Free Republic

King County filed charges against 6 people for the blockade which trapped motorists and emergency vehicles for over 5 hours. Two Seattle public school teachers and an Antifa militant with ties to the MS-13 gang were among those charged for shutting down the Interstate 5 freeway in January as part of an anti-Israel demonstration. On Friday, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) filed misdemeanor charges against six people in connection with the January 6 blockade, during which hundreds of anti-Israel activists flooded the northbound lanes of the freeway and trapped thousands of motorists and emergency vehicles for over 5...

Nonprofit on boards in the city of Seattle are facing huge bosses because tenants in the city are not paying rent. Following the pandemic eviction moratorium, a lot of tenants became used to someone else paying their bills for them and continue to not pay to this day. This has hurt the revenue of the nonprofits

We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield...

A Seattle high school teacher has been placed on leave after footage emerged of him agreeing that the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel was justified. Ian Golash, the social studies department chair at Chief Sealth International High School, was placed on leave last week according to the district. The move to have him suspended came after conservative advocacy group 'Accuracy in Media' exposed his social media posts outside of the school.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked roadways in Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest on Monday, temporarily shutting down travel into some of the nation's most heavily used airports, onto the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges and on a busy West Coast highway. In Chicago, protesters linked arms and blocked lanes of Interstate 190 leading into O'Hare International Airport around 7 a.m. in a demonstration they said was part of a global “economic blockade to free Palestine,” according to Rifqa Falaneh, one of the organizers. Traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area was snarled for hours as demonstrators shut down all...

Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered across the nation Monday, including in the Seattle area, blocking landmarks and highways to bring attention to the war in the Middle East. The expressway to the Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) Airport was blocked by protesters for several hours. Subsequently, 46 people have been arrested, according to spokesperson for the Port of Seattle Perry Cooper. Cooper said those arrested have been sent to SCORE for processing. However, he said, more people may be arrested as an investigation continues.

The Borderline Dance team, a regional women’s country line dance team, was invited to the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle last weekend to perform by event organizers, the Rain Country Dance Association. Rain Country Dance Association describes itself as creating “a friendly environment for LGBTQ people and friends to meet and dance in the Pacific Northwest. We support this Country Western dance community by providing opportunities to dance, learn, and perform. We cater to the LGBTQ community of Seattle and Greater Puget Sound but are open to However, The Borderline Dance team’s American flag-themed shirts resulted in them being “effectively...

Members of a regional women’s country line dance team were reportedly kicked out of a Seattle dance convention after organizers claimed their American flag-themed shirts made some attendees feel "triggered and unsafe." Over the weekend at the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle, the Borderline Dance team was set to perform, but were essentially told they weren't welcome by organizer Rain Country Dance Association, an LGBTQ+ dance community, over their matching American flag themed shirts, Jason Rantz reported for 770 KTTH.

Members of a regional women’s country line dance team were reportedly kicked out of a Seattle dance convention after organizers claimed their American flag-themed shirts made some attendees feel "triggered and unsafe." Over the weekend at the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle, the Borderline Dance team was set to perform, but were essentially told they weren't welcome by organizer Rain Country Dance Association, an LGBTQ+ dance community, over their matching American flag themed shirts, Jason Rantz reported for 770 KTTH. "Unfortunately, what our team was met with upon arrival was that our flag tops were offensive to some of the...

Seattle is scrambling to raise the $5,000-a-day hotel costs for 240 asylum seekers who overtook a school play area with tents and foreign flags in a takeover locals called 'threatening.'. Seattle City Council members say they're working with Mayor Bruce Harrell's office to find an emergency solution to the cadre of migrants who camped at Garfield Tennis Courts, part of a community center used by local schools. A $50,000 donation has paid for the migrants and their children to return to the Quality Inn Hotel in Kent, but it's not clear what they will do when the cash for 61...

Seattle Public Schools is dismantling its gifted and talented program, which administrators argued was oversaturated with white and Asian students, in favor of a more “inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive” program. The district began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohort schools and classrooms for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year due to racial inequities, the school district notes. The program will completely cease to exist by the 2027-28 school year, with a new enrichment-for-all model available in every school by the 2024-25 school year. “The program is not going away, it’s getting better,” school officials said on the district...

