Steve T

UPDATE —Referendum Denied by the WA State Supreme Court BUT Warning TLDR -today the WA state supreme court ruled that the legislature can prevent the voters from exercising a referendum when the legislature raises taxes -We believe this is an incorrect and tortured reading of the constitution and inconsistent with the very strong protections placed in the constitution to limit the governments ability to tax -Nevertheless that is the way the court has ruled So what does that mean? Several important points below: Supreme Court 1) 5 of 9 supreme court seats will be up for election in November. You need to vote 2) Unlike in past years there are legitimate constitutionally focused challengers to the Bob Ferguson appointees so you will have a choice this year 3) You need to be informed, donate, talk to neighbors about the supreme court Initiatives 1) We now shift our focus to an initiative… pre-register for us to send initiative sheets to your home at letsgowa.com 2) Sign up to volunteer and to keep updated letsgowa.com/volunteer 3) Donate letsgowa.com/donate Lawsuit Implications IMPORTANT PLEASE READ 1) Although we lost our case before the supreme court, they issued the following words “Consistent with the words of the constitution and our unbroken line of precedent, ….“. See the screen shot below 2) These words matter enormously because the supreme court has ruled 7 times that income is property and property may not be taxed above 1% nor may it be applied unevenly to citizens. 3) There is a separate lawsuit challenging the legality of the income tax in the first place and as the supreme court indicates that it is bound by “unbroken” precedent, it would be highly inconsistent and blatantly idealogical for them to deny our petition based on precedent while ignoring much deeper and more widely argued precedent that income is property and therefore 6346 is an illegal tax under the constitution. -The income tax is coming for you if you don’t join the fight. -Unchecked and reckless spending of your tax dollars will continue if you don’t join the fight -People will leave and businesses will shut down if you don’t join the fight now Fight back now letsgowa.com

🚨HERE’S THE GAME PLAN🚨 Senate Majority Leader Thune REFUSES to pass the SAVE America Act. It’s been 124 days. 👉Thune wants nothing more than to protect Senator Cornyn👈 & his slush fund — the Senate Leadership Fund — has spent millions on Cornyn’s election. The Senate isn’t in the business of passing legislation or electing conservatives — it only exists to protect itself. So, if you want to hold Thune accountable, the single most important thing you can do is help elect KEN PAXTON on Tuesday, May 26th. 👉Electing Ken Paxton & DEFEATING Cornyn would be the peaceful shot heard across the nation👈 One by one, with meticulous precision, we will repeal & replace Thune’s allies. 🗓️ Saturday, May 16th — DEFEAT Senator Cassidy 🗓️ Tuesday, May 26th — DEFEAT Senator Cornyn (Texas Early Voting: May 18 - May 22) In addition to defeating Thune’s allies, I’m asking you to DEFUND every Republican entity that is working against us. Do not donate a dime to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) or the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF). Your $ will just be wasted on Cassidy & Cornyn. Also, you can get a REFUND from WinRed for any Republican you donated to that is no longer serving your interests: ▪️Senator Thune ▪️Senator Cornyn ▪️Senator Cassidy You should also know that Senator Hagerty (R-TN) endorsed Cornyn. Texas Congressmen that endorsed Cornyn: ▪️Nathaniel Moran ▪️Randy Weber ▪️Roger Williams ▪️Jake Ellzey ▪️Craig Goldman ▪️Michael McCaul ▪️Pete Sessions If Senator Thune won’t deliver what 84% of Americans want, then we will take away what they have — peacefully. ⬇️

If you stand with the UAE- REPOST now. Share the picture.Stand against the Islamic regime in Iran. Stand with humanity. Stand with civilization against darkness, against backwardness. Choose your side. Silence is not neutral.

@stevemur There is no country outside of the "developed" West that gives such benefits to non-citizens. We should not be admitting non-citizens if they're not a net positive to the country.

Personally, I'm in favor of allowing SNAP to go to non-citizens, but it should be time-limited for noncitizens (e.g., to the first year.) It should also be making reforms to ensure the food is nutritious, fresh, and that EBT has less risk of buy/resell fraud. Imagine if you migrated to another nation; let's say Japan, or France -- what would you expect/demand as a noncitizen to be fair and correct?

Numbers in context: About 14% of Washington State residents who received taxpayer-funded SNAP benefits in 2024 (i.e., about 117,000 people) were non-citizens. The average SNAP expense for taxpayers is about $2,250 per year, so that's $263 million in 2024, more than a quarter of a billion dollars. Look. Good people can disagree on what's good policy, but we should at least know the numbers. And the actual number is a lot more than zero, which we've heard a lot of politicians claim.

