Free Republic

A sculpture in memory of Olympia activist Rachel Corrie will be dedicated Wednesday in the Activities Building at The Evergreen State College. The Olympian reports ( http://bit.ly/16sYebN ) the bronze and steel representation of a dove on the tip of a pyramid is called "Reflecting on Peace and Justice." Corrie was killed in 2003 in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli military bulldozer as she attempted to stop it from demolishing a Palestinian home.

Enrollments in health care plans through Washington state's new health care exchange continue to increase, but it turns out a majority of the enrollees so far won't be paying for their plans. "The Medicaid newly eligible population accounts for a little more than half of the 25,000 that we've seen," Michael Marchand, with the new Washington Health Care Exchange, tells KIRO Radio's Dave Ross. A Medicaid expansion under Obamacare raised the income threshold for those eligible. "So that's the new population that's part of the expansion that the state undertook," says Marchand. "It's quite possible that those people may have...

Politicians are trading rhetoric and needy mothers are frightened by the prospect of a continuing shutdown of the federal government that threatens the funding for a crucial nutrition program. "This federal shutdown lends itself to hyperbole, but this is no exaggeration, they are literally taking the food out of babies' mouths," says King County Executive Dow Constantine. Constantine stood with a nursing mother of three children at a White Center health clinic to call on Congress to end the shutdown. Crystal Reugger's husband is on furlough and the family depends on the federally-funded nutrition program known as WIC. But WIC...

Three black soldiers arrested for stabbing white comrade to death 'called him a cracker' - so why are police now so sure it was NOT a hate crime? Police today said the stabbing death of a white Army soldier allegedly at the hands of a group of African American comrades was not a hate crime - despite witnesses claiming they called him a 'cracker' during the confrontation. Tevin Geike, 20, was left for dead in a parking lot near his base in Lakewood, Washington, in the early hours of Saturday morning and three soldiers have been arrested over the killing....

Olympia, Wash - The new gun control group, Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility (WAGR) has delivered the first batch of signatures to Olympia on October 4th, 2013. While the number of signatures being delivered were not released, Washington State required 246,372 signatures for a measure to be put on the ballot. The group has until January 3rd 2014 to gather signatures. If the signatures are gathered by that time there are three different things that can happen with the initiative. It can go to the legislature for a vote, and if passed become law. The legislature can opt not to...

KENT, Wash. -- A burglar caught rummaging through an office at Kent's Frager Farm is dead after being shot by the business owner, police said. The farm's owner went to his office in 25000 block of Frager Rd. S. around 1:30 a.m. after being alerted somehow that it was being burglarized, said Sgt. Cindi West with the King County Sheriff's office. The man arrived to find two young men in his office. Deputies are still investigating exactly what happened next but eventually a fight ensued, the owner pulled out a gun and fatally shot one of the burglars. The second...

A 74-year-old man held a burglary suspect at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived at his rural Yacolt house Friday morning. About 10:30 a.m., Andrew Thompson found a man inside his house, which property records describe as a 468 square foot cabin on 4.86 acres of land.

MAPLE VALLEY — A suspected car thief died following a shootout with the car’s owner Tuesday morning, King County sheriff’s deputies said. The incident happened just after midnight Tuesday in the 21800 block of SE 236th Place in Maple Valley. According to sheriff’s deputies, a man walking his dog noticed a 27-year-old man attempting to steal his truck. The thief, realizing he had been spotted, left the truck and ran toward an awaiting getaway vehicle. Deputies said the truck’s owner drew a gun and yelled “gun” in an attempt to stop the thief, who entered the getaway vehicle. The truck’s...

A new e-mail appeal from the group pushing a 15-page gun control initiative to the Legislature arrived over the name of King County Executive Dow Constantine, removing any doubt in the minds of his gun owner constituents where he stands on their civil rights, and coinciding with copies of their petition in The Stranger, according to their Facebook page, and the Seattle Times on Saturday. The e-mail, from the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility (WAGR), follows the strategies detailed in a gun control playbook exposed by this column. Here’s what Constantine allowed to appear over his name: It's up to...

SNIPPET: "As always, the safety of all of our students is of primary concern to us and we will continue to review safety and crisis plans on a frequent basis."

