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Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate wants leftist media outlets to be state-funded
The Post Millennial ^ | 10/29/2025 | Ari Hoffman

Posted on 10/29/2025 9:30:42 AM PDT by DFG

Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate Katie Wilson, who has been nicknamed the "Mini Mamdani," has raised concerns among critics about conflicts of interest and government overreach, this time over her plan to tax residents to subsidize media outlets that support her campaign and employ her.

In a recent interview on the Mostly Economics podcast, Wilson promoted a proposal she calls “News Notes”: a taxpayer-funded voucher program that would give every Seattle resident $100 to donate to local media outlets, to save failing outlets from the free market. To pay for it, she floated new property taxes, a capital gains tax, or a digital ad tax.

But the outlets she specifically named as beneficiaries, The Urbanist, Publicola, and South Seattle Emerald, are the same ones that routinely promote her political agenda. Many of them have endorsed her. Some have even paid her.

Wilson lists income from The Stranger, The Urbanist, and Publicola in her PDC filings, each below $30,000 annually, while all three also endorse her for mayor. These aren’t neutral newspapers. They’re progressive advocacy media that cheerlead for every new tax, anti-police measure, and socialist policy put forward in Seattle.

Wilson did not mention subsidizing mainstream or conservative media outlets. She previously threatened to boycott a KOMO News mayoral debate unless parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group kept Jimmy Kimmel on air after the late-night host falsely claimed Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a right-wing activist.

Critics have noted that taxpayer-funded journalism is not “independent journalism,” it is government-approved journalism.

Seattle already experimented with “Democracy Vouchers,” and that taxpayer-funded political program has failed to diversify participation, while fueling corruption concerns and empowering fringe candidates.

Launched in 2017 and sold as a way to amplify “everyday voices,” Democracy Vouchers have instead pumped public money into extreme fringe campaigns, sparked fraud allegations, failed to increase voter turnout, disproportionately benefited well-funded activist groups, and failed to deliver on the ideas promised: to keep big money out of politics.

In fact, the program has become less popular each year it is used, and more PAC money is in Seattle races than ever before. Even progressive experts now admit the program did not democratize elections; it subsidized political machines.

Wilson also draws a salary from the Transit Riders Union, an activist group she runs that endorsed Ubax Gardheere for King County Council after a video surfaced of Gardheere threatening to blow up a school bus filled with children.

Last week, it was revealed that Wilson receives frequent checks from her professor parents in New York to cover childcare, even though her husband is unemployed by choice. Wilson, who dropped out of Oxford University 6 weeks before graduation, claims she wants to be mayor because she “can barely afford to live in Seattle.”


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: crimecorruption

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1 posted on 10/29/2025 9:30:42 AM PDT by DFG
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To: DFG

Insanity.


2 posted on 10/29/2025 9:32:11 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: DFG

“can barely afford to live in Seattle.”

IOW sheeza brat who wants to be subsidized to live in a nice place.


3 posted on 10/29/2025 9:34:11 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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Aren’t they already funded by the leftist government? Pravda, Granma, CNN, CBS, ABC, ABC, NPR, MSNBC et al?


4 posted on 10/29/2025 9:35:11 AM PDT by TnTnTn
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To: DFG
Olive Oyl's ugly sister...


5 posted on 10/29/2025 9:38:26 AM PDT by simpson96
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To: simpson96

Looks somewhat mannish to me. Dylan Mulvaneyish.


6 posted on 10/29/2025 9:41:59 AM PDT by Kudsman (48)
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To: DFG

That would be a coercive conflict of interest. Hard no.


7 posted on 10/29/2025 9:46:01 AM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: simpson96

Well, at least her mother thinks she’s pretty.


8 posted on 10/29/2025 9:51:49 AM PDT by Signalman (When your enemy is digging himself a hole, don't take away his shovel.)
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To: simpson96

Castor Oyl?


9 posted on 10/29/2025 9:52:22 AM PDT by Freedumb
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To: Kudsman

Face like a freshly scrubbed kitchen floor.


10 posted on 10/29/2025 9:55:04 AM PDT by simpson96
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To: DFG

It already is.

Legion Media

A subsidiary of the DNC that is funded by grifted tax dollars.


11 posted on 10/29/2025 10:04:56 AM PDT by cuz1961
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To: simpson96

12 posted on 10/29/2025 10:05:35 AM PDT by Kenny Bania (Ovaltine? Why not call it Roundtine?)
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To: DFG

Face it. There no longer exists a consensus of decently held common values to unite Americans. What decent, rational person would voluntarily want to associate with this woman or be governed by her?


13 posted on 10/29/2025 10:07:05 AM PDT by allendale
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To: DFG

So, he wants NPR, PBS, and the like to be funded again.
We just had a national election, where we voted no.


14 posted on 10/29/2025 10:08:38 AM PDT by Fireone (1.Avoid crowds 2.Head on a swivel 3.Be prepared to protect & defend those around you 4.Avoid crowds)
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To: DFG

That’s because without subsidy they go broke.


15 posted on 10/29/2025 10:18:14 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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To: BenLurkin

Political Mafia Families FYI

4 Corrupt Families of California - Newsom, Brown, Pelosi and Feinstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUJCR8XhmoY

Michael Jaco Situation Update Oct 29: “Enemies Of The State In Governors And Mayors Offices, DA’s, FBI, CIA Etc Will Soon See Mil Tribunals”

https://rumble.com/v70xsja-michael-jaco-situation-update-enemies-of-the-state-in-governors-and-mayors-.html?e9s=src_v1_clr%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a


16 posted on 10/29/2025 10:21:56 AM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: Regulator

She needs to be shown the door...and then thrown out of it.


17 posted on 10/29/2025 10:57:12 AM PDT by oldtech
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To: Regulator

She needs to be shown the door...and then thrown out of it.


18 posted on 10/29/2025 10:57:24 AM PDT by oldtech
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To: DFG

Well, how positively socialist...
This ding dong may have just out-Mamdani’d Mamdani.


19 posted on 10/29/2025 11:12:33 AM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. The Dhimmicraps are ALL Traitors. All of them.)
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To: simpson96

She looks like 19th century Quakers.


20 posted on 10/29/2025 11:18:10 AM PDT by nwrep
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