Free Republic

In October, the Seattle City Council floated legislation to provide an exemption from prosecution for misdemeanor crimes for any citizen who suffers from poverty, homelessness, addiction, or mental illness. Under the proposed ordinance, courts would have to dismiss all so-called “crimes of poverty”—which, according to the city’s former public-safety advisor, would cover more than 90 percent of all misdemeanor cases citywide. In effect, the legislation would create a new class of “untouchables,” protected from consequences by the city’s powerbrokers. This is the latest and most brazen effort in the city’s campaign to establish what might be called a “reverse hierarchy...

Big business, the right wing, and now the courts have rung the bell on what is now the fourth round of the fight to expel socialists from Seattle City Hall. The corporate elite are determined to do so by hook or by crook. They failed in the first three rounds to buy this city council seat, the last time with unprecedented corporate cash from Amazon. The latest effort, a right-wing recall campaign, is perhaps the most serious threat so far, seeking now to use the courts and four trumped-up charges to overturn my reelection last year. It’s not for nothing....

Federal authorities in Seattle on Monday charged two women with a terrorist attack on train tracks, suggesting they were working with an anarchist community to stand in solidarity with a Native American tribe to oppose the construction of a natural gas pipeline across the Canadian province of British Columbia by trying to derail trains in Washington state.Samantha Frances Brooks, 27, and Ellen Brennan Reiche, 23, were arrested Saturday night in Bellingham, located in Whatcom County, which borders Canada, as they allegedly placed “shunts” on Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in...

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan plans to sign a new city budget that will reduce the police budget by 18% despite homicides reaching record highs not seen in a decade. Council members overwhelmingly voted last week to cut funds for police training and overtime and to eliminate dozens of vacant positions within the Seattle Police Department after months of contentious talks. The reductions fall short of the 50% that local activists demanded amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice. The council also decided to transfer parking enforcement officers, mental health workers and 911 dispatchers out of the police department....

American cities are entering a period of chaos. Protests and riots have dominated headlines, but beneath the surface, activists are launching an unprecedented campaign to overthrow the traditional justice system and replace it with a new model based on a radical conception of social justice. In Seattle, where this campaign may be most advanced, activists have crafted a narrative about police brutality, mass incarceration, and punitive justice that leads to a natural sequence of solutions: “abolish the police,” “divest from prisons,” and “defund the courts.” Over the past three decades, the city’s radical-progressives have seized control of municipal government—with the...

Liberals in Seattle were celebrating Saturday morning after The Associated Press and major news networks across the country announced President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ projected victory over President DonaldTrump and Vice President Mike Pence. Groups of Biden and Harris’ supporters were seen in West Seattle, Capitol Hill, and Green Lake celebrating the victory. On Capitol Hill, a parade of cars drove around Cal Anderson Park while people stood along the road dancing and cheering. While some were celebrating others were shooting each other. A video surfaced this morning that shows the place where one man got shot....

A coalition of activists around the country has shifted gears after polls closed on Election Day to take to the streets to ensure every vote is counted in the presidential election that’s included a record number of mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. The goal so far is to show a massive presence in the streets should President Trump fail to concede or challenge the election results in the event of a victory for Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Various groups led by Black Lives Matter and Shutdown DC have conducted training sessions for months leading up to this moment, and...

A group of left-wing ANTIFA terrorists stormed a news outlet in Seattle in retaliation after they reported accurately about the group’s orgy of destruction in the city. News station KING was targeted by ANTIFA terrorists because reporter Chris Ingalls posted some photos of suspected ANTIFA terrorists on his Twitter account.

Following a King County Superior Court ruling last month, a right-wing recall petition is now in motion to remove Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant from her position on the Seattle City Council. Though nominally “grassroots” and “independent,” the initiative was launched by the Democratic Party and has attracted the support of Republicans and far-right forces. The Socialist Equality Party opposes the right-wing campaign to remove Sawant on the basis of trumped-up charges and overturn the result of democratic elections. Notwithstanding our fundamental political differences with Socialist Alternative, we maintain that Sawant has a right to serve in the office to...

