Tag: seattle

Seattle Economic Crisis: Proof That Democrat Wealth Taxes Lead To Disaster

To look at the Pacific Northwest today one would never know that 25 years ago the region was an economic powerhouse at the forefront of technology and business innovation.  At the time Portland and Seattle were known for constant rain as well as raining cash, and the “millionaire density” of the Seattle area was at historic highs.  The tech boom and international trade with Asia had created a Silicon Valley of the northern coast.  

Companies like Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon established corporate offices and generated tens of thousands of jobs, and many of those jobs were considered high income.  People can debate the overall effects of the population surge to the region; there are many who would argue that Washington and Oregon were better off when they were considered backwoods fishing and lumber states.  That said, it’s undeniable that for a time the Northwest was one of the most desirable and lucrative places to live in the US.  

That’s all gone now.  The wealthy are leaving Seattle like it’s a leper colony and all that’s left are millions of broke activists, poverty stricken residents and illegal immigrants.  Some blame the constant riots or the steady stream of welfare recipients. Others say that the draconian covid mandates caused people to jump ship.  However, a primary factor in businesses (and money) leaving the city was the institution of a progressive “Payroll Expense Tax”.  

The PET is a quarterly tax approved by the Seattle City Council in 2020 in the middle of the Covid hysteria.  It increases taxes on businesses depending on how many employees they hire and how much their employees get paid.  In other words, it punishes companies that hire more people and pay them a good salary.  The conditions of the PET are very similar to what Democrats say they want for their “Wealth Tax” – An extra tax on top earners and large companies beyond the income tax.  

Democrats were high on their own supply in the early 2020s and in their fervor to destroy conservatives they instituted every suicidal policy imaginable, from defunding police to near-zero prosecution for property theft under $1000.  It’s not surprising that wealth taxes were established at the same time to “stick it to the capitalists”.  What they seem to have forgotten, though, is that communist tactics don’t work if people and businesses are able to walk away, and that’s exactly what has happened in Seattle.

Larger businesses are packing up and leaving the Northwest as quickly as they arrived.  Amazon, Meta, Google and Expedia are the most prominent examples of companies exiting the Seattle labor market and hiring elsewhere to avoid the Payroll Tax, but there are numerous others. 

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Drama as mysterious black object is spotted hovering in skies above Seattle

A mysterious black ring spotted hovering in the skies above Seattle over the weekend sparked drama throughout the city. 

The ominous black circle, which sat in between the clouds, quickly caused widespread speculation and confusion as people took to social media to share clips and images of the odd occurrence. 

Some suggested the ring was a rare weather event, a massive swarm of insects, or even an extraterrestrial spotting. 

Meanwhile, others speculated that it appeared after fireworks were set off at Lumen Field in Washington state for the Supercross dirt bike racing championship event. 

‘Definitely aliens,’ one online user commented. ‘Leftover tornado,’ said another. 

While many were convinced it could have been weather related, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service told FOX13 the ring was not the result of a weather incident. 

Video posted on Reddit showed fans piled into the stadium as a pyrotechnics machine went off, creating a large fireball that eventually turned into a plume of smoke. 

The smoke then made its way up and created what appeared to be a dark ring, similar to photos circulating online. 

Another image showed the circle hovering near Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. 

Lumen Field posted a similar clip on their Instagram page showing the same smoke rising into the sky. 

‘Let the smoke rise. It’s go time,’ the stadium captioned its post. 

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Seattle BLM leader arrested for dealing fentanyl after Jay Inslee granted him clemency

One of the leaders of Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County has been arrested on almost a dozen drug and weapons charges after being granted clemency by former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in 2019.

The Lynwood Times first reported the arrest of Percy Levy, 54 during a traffic stop by the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force after a 16-month investigation.

After a warrant was served on the suspect’s home, officers found 2,818 grams of powder cocaine, 14.7 grams of rock cocaine, and 556 grams of fentanyl, enough to kill approximately 278,000, one-third the population of Snohomish County. Packaging material and a digital scale were also found, likely indicating distribution. A handgun was also located in the house.

He was charged with 11 Class B Felony charges, including two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a stolen firearm, and eight separate counts of possession of controlled substances with an attempt to sell.

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Seattle state-funded non-profit promotes bondage, ‘jack-off clubs’

Tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money were given to a Seattle foundation that supports bondage programming and “jack-off clubs” where members can “share masturbation and mutual touch in an open, group setting.” Volunteers, calling themselves WA DOGE, revealed that Washington’s Arts Commission gave the funds to the Pan Eros Foundation, an organization that “celebrates and cultivates consent & sexuality through the arts & education for all.”

