SilverPickles

@albeit @VijayInWA @grok There is no "Center of left" Democrats anymore. that's the problem.

@TheRogueGeoduck @VijayInWA @grok Has Howard Schultz of Starbucks supported and funded far left candidates for decades?

Seattle Turns Hostile to the Great Businesses It Made Starbucks is moving jobs from Washington state to Tennessee, and it isn’t alone in looking elsewhere. By Howard Schulz "Washington state has been my home for more than four decades. I arrived in Seattle with dreams and ambition and ended up building Starbucks into a company known around the world. Many Pacific Northwesterners joined me in shaping the culture, benefits and brand of Starbucks—contributing not only to a business, but also the civic and entrepreneurial life of the area. I am no longer a resident of Washington. My decision to leave had much to do with family choices and my stage of life. Still, I feel a responsibility to speak up about the business and job climate in a city and state that gave me so many opportunities. Washington’s economic story over the past half century is extraordinary. Microsoft, Amazon, Costco and a host of other new companies transformed the state into a global center of technology, innovation and logistics. Entrepreneurs exported ideas worldwide. Capital flowed. Wages rose. Imported and homegrown talent flourished. That ecosystem worked because risk‑taking was rewarded, growth was possible, and civic leadership—while imperfect—understood that private enterprise wasn’t the adversary of the public good. It was one engine for improving the public sphere. That ecosystem is fractured today. Seattle and much of Washington face serious problems: chronic homelessness, disorder in core business districts, persistent budget deficits, declining public-school outcomes and a slowing technology hiring cycle. These challenges aren’t unique to the state—but Washington’s response to them is. Seattle’s mayor, Katie Wilson, has chosen to cast business as a foil rather than a partner. Her socialist rhetoric vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue. She has encouraged residents who disagree with her policies to leave. In the state capital, the Legislature and governor have confronted difficult fiscal trade-offs by emphasizing taxation rather than reform or performance management. The theory appears to be that prosperity can be mandated through redistribution rather than generated through growth. Washington has a broken tax system. The reliance on sales taxes—10.55% in Seattle—is deeply regressive. The state needs to rewrite its tax code across the board in a way that ensures people and businesses alike pay their share. But instead of reform, those in power have opted to increase the burden on businesses and successful entrepreneurs in ways that discourage them from growing within the state—at a moment when Washington’s economic situation is growing more fragile. Microsoft and Amazon—once hiring engines—have slowed recruitment and reduced head counts as they race to build data-center capacity and compete globally. Starbucks recently announced it will shift hundreds of corporate roles to Tennessee. These companies imported global talent at scale for decades, anchoring an interconnected system of suppliers and startups. As those businesses reduce their local role, Seattle has no clear answer to the question of what will provide the next set of jobs and revenue growth. Cities and states don’t decline overnight. They drift when public safety, fiscal stability and economic vitality deteriorate together. Downtown vacancies reduce foot traffic. Declining foot traffic weakens small businesses. Employment falls. Revenue shrinks. Services erode. Confidence—something that’s hard to build and easy to lose—begins to evaporate. Entrepreneurs are accustomed to accountability: If we fail to deliver value, we lose customers. If we misallocate capital, we absorb the loss. Government, too, should be judged by results, not intentions. In Washington, steadily increasing government spending hasn’t delivered commensurate results on a range of issues, from addressing homelessness and drug addiction to poor prospects for new high-school graduates. Entrepreneurs take risks others won’t. We build before certainty exists. We hire before revenue is guaranteed. We invest locally, pay taxes and support civic institutions. When our companies succeed, entire regions benefit. America can’t afford to forget that. Leaving doesn’t mean abandoning. My family foundation remains invested in Washington’s future, seeking to help the next generation achieve economic mobility and prosperity. But that future is linked to economic growth and job creation. Across the country, other states are competing for capital and talent by simplifying regulation, reforming tax systems and investing in workforce development. One important initiative comes from the bipartisan National Governors Association, helping states craft pro-entrepreneurship policies. I hope Washington’s leaders will embrace these policies and forge a new compact—one grounded in job creation, sensible taxation and accountable public spending. Washington once embodied the future of the U.S. economy, and it can again. But the current government needs to learn that future entrepreneurs won’t be attracted by ineffective public systems, especially when joined with policy and political rhetoric that demonize businesses. Mr. Schultz is a former CEO and chairman emeritus of Starbucks."