When violence erupted in downtown Seattle in late May, Ed Little was disturbed by the images of looting and violence he saw on television. “I thought it was crazy. That shouldn’t be happening at all,” said Little, who believed that peaceful protests against police brutality were hijacked by criminals. Weeks later, there was a knock at the door of Little’s Everett apartment when police came to arrest his 25-year-old son and search the family’s apartment. “It’s hard to believe. We don’t know Jake like that. It’s not the kind of boy he is,” Little said. In September, federal prosecutors accused...

many of today’s young people neither understand nor respect the importance of property rights in a free society.. ... Philadelphia .. at least 30 police officers have been injured in the violent unrest, while dozens of people have been arrested for rioting or vandalism. Mobs have descended on Walmart and rushed out carrying TVs, while other agitators ransacked Footlocker for new sneakers. The full number of businesses ravaged by the destruction is increasing and still being tallied. ... This latest outbreak simply adds to the thousands of businesses, from Chicago to Minneapolis and beyond, that have been rioted, ransacked, burned...

Lisa Fithian is a radical revolutionary who has been organizing chaos operations and antigovernment demonstrations in the United States for decades. Lisa Fithian was a key organizer of violent demonstrations that caused the shutdown of the 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle, Washington. Fithian is an anti-capitalist revolutionary.

Ordinarily you can’t sue the government for failing to protect you from private criminal actors. But a federal judge has allowed a suit to go forward filed by business owners against the city of Seattle over injuries done by far‐​left activists who seized 16 blocks this June and proclaimed a weeks‐​long “autonomous zone” (CHOP or CHAZ). Law professor Ilya Somin writes that he initially approached the case with skepticism, but was surprised to find it stronger than expected. The reason: the plaintiffs argue that the city did not merely stand by passively, but assisted the occupiers by letting them use...

At the huge worship event held on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Sunday, a Satanist reportedly attacked one of the organizers. Dr. Charles Karuku with International Outreach Church prayed for our nation, which has been torn by racial riots and discrimination, to unite and "let the healing begin!" Afterward, he was attacked by a protester who dumped blood all over him. "Devil mad. WITCHES ARE RATTLED. THEIR POWER IS BROKEN," he wrote on Facebook. "I'm gonna keep the blood-stained clothes as a badge of honor for Jesus! Pleading the blood of Jesus. This movement is unstoppable." Sean Feucht,...

Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies (USNC-Tech) has developed a concept for a new Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine and delivered it to NASA. Claimed to be safer and more reliable than previous NTP designs and with far greater efficiency than a chemical rocket, the concept could help realize the goal of using nuclear propulsion to revolutionize deep space travel, reducing Earth-Mars travel time to just three months. Because chemical rockets are already near their theoretical limits and electric space propulsion systems have such low thrust, rocket engineers continue to seek ways to build more efficient, more powerful engines using some...

SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is considering new legislation that would create a legal loophole that would made substance addiction, mental illness or poverty a valid legal defense for nearly all misdemeanor crimes committed in the city. The council's consideration of the plan has been largely shielded from public view and there has been virtually no public discussion about the proposal. Scott Lindsay, the former public safety advisor for the city, said Seattle would be in a class of its own if it ultimately enacted the ordinance. "I'm not aware of any legislation like this anywhere in the United...

Throughout much of June 2020, far-left activists exercised control over a part of Seattle that came to be known as the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest Zone" (CHOP). City officials allowed the activists to control the 16-block area in the wake of clashes with police arising from protests triggered by the brutal killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. During the three week period of CHOP "autonomy" (which was finally ended when the mayor ordered police to clear the area on July 1), there was extensive violence and property damage in the area. Property owners have sued the city,...

Seattle has had a rough go of it for 2020, and that’s not even taking into consideration the pandemic. Liberals have overtaken the city. First, they had to deal with CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Now, they’re dealing with radical leftist leaders who want to allow the criminals to rule while punishing the law-abiding citizens. Seattle officers are done with it all – and many are retiring years before anticipated just to distance themselves from the stupidity. While they could turn in their paperwork and go silently, they’re standing up to their oppressors. They’re being bold and honest in...

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Black Lives Matter protesters pushed their way into a Seattle Trader Joe’s demanding the company give “15 percent at least.” The group has repeated the tactic of harassing the store’s staff and customers over the past few months. A video tweeted Thursday night shows a large group of BLM activists entering a Seattle Trader Joe’s store. They chanted and beat drums as they marched through the grocery chain location. The marchers chanted demands that the store donate “15 percent at least” to the Black community. They went on to harass customers and store employees, demanding they join the cause.