Free Republic

t's not like a player would ever forget winning the Super Bowl, but it's nice to have a giant diamond ring there to remind you. Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen revealed his team's ring. Unlike a lot of Super Bowl rings, it's kind of cool, or at least not overdone and as tacky as some of them are.

Jesse Brisbin, a 30-year-old twice-convicted sex offender allegedly attempted to abduct a six-year-old girl from a Seattle park on Thursday evening, but he picked the wrong park to act on his compulsion. According to witnesses, he made it about three blocks with the girl after grabbing her by the hand and wrapping his shirt around her face before a group of about 20 neighborhood children and adults caught up with him. According to the Seattle Police Department, the six-year-old girl broke free and Brisbin tried to run away. The men tackled Brisbin, who lives only about a half-mile from Benefit...

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges Seattle’s adoption of what would be the nation’s highest minimum wage as unfair to small franchises. […] In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the International Franchise Association, a Washington, D.C.-based business group, said the ordinance “unfairly and irrationally discriminates against interstate commerce generally, and small businesses that operate under the franchise business model specifically.” …

Mix-A-Lot invited women to join him onstage, where he was backed by an orchestra. "Since tonight is orchestral movements from the hood night, I'm going to leave some of this open if a couple of ladies would like to get up on the stage," he told the audience. "Many musical innovations have been made in hip-hop music that can bring new energy, sounds and rhythm to the classical world."

It didn’t take long after yesterday’s shotgun attack by a non-student at Seattle Pacific University for word to get out that the brave actions of students ended the attack before far more people could be injured or killed. The friends of the first man to go after the armed suspect quickly identified the bashful hero to the world via Twitter.

The gun lovers who preach that arming American citizens to stop even more violence always ignore the fact that Wayne LaPierre was wrong. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, infamously said after a gunman in 2012 killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Newtown, Conn. Yet looked what happened Thursday. According to police, a student building monitor named Jon Meis used pepper spray to subdue a shooter who had already killed one student and wounded a couple others at Seattle...

Seattle police are investigating a shooting at Otto Miller Hall on the Seattle Pacific University Campus. Officials say there appears to be seven victims; no fatalities.

Hippie infestation. Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it the nation’s highest by far. The increase was formally proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and his spokesman said he intends to sign the ordinance on Tuesday. Apparently unaware that it doesn’t have the weather advantages that other places pricing themselves out of existence do (Los Angeles, anyone?), Seattle seems to be ready to set a record for how many businesses it can ruin. The earnest idiots who whip up this minimum wage frenzy always use big corporations...

In their reporting of Seattle’s unanimous vote Monday to raise the minimum wage within Seattle to $15 per hour, USA Today began their article with an interview of a $9.47/hour, economically-uneducated McDonald’s employee: “Martina Phelps says the Seattle City Council's vote today on a historic plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour could change her life.” Well, yes, it could, Martina, but probably not in the way you were hoping. The city council of Seattle, composed of the kind of politicians who learned everything they know about economics from studying celebrity gossip and attending union meetings, believes...

Should San Diego match Seattle's $15 per hour minimum wage? Poll here

At the start of the year, the Seattle suburb of SeaTac raised the area’s minimum wage to $15, and the consequences are now starting to be felt. And it’s not just the unions who championed the effort, or those who still have jobs, that are feeling them. Over the last few months, a few things have happened: Managers have taken more responsibilities on themselves, instead of hiring more workers. Businesses have laid off workers, or eliminated their plans to hire more. Area parking now comes with an added “living-wage surcharge.” Hotels have cut employee benefits, free food, and overtime. Shocking:...

Last January, SeaTac implemented a $15 per hour minimum wage for hospitality and transportation workers. The consequences to the drastic hike in wages are just beginning to be realized—and it’s not pretty. A writer for NW Asian Weekly recently blogged about her experience attending an event at a SeaTac hotel. She asked employees if they were “happy with the $15 wage.” The ensuingconversations, “It sounds good, but it’s not good,” the woman said. “Why?” I asked. “I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday, and vacation,” she responded. “No more free food,” she added. “The hotel used to feed her. Now, she...

Last week, Michigan became the latest of a handful of states to officially raise its minimum wage this year, with a gradual four-year phase-in that will take its floor from $7.40 up to $9.25 an hour — but over in the city of Seattle, things just got real. Say hello to what will soon become the highest minimum wage in the nation, via the AP: The issue has dominated politics in the liberal municipality for months. Mayor Ed Murray, who was elected last year, had promised in his campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. A newly...

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, equaling the highest minimum wage in the nation. The law will phase in the higher wages over a three- to seven-year window, depending on the size of a company. Corporations that employ more than 500 workers will have to pay $15 an hour by 2017 if their employees don’t receive company-paid health care. Smaller businesses can wait until 2019 to reach the higher rate. All workers will receive the highest wage by 2021. “The people who work for a living have basically seen no...

**SNIP** "If stimulating the economy were just as easy as taking from Jim and giving to Joe, don't you think communism would've worked out? Thanks progressive lefties, I'm sure this is making businesses feel secure about moving into Seattle. "Silliness," Shapiro concluded. Boze wondered why Seattle didn't just force the $15 wage immediately, if 70 percent of voters like it. In fact, Thursday's committee compromise is a disaster for the $15 Now group, which is pushing a ballot initiative for November that would enact the $15 wage on Jan. 1, 2015. "They're not interested in income equality," Boze said. "They're...

Well that’s determined by all sorts of variables – how much the person seeking the job is willing to take, how much the person wanting the job done is willing to pay, the scarcity or abundance of labor, etc.. And so in a free market, when a job is open it is up to the person seeking to have the work done and the person seeking a job to decide what it is worth to each of them. If they can reach agreement, then the job is offered to the person seeking the job. If agreement can’t be reached, then...

An ordinance that gradually increases the minimum wage in Seattle to $15 an hour was approved Thursday by a City Council committee, setting up a full council vote next week. In a boisterous meeting, City Council members approved a delay to the implementation of the ordinance, from Jan. 1, 2015 to April 1, 2015.

More than 100 officers from the Seattle Police Department are suing the city and the Justice Department, claiming their department's new use-of-force policies put them in danger and violate their constitutional rights. In 2012 Seattle officials agreed to an independent monitor and court oversight of the city's police department as part of a deal with the Justice Department following a report that found officers routinely used excessive force. The civil suit, which was filed Wednesday, names Attorney General Eric Holder, the City of Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray, City Attorney Pete Holmes, and federal monitor Merrick Bob. In the suit, the...

Seattle broke its record for rainfall from February through July last Sunday — with more than two months to spare, according to the National Weather Service. As of Sunday, 22.87 inches of rain had fallen at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport since Feb. 1, surpassing the record set in 1972 when 22.81 inches of rain fell from Feb. 1 to July 31, weather-service meteorologist Josh Smith said Tuesday. Fifteen inches is the average rainfall from February through July at the airport, which is where Seattle’s official weather data are recorded. “Basically, we are well ahead of normal rainfall for February to July,” Smith...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its stores after it says gun rights advocates brought military-style assault rifles into one of its restaurants in Texas.</p> <p>The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.</p>