A new attempt from a anti-gun advocate may just land the owner in hot water. Opened on August 23rd the page called 'Open Carry 911' with a mission to get citizens to call 911 if they saw someone open carrying a firearm, and tell the 911 call taker that they were being threatening. There is discussion of the page on the Wash. open carry forum. Open Carry 911's mission statement reads "I am starting a grass roots [sic] movement and encourage everyone to participate. If you see someone carrying a firearm call 911 and tell them the person is threatening...

Prosecutors say a 35-year-old homeless black man held a white man at gunpoint and demanded he apologize “for all the things white people did to black people” in the Seattle area Sunday, August 11.

People carrying firearms openly have racked up a significant number of settlements for police overstepping their bounds.  In this latest case, the city of Bellingham, Washington has agreed to pay $15,000. BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) - Lawyers say Bellingham has agreed to pay $15,000 to a man who was threatened by a police officer for wearing a holstered gun in a city park. The police officer pointed his gun at the citizen who was not breaking any law.   Second Amendment activists who exercise their rights are winning these cases by being scrupulously law abiding, polite, and recording their interactions....

YAKIMA COUNTY SHERIFF NEWS RELEASE -- On 08-11-2013 at about 0927 hours the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office was advised of a burglary in progress with a suspect being detained at a residence on McKinley Rd north of Progressive Rd. Upon law enforcement arrival, it was found that the suspect had been shot. The 16 year old male suspect from the Toppenish area was transported to a Yakima area hospital where he was subsequently transferred to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition with a single gunshot wound to the torso. The investigation has revealed to this point that the family was...

The King County Sheriff's Office confirmed Monday morning that a shooting occurred on a Metro bus in downtown Seattle. The suspect, who was shot by officers, is now in custody. The Seattle Police Department tweeted that the shooter fired at a Metro driver....

An estimated 8.5 million Americans will receive rebates from their health insurers this summer thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which says companies that fail to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on health care must refund the difference to consumers. Obama today touted the benefit as part of his mid-summer push ... The amount of the individual rebates varies widely by state and insurance company, depending on whether a consumer's insurer was in compliance with the law. The largest average rebates will be seen in Washington state, where 3,007 consumers will receive an average $512 this summer. In...

A decorated Air Force veteran pleaded not guilty this morning to a charge of “trespassing with a weapon capable of producing bodily harm,” after being arrested by police in Vancouver, Washington, for legally open carrying an AR-15 rifle. Last Saturday, Mack Worley, eager to exercise his second amendment, open carried his rifle while grabbing a soda and viewing a fireworks stand before attempting to walk back to his car. “No one had said anything negative to me. A few people came up to me and asked a few questions about what I was doing and I just explained that I...

They came from across the state, from Bellingham to Vancouver, converging over the weekend on the Puyallup fairgrounds, to sign copies of Initiative 591 and get blanks to take back home, where they will have neighbors, friends and local gun shops fill up the sheets; a grassroots army stirred to action by the fear of Seattle-based big money buying away their gun rights. There is little doubt among WAC members and gun show visitors that Washington may be a “test case.” That is, they are convinced that well-financed sponsors of a competing initiative expect to use their experience here to...

A would-be burglar was stopped in his tracks by a Spokane Valley homeowner armed with a 12-gauge shotgun who said he's had enough with thieves on his property. Homeowner Chris Malloy saw a man walk behind his shed around 9:15 Tuesday morning in the 13600 block of E. 20th. It's the third time something like this has happened to him in three months and he's sick of it. "I was in the house, walked past one of the bedroom windows and just saw him walking across the golf course, the yard, then I knew something was not right," Malloy said....

Hot on the heels of Friday’s Seattle Times revelation about anti-gun Mayor Mike McGinn’s error-ridden gun buy-back, a newspaper in Pennsylvania yesterday published a lengthy piece on the poor track record of such events, with particular focus on Seattle. The Norristown Times Herald story picked apart Seattle’s first buy-back, concentrating on revelations about that exercise that were part of a 2004 report called “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review” published by the National Academy of Sciences.“A Seattle, Wash., gun buy-back program in September 1992 that used $50 bank vouchers was evaluated with police reports during the six-month period after the...