOC residents.’ The opinion doesn’t read like a Court decision but a press release from a pro-tax, anti-capitalist Seattle activist group. But that’s what the Washington State Supreme Court has become.” Not sure that can be disputed at this point. (Rantz – MyNorthwest.com)

Governor Jay Inslee has been adding tons to his already staggering carbon footprint lately, getting out of Olympia to tell voters that he’s noticed, after 10 years in office, that there are people living in tents outside. And not that it’s his fault or anything, but taxpayers should spend several billion dollars (just for interest payments) to borrow several billion more dollars (and screw up our state’s credit rating, says the state’s Democrat treasurer) so that Gov. Inslee can feel better about himself. The folks over at Change WA have a different viewpoint, one supported by talking with someone who has been in the very shelter “housing first” system that Jay Inslee wants to perpetuate for decades. Her “lived experience” about it is a bit more telling, as it “showed me the destructiveness of the policy” of putting housing first above any kind of personal accountability or sobriety. Even worse, as she pointed out, “Once a person enters a low-income, housing first building, there is no support to improve their quality of life or move on from this kind of environment, regardless of age or circumstance. Capacity equals funding, so these programs are incentivized to keep units full. These environments are often as dangerous as the streets.” Unfortunately for the Democrats, that’s not a strong selling point for their $6 billion+ boondoggle. I wonder, has anyone told the governor this reality yet? (Change WA)

The Seattle Times has decided to look back on recent false statements by Seattle elected officials to determine if there has been any truth at all in what they have said about homelessness in recent years. And it turns out that while Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis was very good in 2021 at getting attention for a press release promising “12 new villages” and sheltering “720 people” within 18 months, it turns out that he has delivered… zero. Of course, he sheepishly claims that “the $2.5 million he fundraised has been released back to funders to do with as they please.” Guess that failure, for which he “blames former Mayor Jenny Durkan,” wasn’t worthy of a follow-up press release by Councilman Lewis. Maybe his opponents in this year’s elections will remind the voters about it because former Mayor Durkan shot back that “I think Councilmember Lewis is very enthusiastic and hoped he could really get some things done,  but without thinking through all the steps, I don’t think that there was a reasonable expectation that you would be able to build and maintain that many new tiny house villages in a year in an ongoing basis in the midst of financial difficulties.” (Seattle Times)

You know it’s a story about Seattle liberals trying to out-liberal other liberals when a group is getting attention not for its mission but for its adherence to liberal orthodoxy.  The latest case study comes from the Seattle Audubon Society, which according to KING 5, is changing its name to the bizarre moniker of “Birds Connect Seattle” because it turns out that Seattle’s oldest conservation group, dating to 1916, was “originally named after John James Audubon, a French ornithologist and slave owner. The organization’s website says that the name change will help the group focus on inclusivity.” Not sure how that “connects” with the group’s focus on “urban conservation of birds,” but hey, they’ve probably been outside a long time thinking about this. (KING 5)

Turns out demonizing police in the name of being woke has consequences

How long until Democrats tinker with their state income tax – first change is in

Why did Patty Murray get rid of an employee for having a baby?

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