It's About Blaming and Not Planning Ahead

Source:  ShiftWA.org

Democrats want to tax you out of your car. Once again, the centerpiece of the wealthy environmental groups’ legislative agenda is passing a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which government studies show could increase the price of gas by 57-cents per gallon (on top of the highest gas tax in the country). Liberals seemingly do not care that less wealthy people do not live like them in high-priced downtown Seattle condos, within walking distance of their work and shopping.  The House Transportation Committee will be holding a public hearing on the ineffective and expensive LCFS (HB 1091) on Tuesday at 1:30, and you can register your opinion on the bill by clicking here.  The highly paid environmentalist lobbyists, and their special interest buddies looking for taxpayer funding, have already signed up to testify, so the committee members needs to hear from those who will be negatively impacted by the bill, too.  You can also submit your written views on LCFS by clicking here. (Click here to read full Shift article, Washington Legislature Bill Summary, Remote Testimony Registration for HB 1091, and Comment Form for HB 1091)

 The Seattle Times describes Governor Jay Inslee’s latest failure during the COVID-19 pandemic – forgetting they needed a plan to immunize millions of Washington residents once doses were delivered.  Governor Inslee, despite knowing for over nine months that a mass vaccination effort would be required for state residents to resume normal activities, was far more focused on falsely blaming the federal government for vaccination failures than in developing a strategy for the state to distribute and track the doses.  The article describes how the Inslee Administration had yet to develop a basic logistics plan or necessary tracking software by mid-December when the vaccines arrived.  As the Times article accurately describes, “Chaos ensued.”  During the initial weeks of the immunization distribution, Washington State floundered near the bottom of all states in vaccinating its residents.  As with so many of Governor Inslee’s inept COVID-19 related actions, the Times article asserts that people lost faith in the system the governor promised would lead the state through the pandemic.  Instead, this latest failure of the Inslee Administration resulted in COVID-19 infecting even more people and prolonging the unnecessary closure of small businesses and schools. But Inslee made it through his re-election campaign, so he really does not care now.  (Seattle Times)

Democrat Washington State Auditor Pat McCarthy warned other state agencies on Christmas Eve that their computer system were vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and then on Christmas Day her office’s data files were hacked. The latest breach of a Democrat-managed state computer system again exposed the personal data of Washington state residents – this time 1.4 million of them -who had applied for unemployment benefits.  To compound the error, Auditor McCarthy withheld informing members of the public for three weeks that their personal information was again available to criminals.  This could be costly to the state, as lawsuits have begun to be filed by those whose personal information was left vulnerable to hackers.  It is ironic that the auditor’s office even had the personal information of the 1.4 million Washington residents in the first place That’s because it was investigating how this information was originally hacked at the Employment Security Department, after Governor Inslee’s hand-picked and pathetic management team removed security firewalls, which led to a $600 million theft of taxpayer funds. (Seattle Times)