The organization received $2,000 in the 2023-2025 biennium, according to the Evergreen State’s “open checkbook” website. Tax forms reveal that the organization received $60,000 in “government grants.”

One of the ongoing programs listed on the organization’s calendar is Rain City Jacks “a traditional jack-off club.” According to the event listing, calling it an “associated event,” “Rain City Jacks hosts regular, private events for its members to share masturbation and mutual touch in an open, group setting. Membership is available to adult men who desire and value what we have to offer, respect the Jacks culture of mutual respect and consent, and adhere to the RCJ Code of Conduct.”

Membership is required for participation in RCJ events and Rain City Jacks “welcomes all adult men, including trans men, regardless of age, race, ability, physicality, sexual orientation, or other subjective external traits.”

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Seattle’s new $20 minimum wage claims 6th restaurant casualty since New Year

Seattle’s new $20 minimum wage for 2025 has caused a 6th restaurant to close since the new year.

Pike Place Market bakery The Confectional closed on Sunday after 18 years in business.

Owner Destiny Sund told KIRO News Radio, “I wanted my team to have a wonderful holiday season, so I didn’t mention to them that we would be closing until after New Year’s Day. So this has been a long week for all of us at The Confectional.”

The minimum wage for all employees in the city limits, regardless of business size, jumped to $20.76 on January 1. Last year, if a worker earned at least $2.72 per hour in medical benefits or tips, the business only had to pay its employees $17.25 per hour, but now, for those businesses that featured tips, the change to the minimum wage was a 20 percent increase. The Emerald City’s increase is $4 more than Washington State’s minimum wage requirement.

Sund added, “That allowed businesses 50 employees or under to subtract $2.00 from the minimum wage. If they could make it up in tips and or benefits. And my employees did make that up in tips.”

She continued, “And just doing the math with the additional increase and the loss of the tip credit, it would cost my business an additional $18,000. And that’s just not sustainable.”

At least five other restaurants in Seattle have closed or are closing just days after the city council’s new minimum wage law went into effect.

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Seattle Public Schools Sees Alarming 20% Spike In Student Homelessness After 30% Rise Last Year

Seattle Public Schools is seeing an alarming rise in the number of its students experiencing homelessness. 

As of October, the district reported 2,235 students experiencing homelessness since the school year began, a nearly 20% increase from last year’s 30% rise, KUOW/NPR reported. 

Homelessness has reached record levels nationwide, according to a recent HUD report. In Washington state, over 41,000 students experienced homelessness during the 2023-24 school year, a nearly 15% increase.

Jenny Allen, a McKinney-Vento support worker in Seattle, said rising costs and limited affordable housing are straining families, while the district has seen a rise in immigrants and refugees, particularly from South America.

The KUOW/NPR report said that at Dunlap Elementary, Rogers Greene, an eight-year veteran supporting unhoused students, now assists a growing number of families fleeing conflicts in countries like Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“I can’t imagine. You’re just dropped somewhere and then figure it out — figure out the language, figure out how you’re going to live, where you’re going to live, how you’re going to eat. It’s survival. So it’s important for us to have those connections, relationships, and work through the language barrier,” he said. 

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Seattle Set Minimum Wage Over $20 and You’ll Totally Believe What Happened Next

Seattle closed the door on the subminimum wage for people who work for small businesses, earn tips, or enjoy medical benefits under a punishing new minimum wage law. This forced one popular spot to close up shop the same day the new ordinance went into effect.

“Previously, if an employee earned at least $2.72 per hour in medical benefits or tips,” Fox 13 Seattle reported, “a business could pay its workers $17.25 per hour.” As of New Year’s Day, all the exceptions and exemptions are gone. Seattle’s new no-excuses minimum wage is now a payroll-busting $20.76 an hour.

Bebop Waffle Shop threw a big party on Dec. 31 and permanently locked its doors on Jan. 1. My shocked face was last seen sipping a brandy by the fire and reading a dog-eared copy of Milton Friedman’s “Why Government Is the Problem.” That’s my amusingly wordy way of saying that I totally believe it happened.

The local diner’s finances were already suffering due to inflation and lower downtown foot traffic. It was against this economic backdrop that the city chose to impose a 20% pay hike on restaurant workers because politicians put moral preening and virtue signaling ahead of any other considerations.

Then there’s the part I didn’t believe at first but, on reflection, seemed almost inevitable. “I hate to close a safe space for queer people at this time,” Bebop Waffle Shop owner Corina Luckenbach explained on Instagram, “but the money just isn’t there after the minimum wage increase (which I fully support).”