@RobbieScowlz @Polybiu_IV @NancyWindsorUK @PeterMcCormack I bet your business is subsidized one way or another.

@Polybiu_IV @NancyWindsorUK @PeterMcCormack I literally run a (small) business. I pay workers properly and they work very hard. That’s how business should operate

A minimum wage of £15 would end my coffee shop, it would have to close, as would many other businesses. I’ll explain for the economically illiterate. Staff costs are currently half our costs, a £15 minimum wage is actually more than £15 an hour for the company, because you have to add: - 12.07% holiday - Sick pay - Maternity pay if and when required - National insurance - Pension contributions These costs would mean the shop loses money because remember, energy costs are up, rates are up, regulations are up. Now you can pass these costs onto the consumer - that would mean charging a lot more for coffee, people won’t pay it. The likes of Starbucks and Costa can, because they have economies of scale. The independent doesn’t. Now the little socialist will say well this is your fault, if you can’t run a business that can afford to pay its staff properly, but the little socialist has never run a business and does not understand the dynamics. Now I could pay some staff off and fill those hours myself or reduce us to one staff member during certain periods - but this proves the point that a minimum wage costs jobs. There was a time when these jobs were done by kids, perhaps on the weekend, paid a lower wage, no holiday and no silly employment rights. Perhaps they were even paid cash. The dynamic worked and small businesses like this could operate. It was also a great first job. Sadly now it isn’t worth employing entitlement youngsters at this level of pay. So alas, I don’t need the stress, the business would close, a number of jobs would be lost. Economics is about understanding these dynamics, no vibes. The cost of living is not solved through passing on inflation to the business, it is solved by ending high inflation and creating prosperity. This is what socialists don’t understand, they can’t create prosperity, they can only destroy it.

I started my first company from my bedroom in Tacoma when I was 13, dreaming of one day building something like the tech companies I watched flourish in Seattle. I remember being awed that someone could create a company from nothing and I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. After 28 years of building, it's heartbreaking to watch Seattle's leaders shift from celebrating entrepreneurs to making clear we're the problem. The tax bill is just the price tag on their contempt. foxnews.com/media/seattle-…

Had dinner tonight with 8 entrepreneurial couples. Every single one is moving. Good bye @MayorofSeattle. You’re the nail in the coffin of Seattle and you will be memorialized for it.

There is a "No Kings" movement happening right now in Washington state. They wave every flag you can imagine... The argument is that Republicans are operating like royalty. Unaccountable. Unelected. Making decisions that affect millions of people without a vote. I want to talk about something closer to home. Who dictates your utility bill costs... Puget Sound Energy serves 1.1 million customers in King and Snohomish counties. Snohomish County PUD serves another 370,000. Seattle City Light covers most of Seattle. Every single person in this region wakes up and pays whatever these utilities charge. You have no choice. You cannot switch providers. PSE's electric bill is up 30% since 2023. If you are an Avista customer in eastern Washington, you are up over 40% since 2022. Nobody asked you. Nobody voted on it. Here is how it happened. Three people set PSE's profit rate. Not elected. All three appointed by Democratic governors. The current chair came from a clean energy advocacy organization. The governor who appointed him signed the law that requires PSE to make billions in new capital investments. Under the rules these three commissioners enforce, every dollar of that investment earns PSE a guaranteed 9.9% annual return. Collected from your bill. For decades. The profits do not stay in Washington. PSE is owned by a consortium of Canadian and Dutch pension funds. Your utility payment leaves this state every month. In King County, you can vote for your school board. Your city council. Your county executive. You cannot vote for a single person who decides what you pay for electricity. That is not a Republican system. That is not a Democratic system. That is three people, appointed by one party that has held the governorship for 40 years, setting the price of a service you cannot refuse to buy. The "No Kings" crowd wants you looking at Washington D.C. I think we should start by looking at Olympia. I publish the full research and sourced breakdowns on Substack every week. Search Shane Kidwell if you want the deeper dive. @GovBobFerguson @komonews @KING5Seattle @KIRO7Seattle @fox13seattle @seattletimes

Ok, I’ve finally processed how I experienced this, and it’s a big deal. I grew up hearing stories from my father and grandfather about the Soviet Union, but this was the first time I truly understood them, like the difference between hearing stories about having a child and actually holding your own newborn. Like an ancestral alarm. It’s devastating. Everything in me is screaming to divest from the region that I’ve poured my adult life into to survive. The feeling of loss is immeasurable, and the casual “bye” just makes it worse. The damage from the lack of empathy here will create a cycle of attacks that take decades to undo and will bloody the hands of everyone around me, there are no sidelines in my line of work. This also isn’t about taxes, the cost of reorienting my life is infinitely greater. It’s now primal and existential.

