Free Republic

The Washington State Supreme Court has upheld Seattle’s pioneering “democracy vouchers” program, which allows residents to contribute taxpayer money to qualifying political candidates. ... Under the program approved at the ballot in 2015 and first used in 2017, the city raises $3 million annually in property taxes. Each election cycle, voters receive four $25 vouchers that they can sign over to candidates who abide by certain rules.

Progressives never learn.  Even as Democrats running for president line up behind a national $15/hour minimum wage, on the West Coast, where cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco all have implemented this demand, a restaurant chain with over 2,000 employees has filed for bankruptcy, citing the high minimum wages that have increased its costs. Jeremy Hill reports for Bloomberg (hat tip: Legal Insurrection): Progressive wage policies helped force upscale eatery operator Restaurants Unlimited Inc. into bankruptcy, according to court documents filed Sunday. The company, which operates 35 restaurants ranging from fine dining to "polished casual" eateries, including Henry's Tavern, Stanford's, and Kincaid's, filed for Chapter 11 protection...

The minimum wage was not the only factor Restaurants Unlimited blamed for their impending bankruptcy. The company also cited a pair of soft restaurant openings and a decline in casual dining. =============================================================== Restaurants Unlimited, a Seattle-based chain with restaurant locations in 47 US cities, announced on Sunday it was seeking Chapter 11 protection, citing “progressive” wage laws. The company, which has operated since the Lyndon Johnson Administration, said rising labor costs—part of a national trend of government-mandated minimum increases—were part of its decision. One Factor of Bankruptcy “Over the past three years, the company’s profitability has been significantly impacted by...

M 4.6 - 0km SSW of Three Lakes, Washington 2019-07-12 09:51:38 (UTC)47.871°N 122.000°W24.3 km depth Did You Feel It?  

SEATTLE -- The double-deck Alaskan Way Viaduct spells disaster in the event of a massive earthquake in Seattle. It's a warning that played out in real life in Oakland, Calif., 30 years ago. The Cyprus Street Viaduct Collapse killed 42 people during the Loma Prieta Earthquake. The stark similarities between that and our own viaduct in Seattle had experts sounding the alarm back then. Then in 2001, the Nisqually Earthquake hit at a 6.8 magnitude. "In 2001, during the Nisqually quake, the Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged on the north end of the Alaskan Way Viaduct," said tunnel expert Red...

A public interest advocacy group has identified the country’s “most wasteful and pointless” transportation projects, which are costing taxpayers $25 billion. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) cites among “the biggest boondoggles” a $2.2 billion widening of Interstate 81 in Virginia, a $7 billion interstate project in Houston and a $802 million “Connecting Miami” redesign of city highways. According to PIRG, widening highways to reduce gridlock fails for several reasons. Multiple studies show that more road space over time leads to further congestion because of a phenomenon called “induced demand.” “We’re stuck in a car-centric rut in the United...

A group of Seattle-area baristas who argued in court that they should not be restricted from serving drinks in bikinis and other revealing clothing may have to cover up �— at least for now. CNN reported Saturday that a federal appeals court ruled that women at an Everett, Wash., drive-thru coffee stand may have to cover up. The ruling, made by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, vacated U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman's 2017 decision that placed an injunction on a city ordinance requiring "quick-service facility" workers to wear, at minimum, shorts and a...

The patient was one of six to develop an infection from 2018-2019, according to Alyse Bernal, public relations manager for the hospital. The infections follow several operating rooms being shut down in May by the detection of Aspergillus mold in the air. The hospital said that the risk to patients was low, but that it was contacting those who might have been exposed. The Children's Hospital patient died after developing an Aspergillus infection in 2018, Bernal said. Details about the patient and the case have not been shared for the sake of privacy. Gaps in air filtration is believed to...

A rising wave of homelessness is growing and spreading in the major Democrat controlled cities on the Left Coast. Spreading disease, drug addiction, and social disorder in its wake. From Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles the quality of life is plummeting. Democrat municipal and state authorities seem oblivious, placing the rights of the homeless above their duty to their citizens, taxpayers, and public safety. More than 60,000 homeless people by official count are living on the streets of Los Angeles. That doesn’t include the surrounding municipalities and cities in Orange County. Actual estimates are much higher, and the...