❤️❤️ Happy Mother’s Day ❤️❤️ Appreciation to mothers everywhere who brought us all into the world and nurtured their beloved children 🥰

@DrNeilStone CDC had damaging advice, at best, during covid. My family will do just fine with CDC out of our lives and our laws.

The CDC has been gutted. I'm telling you now. The US is NOT ready for the next pandemic

@VijayInWA We have never had a more dangerous peoples and dangerous ideology in Washington state government.

The right of referendum exists as a vital constitutional check on legislative overreach—a fail-safe for when lawmakers defy the will of the people. In Washington State, we are watching that fail-safe be systematically dismantled. Over the last century, Washington voters have gone to the ballot box and explicitly rejected a state income tax on 10 separate occasions. The public mandate is undeniable. Yet, to force through the new millionaire's tax, the legislature bypassed the voters using a cynical loophole: the "necessity clause." This emergency clause exempts legislation from public referendum. The absurdity? The new tax doesn't take effect until 2028, and revenue won't be collected until 2029. A three-year delay is the antithesis of an emergency; it is a procedural maneuver. This was no accident. Internal communications reveal that Sen. Jamie Pedersen consulted with the State Attorney General's office to craft the bill with this clause specifically to block the public from challenging it. The State Supreme Court's mandate is to act as an impartial check on exactly this kind of legislative manipulation. Instead, by upholding the clause, they have chosen to be a rubber stamp. When the legislative, executive, and judicial branches act in concert to insulate themselves from voter accountability, they aren't just protecting a tax. They are colluding to undermine the foundation of our democratic rights.

@1eyedj @LynAldenContact @CorySwan Same thing. Is Trust built on lies?

@LynAldenContact @CorySwan Cohesive society is built on trust, not truth

Free speech is more important than preserving a cohesive society. Agree, or disagree? Explain why in the comments if you like.

I started by trying to understand markets. Thirty years later I've ended up somewhere closer to life, the universe and everything. The same four rules keep showing up... Along the way I've written three frameworks that have shaped how a lot of people see the world. The Everything Code is what I found when I went looking for what actually drives markets. A debt rollover cycle, managed by liquidity, debasing the currency at roughly 8% a year. That debasement is monetary entropy. Capital routes around it, into whatever can compound faster than the entropy degrades it. Technology and crypto sit at the top of that flow because they are the intelligence layer of the economy. Markets are monetary energy routing toward the highest output of intelligence. The only assets that outperform debasement over extended periods are tech and crypto. The Exponential Age is the realisation that technology has become the substrate. Compute, networks, energy and intelligence are compounding faster than any institution we built was designed to handle, and the gap between the two is the defining tension of our time. The Economic Singularity is where this is heading. Somewhere in the next decade the curve of intelligence per unit of energy turns fully exponential, and the rules every economy we know was built on stop applying. For a long time I thought of these as three separate ideas. Looking at them now, they are three views of the same thing at different altitudes. And underneath all three, the same four rules keep showing up. Efficiency of Intelligence - The universe rewards whatever does more with less. Every system that survives is better at turning energy into information than the system it replaced. There has never been an exception. Compression - Intelligence is the act of representing a vast reality in a much smaller form without losing what matters. Brains do it. Theories do it. Prices do it. AI does it. They are not analogous. They are the same operation. Coherence - Complex systems hold together because their parts synchronise faster than the noise around them. Markets, brains, civilisations, ecosystems. When the synchronisation fails, what looks like collapse is desynchronisation made visible. Selection - Patterns that copy themselves faster than their rivals dominate the medium they live in. Genes did this in biology. Ideas do it in culture. Memecoins do it in markets. Truth is not part of the selection criteria. Replication is. It always has been. What the four rules produce, when they operate together, is networks. The same topology shows up everywhere. The cosmic web. The human brain. Mycelium beneath a forest. The internet. Financial markets. Blockchains. Across fourteen orders of magnitude, the universe keeps building the same shape. That shape is what the four laws look like when you can see them. The Everything Code is what these four rules look like in markets. The Exponential Age is what they look like running through technology. The Economic Singularity is where they are taking us. Three angles, one picture. Underneath all of it, energy is the constant. Consciousness is the substrate. The four rules are the dynamics through which one becomes the other. All of this is one corner of what I call The Universal Code. The same four rules apply to everything else and I mean EVERYTHING... they are universal in the true sense of the word.

