Shift readers learned last week about how Democrats seem to be singing two different tunes when it comes to “transparency” about their beloved cap and trade/carbon tax – demanding private information from oil companies while stonewalling when it comes to providing data to the public even when required by law. Capital Press is bringing more to the story, with Senator Perry Dozier accusing “the Department of Ecology of violating the state’s cap-and-law law by withholding how many carbon allowances are held by individual companies and investors.”

Sen. Dozier claimed that “Ecology treats the information like ‘Swiss bank accounts’” of the names of those buying the carbon credits that influence our gas prices. This is despite the fact that, before “passing cap-and-trade in 2021, the Senate amended the bill to require Ecology to post information about who buys allowances.”

But you’ll be relieved to know that those top-notch bureaucrats at Ecology are getting up to speed on what they need to know, some two years after this law passed, “seeking $50,000 a year from budget-writers to subscribe to information services that monitor these emerging secondary markets where allowances are exchanged.” Maybe those “information services” will be able to identify the secrets the state is trying to keep here… Shift, Capital Press.

Shift tipped you off to the emergence of a Commissioner of Public Lands candidate truly feared by Democrats in former Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler. Now, the Washington State Standard is here with more details on her entry, “giving Republicans a top-flight candidate in what’s shaping up as one of next year’s hottest electoral contests.”

The former SW Washington representative is willing to take a data-based fight to the extreme environmental community, pointing out, “I’ve seen unwillingness to do what is needed in our forests or on our land. The science shows what needs to be done.” The usual Left-wing attacks have already started, and you can see how they are not based on anything the Lands Commissioner is actually elected to do here… Shift, Washington State Standard, Democrat email.

The stories are straightforward, and so is this item. The Spokesman-Review covered the debates for the city’s top two positions – Mayor and City Council President – and it seems pretty clear from this coast that Mayor Nadine Woodward captured the sentiment of most in the audience with a quip which contrasted her with Lisa Brown: “A car is not a home.”

In the Council President race, challenger Kim Please defined the race for the crowd as “(W)hen asked how to reduce crime, Please said, ‘enforce the laws, No. 1’.” You can read on for more candidate differences here… Spokesman-Review, Spokesman-Review.

Sometimes, it takes a reader a while to realize that the reporter has buried a key piece of the story at the end. Such is the case with this 37-paragraph front-page Seattle Times piece diving deep into a new state law – being exploited by trial lawyers to generate clients – that doesn’t mention until the 35^th paragraph the central point: that “two weeks after the amendment went into effect, the Emery Reddy law firm published a blog under the title: ‘Did you know that Washington job seekers could get $5,000 thanks to recent updates to Washington salary transparency laws’?”

That buried information shows these lawyers weren’t looking for people who had somehow been harmed in the job-search process. Rather, you can see how these big Democrat donors (check the Public Disclosure Commission) were trolling for clients using a $5,000 bait here… Seattle Times.

It took a rowdy school board meeting to surface another sad truth about the Seattle Public Schools – that its far-Left leaders are totally unprepared to deal with declining enrollment, a decline which is only being made worse by their being totally unprepared to deal with declining enrollment. That’s the message from KUOW, which covered how “Seattle parents and teachers flooded a school board meeting Wednesday night to protest recent class size adjustments at about half of the district’s schools.”

Seattle has suffered declining enrollment thanks to extended COVID lockdowns and general incompetence more than others in the state, which requires changes to the largest item in school budgets – salaries. You can read on for how it turns out the state’s largest school district is out of compliance every year with state rules for teacher-to-student ratios, something which happens because the leaders of Seattle Public Schools don’t prioritize solutions, here… KUOW

Please consider making a contribution to ensure Shift continues to provide daily updates on the shenanigans of the liberal establishment.

Forward this to a friend.  It helps us grow our community and serve you better.

You can also follow SHIFTWA on social media by liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter.

If you feel we missed something that should be covered, email us at [email protected].