INSANE. Seattle's Socialist Mayor responds to exodus of wealth from Washington state by saying "BYE" ... then laughing. We're doomed.

Microsoft President Brad Smith told KOMO News, "I'm probably more worried right now about the business climate in Washington than at any point over the last 30 years... If other people are paying for jobs to leave and we're taxing them to stay, that will make everything harder."

How efficient has the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) been able to increase the number of homeless in Seattle? Well from a homeless per 100,000 — they have successfully defended our title as #1 over the past 10 years. However, as you can see from the chart below, New York, Denver, Las Vegas, and Portland and growing much faster than us so there is still work for Dow Constantine to do

@ProudSocialist You are another ivory tower theorist who has absolutely no proof. Nothing that you say has ever worked or will ever work. And that is because you ignore human civilization, which has evolved to be hierarchical. And capitalism is the best hierarchy with the most freedom.

Professor Clara Mattei just gave a masterclass on the coercion of capitalism: “Capitalism has been imposed upon us by a tiny elite since the beginning. Liberal democracy is really only a superficial facade. When people rise up against the capitalist system liberals and fascists are best friends to implement austerity.” She wasn’t done teaching! She also points out capitalism itself isn’t natural and that it took control of the world using violence by excluding people from the land. Prior to capitalism forcing itself onto the world indigenous cultures used a much different method to organize their societies: “If you look at all the indigenous cultures it was based on circular, horizontal organization through councils. It was about caring for the commons and caring for nature rather than extracting.” Professor Mattei just gave the world a much needed wake up call with this interview and outlined the need for humanity to look to its indigenous roots for how to chart a sustainable path forward!

@Original_Maven @RepMGP Fair point.

@ReturnSniper @RepMGP She said outside the COUNTY. You need to have your glasses checked. 👓

In my county, we’re seeing a 30% increase in search and rescue calls—the vast majority involving people from outside the county. Our search and rescue teams are being forced to do more with less. I’m working to change that. My amendment to help make our rural counties whole is now law. And I’ll keep working to bring federal dollars home for rural communities and law enforcement.

@SnowHimbo Exactly the opposite, actually. The pursuit of profit is the only thing that has stopped humans from dying of hunger and incessant fighting.

Nothing has caused more death on this rock than the pursuit of profit over human life. Nothing.

@GovBobFerguson You take more money from us every year, and yet you need even more. Have you actually fixed anything with all the money and promises made over the last ten years?

Expanding child care will transform the lives of kids across Washington as families deal with rising costs. We're creating 2,056 new seats with these grants, and partnering with the Ballmer Group to provide funding for thousands more kids. We’re also supporting early learning with the Millionaires' Tax.

@PattyMurray I'm a former Democrat and I'm FOR the SAVE Act. I'm FOR ICE. And instead of making your big pharma donors even richer, I'm for free market healthcare so it's more affordable for everyone.

Every Republican who voted YES to another $70 billion ICE slush fund at 3 AM last night said NO to child care.   Republicans said NO to health care. NO to helping working Americans in any way at all.   I'll be making sure everyone knows it.

People have no idea how fragile the job ecosystem in Seattle is. It used to be that you could spend your career hopping around a few companies and do very well. Big tech isn’t hiring. Nordstrom isn’t a booming business, Sur La Table isn’t hiring people, Costco isn’t the same it was. Our startup funding is the lowest it has ever been. I fear those days are over. It’s going to be a tough decade for Seattle. Imagine a governor that built homes and a Mayor that welcomed jobs to our city instead of one that chased them out. You can’t close income gaps without income. And who’s left to foot the bill? Anyone who comments on this that they don’t like the flavor of the coffee is missing the point. Say that to someone who lost their job. Time to organize and vote for public safety and a business friendly environment. seattletimes.com/business/starb…

@atrupar How is being factual about IQ, if true, racist?

"The average IQ in Somalia hovers around 70, and that's the threshold for mentally handicapped ... they're a net drain on the society" -- even by MAGA standards, the unvarnished racism of this interview of Rep. Brandon Gill by Benny Johnson is breathtaking

@DarrigoMelanie You're math and logic challenged. America's wealthiest created all the wealth in the first place. There is no transfer of wealth other than Dems like you stealing wealth from all of us, rich and poor alike.

The top 1% of Americans hold 31.7% of all U.S. wealth. They want you to blame immigrants for why you can’t afford to live, instead of the politicians passing policies that transfer wealth away from the working class, and up to America’s wealthiest.