@vestager @X @vestager you will go down on the wrong side of history on the subject of freedom and free speech. We see you.

In our view @X doesn’t comply with the DSA in key transparency areas. It misleads users, fails to provide adequate ad repository and blocks access to data for researchers. It’s the first time we issue preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act. 👇 europa.eu/!CGPVCV

@hotwire405 @grok what is so sensitive about this video or is it clickbait?

Here is ANOTHER example of why I tell you NOT to touch anything at the SouthernMost Point Marker!!! PEOPLE have NO dang shame!!! *SENSITIVE CONTENT* for those people who need a little disclaimer in their lives!!

‼️Another long term business is closing in Portland Oregon. This is what Hookset Automotive wrote about it… THE GATES ARE CLOSED. THE DEAL IS DEAD. Twenty years of loyalty. Twenty years of sacrifice. In 2002, we fell in love with Portland’s heart. We built Hookset Automotive with grease, sweat, and a belief in this community. I traded my dream of being an architect for an oil rag to build an honest business with my husband, JC. We did everything right. Portland did everything wrong. I didn’t just run a shop; I served. I led the Parkrose Business Association. I hosted town halls. I stood before the City Council and begged for the law to be enforced. I was trying to save Portland from becoming the next Detroit. I fought for this district until there was nothing left to give. In return, the city turned on us. •Financial Extortion: The city didn't just lie; they taxed the shit out of us while doing so. They drained our resources with skyrocketing taxes while providing zero protection in return. •Betrayal: Mingus Mapps, who once ran Historic Parkrose, used our neighborhood as a political stepping stone to the City Council. He ignored our pleas while drawing a salary meant to protect our streets. •Slander: When I spoke up about the crime and the "Slough Town" gunfire, neighborhood groups responded with a smear campaign—spreading vile lies about my marriage to silence a woman asking hard questions. •Sabotage: Last week, our landlord illegally chained the gates shut while we were inside. We were held against our will. When we called 911, the police—the same officers I defended for two decades—looked at us through the fence and called it a "civil issue." They went out of their way to make sure we didn't get help, even contacting the fire department to tell them not to interfere. Your promise of protection was a lie. We gave this city our lives, and it gave us a lock and a cold shoulder. We are closing our doors because the basic rules of a civilized society don't apply here anymore. The deal we made with this city—that if you work hard, pay your taxes, and follow the law, you’ll be protected—was a total lie. To our loyal customers: You were our family. We are devastated it ended this way, but we couldn’t have tried harder. We poured every ounce of our souls into this place, only to be abandoned by the city we tried to save. Portland, you didn’t just fail us—you threw us away. Keep your "weird." We’re taking our integrity somewhere that actually values it. The gates are closed for good. (Original post from FB in comments)