Emphasis added because some folks are just too far gone ever to take the red pill. Still, you want to grab Corina by the hoodie and explain things to her in words she’ll understand, tell her, “Minimum wage laws are bad for queer people and other living things, mmkay?”

Anthony Anton, head of the Washington Hospitality Association, estimated that Seattle will see 5%-8% of its restaurants go out of business — in 2025 alone.

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Seattle Is Ordered to Stop Blocking Illegal Alien Deportations in the Most Hilarious Court Decision Ever

A federal court has just pooped in the oatmeal of the West Coast, Messed Coast™governors and local election officials suffering from acute cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome who think they can stop illegal alien deportations. And after this hilarious and thorough legal takedown from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, they may never recover. 

With California Governor Gavin Newsom calling a special legislative session to consider ways to fight Donald Trump and Washington’s Governor-elect Bob Ferguson calling for a special legislative committee to fight the Heritage Foundation’s white paper, Project 2025, you can see that Trump Derangement Syndrome among the far left—go ahead, say it, commies—running the West Coast, Messed Coast™ states are in full freak-out mode. 

Sadly, things have grown worse for these very fragile men.

A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals court ruled that King County, Wash., can’t stop Trump’s deportation of the Democrats’ illegal alien voters. 

The conflict began in 2018 when King County (Seattle) czar Dow Constantine raised his emerald bejeweled scepter and declared that forthwith, the federal Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) shall no longer use Boeing Field, now officially called King County International Airport, to remove illegal voters  aliens. Forever and ever, amen. 

Constantine ordered his employees not to listen to ICE, but to take the lead of a leftist group based at the University of Washington that proclaimed it was wrong for the county to “provide the infrastructure through which private parties . . . profit from operating the deportation machine.”  The “private party” guys running the charters were out of luck when the county said to stop, or else.

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REVEALED: Woke Seattle school board chief who shut down gifted and talented sites because they had too many white and Asian students was accused of RACISM by colleagues during anti-racism training scheme

The woke Seattle school board chief who shuttered its gifted and talented programs because they had too many white and Asian students was previously accused of racism by a colleague, documents from the probe show. 

Along with another board member, in 2021 Chandra Hampson was found to have violated the policy against harassing, intimidating and bullying over their treatment of two black employees who were working on an anti-racism plan. 

The anonymous complainants accused Hampson of launching ‘an orchestrated campaign of bullying, escalating intimidation, gaslighting and retaliation’ against them, according to the investigation report. 

Although investigators did not find ‘clear evidence’ that Hampson and her board colleague Zachary DeWolf discriminated against the staffers because of their race, it did conclude that they ‘used their positions and authority to their detriment’.  

Three years later, Hampson is embroiled in a new race scandal at the school over the closure of its controversial gifted and talented programs. 

The district began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohort schools and classrooms for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year because they found it had too many racial inequities. 

School bosses said black and Hispanic students were underrepresented at the schools.

According to Seattle Public School data, of the highly capable students in the 2022-23 school year, 52 percent were white, 16 percent were Asian and 3.4 percent were black.

During a January 22, 2020, school board meeting, parents of black students in the Highly Capable Cohort asked the board to consider finding ways to incorporate students of color into the gifted program rather than shut it down.

Then school board vice president Chandra Hampson slammed those parents saying, ‘this is a pretty masterful job at tokenizing a really small community of color within the existing cohort.’

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Seattle finally starts throwing shoplifters and other petty criminals in jail for the first time in 4 years

Seattle has finally started tossing people in jail for low-level crimes again after four years of letting shoplifters, vandals and other petty criminals walk free.

The change, which went into effect earlier this month, reverses pandemic-era restrictions by King County that kept Seattle police from booking all but the most serious misdemeanors into the slammer.

Officials in the Emerald City argued the policy hamstrung prosecutors and cops.

But now Seattle’s ne’re-do-wells will face a jail cell if they flaunt the law.

The move is a win for local law enforcement, which has long pushed for more tools to fight a four-year crime wave that has continued since the pandemic — despite crime in nearly every other major city declining, an analysis by the Seattle Times showed.

“We’ve had people tell us, ‘You can’t arrest me for that.’ Well, that was true but now we can. We’re hoping to get a little bit of accountability back,” the Times quoted Deputy Police Chief Eric Barden as saying.

The booking restrictions began in 2020, when King County Jail — which contracts with Seattle — slashed its capacity for social distancing reasons.

After that, the county cited staffing issues for the ongoing restrictions.

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