A stunning 19th-century Seattle mansion, sold for $6 million, is set to be torn down because its last owners were the Moonies - members of the Unification Church. Nestled on the shores of Lake Washington, the three-story Spanish Mission revival mansion was once home to the family of early pioneers of Seattle, including Rolland Denny, the son of the city's founder, Arthur Denny. Later in the 1970s, it was purchased by the Unification Church when the religion was still in its infancy and served as a domicile for founders Sun Myung Moon, his wife, and their followers. Leonard Garfield, the...

In 2022, Seattle's City Council passed an ordinance mandating a minimum earnings floor for app-based food delivery drivers in the city. The law finally went into effect in January 2024, but so far the main result has been customers deleting their delivery apps en masse, food orders plummeting, and driver pay cratering. The ordinance, part of a legislative package called "PayUp," was passed under the banner of protecting gig workers. By setting a compensation floor for app-based delivery drivers based on miles driven and amount of time worked, the ordinance operates as a (supremely complicated) minimum wage. The wage floor...

SEATTLE (KOMO) — The leader of a fraud ring that stole more than $6.8 million in pandemic benefits from nearly every major COVID-19 pandemic assistance program was sentenced to prison. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), 29-year-old Paradise Williams personally received more than $2 million in fraudulent proceeds and spent the money on luxury cars, lavish trips, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and designer goods. The DOJ said Williams was sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud and money laundering. “Paradise Williams was relentless in her efforts to steal pandemic benefits throughout the entire duration of our national emergency,...

A comedy club in Seattle has canceled four comedians after the venue decided their acts did 'not align with the neighborhood's progressive values.' It might seem like a bad joke, but the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar, known for promoting the voices of the queer community, had booked comics Jim Florentine, Dave Smith, Luis Gomez and Kurt Metzger for some upcoming shows before scrapping them. But Florentine, known for his edgy and outspoken style, is among the foursome whose shows were scrapped. He is now predicting the club will ultimately close down following the decision. 'We got this email saying, listen,...

A city council meeting in Seattle became so unruly with far-left activists that councilmembers had to take several recesses and a handful of people wound up in handcuffs. On Tuesday, hundreds of activists, many of them wearing face masks, marched outside Seattle City Hall and flooded the chamber inside, demanding that local leaders allocate more resources toward immigrant housing rather than fund "racist" police equipment. The protestors included members of far-left groups such as Stop the Sweeps Seattle and Comunidad Sin Fronteras. "We need housing now!" they chanted in unison before one ringleader, believed to be Rosario Lopez Hernandez, rattled...

Aman aboard a recent Alaska Airlines flight constructed a makeshift weapon to stab a fellow passenger, according to multiple reports. The suspect allegedly said that he needed to protect himself because the "mafia had been chasing him." The bloody stabbing took place during an Alaska Airlines flight traveling from Seattle to Las Vegas on Jan. 24, 2024. Julio Alvarez Lopez was described as acting “fidgety” throughout the flight, according to the New York Post. He also repeatedly put on and removed his gloves and went to the bathroom for lengthy amounts of time during the plane's initial descent, the outlet...

A Seattle area bar association is apologizing after publishing an article calling for a genocide of Jews in its newsletter. The King County Bar Association Board of Trustees apologized after printing an article from one of its members and former director, Dua Abudiab, entitled From The River To The Sea, a phrase that calls for the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its residents. Abudiab’s antisemitic screed was printed on the front page of the King County Bar Bulletin above the fold. Abudiab equated claims of "white nationalism" occupying North America to justify Palestinian claims to Israel despite...

Are Leftists stupid, ideologically blind, or just preying on the stupidity/ignorance of young people? It's probably some combination of all three, I suppose. There are plenty of really smart Leftists who are ignorant; most Leftists think of people with whom they disagree as evil or stupid, and ideological blindness is a characteristic that describes most Leftists. Then, of course, there are just plain evil people who sell nonsense to these other groups whom they consider useful idiots, in the way Stalin used Westerners who wanted to believe in communism. NEW: Keffiyeh-donning gay activists in Seattle have declared a “homosexual intifada.”It...

The owner asked to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted by activists ... A Seattle, Washington restaurant owner .. has lost faith in city leadership after his business suffered what he claims is its 23rd break-in since the "defund the police" movement started three years ago. "I have lost all faith in the city of Seattle, SPD, Council members, and state elected officials ... The owner of the establishment asked to remain anonymous over fear that activists would target him ... he was previously inundated with a slew of negative Yelp reviews after speaking out against the crime crisis...