No Kings explained for people who think they're fighting fascism. You're standing in a crowd on Saturday. You look around and think yeah. No Kings. This is what democracy looks like. Bro. You're holding a sign made by a communist billionaire who lives in Shanghai. You live in a constitutional republic. Elections. Term limits. A free press that spent four years calling the president a fascist without one journalist being arrested. The modern left's definition of fascism: You love your country? Fascist. You want to enforce the border? Racist. You think parents should raise their kids? Bigot. You want to know who's voting in your elections? Jim Crow. Being patriotic is fascism to the modern left. But every country has borders and enforces them. 176 countries require ID to vote. That's the definition of a country. But the Democratic establishment told you otherwise. And you believed them. Congress has a 15% approval rating. 80% of Americans disapprove. 97% of incumbents got re-elected. Chuck Schumer. 46 years. Longer than Stalin. Steny Hoyer. 45 years. Longer than Mao. Mitch McConnell. 42 years. 5x more than Napoleon. Nancy Pelosi. 39 years. Longer than Henry VIII. Maxine Waters. 35 years. Longer than Mussolini. Bernie Sanders. 35 years. Triple Hitler's entire reign. Trump. 5 years and 3 months. Won the popular vote and the electoral vote. But Trump is the king. Okay buddy. You don't hate kings. You hate kings that aren't yours. And Saturday they had you in the streets carrying their water. The Democratic Party installed a president without letting you vote. Biden quit on a Sunday. By Tuesday your queen was crowned. No primary. No debate. No ballot. First time since 1968. Three days before your march every Senate Democrat voted against photo ID to vote. During COVID you carried a vaccine card everywhere like a hall pass from the government just to eat at a restaurant. But getting a birth certificate or waiting two hours at the DMV to prove you're a citizen before you vote? That's oppression. The Democratic Party is pro illegal immigration. Counts non-citizens in the Census. Census determines congressional seats. More non-citizens means more seats means more power. No voter ID means no way to check. That's how you keep power without wearing a crown. Biden built a censorship machine. Pressured Facebook to suppress true information and admitted it in writing. Censored scientists. Censored doctors. Censored JOKES. The Biden White House told Facebook to remove "humor and satire." They literally went after people for making fun of them. UK does it better tho... Everything they censored turned out to be right. They just outsourced the silencing to Silicon Valley. And it doesn't stop at speech. The extreme left justifies taking children from families. Six thousand schools rewrite children's identities without telling parents. And the State has the right to intervene. The Hitler Youth did this. Mao's Red Guards did this. The Soviets built statues of a child who reported his own father. Same playbook. During Covid, your bakery got shut down. Church closed. You couldn't hold your dying mother's hand at the hospital. But thousands packed together during BLM to burn Minneapolis and THAT was essential civic engagement. Obviously. $2 billion in damage. 25 dead. 2,000 cops injured. 20 states burning. VP Kamala promoted a bail fund for the rioters. No investigation. No hearings. January 6. One building. Few hours. 1,000 prosecuted. Two years of televised hearings. Kings decide which violence counts. The left decided. Charlie Kirk spent his life walking onto campuses asking for honest debate. He was assassinated. CSIS terrorism database. 2025 is the first year in 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber right-wing. Yet no one brings this up. 75% of liberal students say preventing a speaker from talking is justified. 27% say violence is acceptable. Liberals who went to Trump rallies: "I never felt unsafe." "The experience changed me." Conservatives who show up on liberal campuses get screamed at, blocked, and assassinated. One side talks. The other side screams. The Party for Socialism and Liberation marched with you Saturday. Their stated purpose in their own words: "Revolution." Not reform. Marxism. The system that killed a hundred million people last century. They had you holding their signs while they said it out loud. 500 groups. $3 billion in revenue. Pre-printed signs. The signs were ready before you were angry. The money leads to Neville Roy Singham. Billionaire in Shanghai. Attends CCP workshops. Funnels millions through shell companies at UPS mailboxes. Three Congressional committees have subpoenaed him as a suspected CCP foreign agent. You thought you were fighting for democracy. You were carrying water for Beijing. "Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind." Spoken by the ACLU lawyer who defended Nazis in court because it was their constitutional right. Bill Clinton put 100,000 cops on the street. Reformed welfare. Said illegal immigration is wrong to a standing ovation. Told America the era of big government is over. Today his own party would call him a fascist. The 1990s Democrat defended free speech for Nazis. Yours censors doctors for telling the truth. The 1990s Democrat held open primaries. Yours installed a nominee without a vote. The 1990s Democrat trusted parents. Yours takes their children. Historians measure fascism across eight traits. Here's who checks the boxes in 2026: Censorship of political opposition. Democrats. Contempt for democratic process. Democrats. Tolerance of political violence. Democrats. State ideology forced on families. Democrats. Corporate-state fusion. Democrats. Scapegoating and manufactured enemies. Both sides. Cult of personality. Both sides. Ultranationalism. Republicans. Five for the left. One for the right. Two shared. You marched against kings on Saturday. You marched FOR kings. You just didn't know which was which. Stop being gaslit. I hope you understand what's at stake.