The battle around Washington's newest gun control law, Initiative 1639, is heating up. Here's everything you need to know. Hottie speaking truth.11 minute video

There’s a recurring complaint with King County Metro customers: The buses or bus stops smell of human waste. And some customers are losing their patience, sometimes unfairly. “Either you have a serial dumper or no one did anything to address this,” one customer complained. “Sick of it. Clean this [expletive] up, literally.” As a frequent bus user, I’ve experienced some of the same observations on routes 70 and 8. The bus or bus stop can sometimes smell as if it’s been used as a toilet. KTTH and MyNorthwest, through a public disclosure request, poured through over 15,000 complaints filed with...

She favours Boeing on Air Force contracts for hiring daughter and daughter's boyfriend and, later, to protect daughter, who got a poor performance reviewWhile overseeing contracts, she meet Boeing secretly for $422,000 job there HE had long insisted that her work decisions were strictly professional. Then, she failed a lie-detector test. Finally, Darleen Druyun, the No 2 weapons buyer for the US Air Force, admitted that her weapons-buying decisions were influenced by a desire to curry Boeing's favour for herself and her family. The career of Druyun, once the most powerful woman in the Air Force, is over. Last...

As Los Angeles County grapples with a growing homeless population, San Diego has managed to get more people off the streets and into shelters, according to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.. The homeless count is] down 6 percent county-wide,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney Opens a New Window. on Friday. “It really is about challenging the bureaucracies that have been entrenched in the status quo and doing things differently.” By comparison, Los Angeles County homelessness spiked 12 percent over the past year. “One of the things that we are doing in San Diego, that I think is really having...

Los Angeles and Seattle are in chaos. As is San Francisco. It is the result of the left in charge. They feel the East Coast, no matter what will vote Democrat. So why fix things? In Los Angeles, rodents have decided to go upscale and move into City Hall. That’s rather fitting. However, one would think that LAPD’s headquarters being cited by the state for its health violations would be an embarrassment. Wouldn’t it?

<p>A federally funded study has confirmed, not surprisingly, that marijuana use went up in Washington state after its first legal pot stores opened in 2014. In fact, consumption appeared to double, at least in one major city, over three years — a conclusion scientists reached by way of the unglamorous work of analyzing raw sewage.</p>

Shortened title. Full title: 'Gagging' and 'dry-heaving': The left's love affair with public transit collides headlong into its homeless problem in Seattle It's well-known that the left is all-in for forcing the public out of their cars and into public transit. Green New Deal co-author Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, is a big champion of public transit and calls for greater investment and spending on it to get the public to ride it, though in New York, she's taken flak for not doing it. She didn't mean herself. Well, now we come to the reality of public transit, in ultra-blue Seattle,...

The proof is in the pee. A federally funded study has confirmed, not surprisingly, that marijuana use went up in Washington state after its first legal pot stores opened in 2014. In fact, consumption appeared to double, at least in one major city, over three years — a conclusion scientists reached by way of the unglamorous work of analyzing raw sewage. “It’s stinky,” said lead author Dan Burgard, a chemist at the University of Puget Sound. “But we’ve worked with urine, we’ve worked with wastewater, and we’ve worked with port-a-potties. It’s not as bad a port-a-potties.” The research entailed driving...

THE MAGIC MICROSCOPIC particles that might change the world — and in the process, permanently burnish Seattle’s spot on the big, ascent-of-man scientific map — are, at this very moment, being carted about on a medical campus one short traffic jam away from the shores of Lake Union. Their mode of transport: a thermo-molded plastic lunch cooler, of the sort one might nab at Walmart to carry a baloney sandwich and some freshly cured herring out for a day of salmon fishing on Puget Sound. The little coolers are ubiquitous at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which four decades...

The president and director of Seattle's Fred Hutch Institute says cancer can be cured by 2025. Dr. Gary Gilliland made the claim while speaking at the Geewkire Summit at Seattle's Sheraton Hotel. It was part of a general discussion on technology as a way to reduce the rates of cancer. Gilliland said in particular genome sequencing costs are falling, and it has opened the door for personalized medicine and immunotherapy. He also says there have been advances and research, which has helped in preventive cures. Gilliland says HPV vaccinations for boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 13...

The FBI has been made aware of threatening, anti-Semitic online posts about a candidate for Seattle City Council, the American Jewish Committee has condemned the posts and other candidates have spoken out. The anonymous posts were made on the website 8chan about District 2 candidate Ari Hoffman and were reported to the FBI by an organization that monitors anti-Semitic and other activity online. 8chan is a notorious message-board website. The man accused of a deadly shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue in April is thought to have posted a hateful screed there shortly before the incident. “The FBI is aware...