@RealRickRule Seattle native and business owner here. Bob Ferguson is one of WA's most dangerous politicians. Voters + spineless tech CEOs who kowtowed to the extreme left for decades then fled to low-tax states share the blame. Looking at you, @HowardSchultz @JeffBezos

I find it deeply un American that a measure requiring an affirmative public vote, which has repeatedly failed at the polls, was enacted with no public approval by your larcenous legislature

"Washington has been one of the fastest-growing states for decades. It conspicuously avoided the “blue-state disease” of low economic growth and population declines. The Seattle area is home to great companies from Microsoft and Amazon to Starbucks. Washington has been the Florida or Texas of the West Coast. A secret to the Evergreen State’s success has been that it has no income tax. But Democrats in Olympia are perilously close to enacting a “millionaire tax” of 9.9%. Washington would go from being one of nine states with no income tax to having the fifth-highest rate in the country. The tax has passed both legislative houses and Gov. Bob Ferguson says he’ll sign it. Supporters hope the state supreme court will uphold it, overturning or brushing aside a 1933 precedent under which it is plainly unconstitutional. The decision to enact an income tax bodes ill for Washington’s economic future. Eleven states have done so since 1960: West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Jersey and Connecticut. We found that every one of them significantly underperformed the rest of the nation in every economic measure we looked at, including share of the nationwide population, income, and state and local tax revenue. The 11 states in combination accounted for about one-third of national output in 1970. Today they account for slightly more than one-fifth. Since Ohio adopted its income tax in 1971, its share of nationwide domestic output has fallen by nearly half. Since Michigan adopted its income tax in 1967, its share of total state and local tax revenue nationwide has fallen by 53%. Pennsylvania’s share of national output declined 42% since its income tax of 1971; West Virginia has lagged national population growth by 56% since its income tax of 1961; and Rhode Island’s share of state and local tax revenue nationally has plummeted by a third since its income tax of 1971. In terms of the change in its share of the nation’s population, economic output and population, not one of the new income-tax states registers a positive number since the imposition of this tax. And the negative numbers are often highly negative. In every state that adopted an income tax, supporters promised the added money would be used to improve education. Washington is trying to play this card, saying the tax hike is for education, but the statements from lawmakers make it clear they want a new fund for any of their spending desires. When the Washington House approved the income tax, Rep. April Berg, chairman of the Finance Committee, triumphantly declared this plan “truly historic” because it will “make life more affordable for Washingtonians.” Many of them will not be Washingtonians anymore. Illinois added its income tax in 1969, and since then its share of the national population has sunk by 40%. By following suit, Washington will join the ranks of the incredible shrinking states." -- Wall Street Journal

@VijayInWA As a business owner and Seattle native, its scary. It's even worse than the article. There is a slew of new taxes. For one example, we now get charged a tax (about 11%) on all business advertisement expenditures. Even if we advertise to Florida, UK or just down the block.

@RepThomasMassie You are the best Massie.

I just voted YES on the SAVE America Act which will protect the integrity of our elections by requiring voter ID in every state. I also voted YES on a similar SAVE Act that passed the House in April 2025. It’s time for the Senate to take this up!

@PeterSchiff @VijayInWA I ran an AI calculator to see how much I would save if I move the business to Idaho. I used, 1M gross, 4 employees, plus 100k personal salary to get an idea. Savings of $19k a year business + 20k personal. This is massive savings.

@PeterSchiff @VijayInWA Seattle Native and business oener.. It's worse than that. We also have a slurry of brand new taxes. Example of one is a digital advertisement tax. Now to advertise to say, New York Puerto Rico, or Europe, your tax at around 10% of all advertisement dollars.

Washington has a state income tax for the first time in history. The 9.9% rate only affects people with annual incomes above $1 million. But as high-income earners flee, taking their capital & jobs with them, the bar will be lowered soon. The 99% should leave now before it is.

@komonews KOMO forgot to mention, again, the local tax added. Whoopsie.

Seattle gas prices spike to $5+ a gallon as tensions in the Middle East escalate: komonews.com/news/local/sea…

@scott4wa Texas. Because if s*** continues to still go south by the far left nutsos, TX could actually function as their own country

Ok my WA friends… we obviously can’t stay in WA. So…. where are you all moving so we can be neighbors and make a red place redder?

@scott4wa @LarsLarsonShow They already have. I just got my property tax bill for one.

@LarsLarsonShow Yes. Yes. They. Are.

Sadly, I am far from that tax bracket. However, I figure the WA legislative dems are coming for me (and likely YOU) soon enough