Darren Littell

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

The Invisible Glass Experiment Scientists once conducted a fascinating experiment with a pike and an aquarium. They placed a transparent glass barrier in the middle of the tank. On one side was a large, hungry pike. On the other side swam several small fish. As soon as the pike spotted the smaller fish, it launched itself forward to attack. Bang! It crashed headfirst into the invisible glass and was thrown backward. Undeterred, the pike tried again... and again. Each attempt ended the same way a painful collision. After repeated failures , its head became bruised and some of its scales were knocked loose. Eventually, the pike gave up. It retreated to a corner of the tank, clearly frightened and defeated. Then, the scientists quietly removed the glass barrier. The small fish now swam freely around the entire aquarium some even passing right in front of the pike’s mouth. But the pike never attacked again. Even though it was starving, it refused to strike. In its mind, the invisible wall was still there. A few days later, the pike died of starvation surrounded by abundant food it could no longer bring itself to eat. This phenomenon is known as the Pike Effect (or Pike Syndrome). It serves as a powerful metaphor for how repeated failures and setbacks can create invisible mental barriers that limit us long after the real obstacles have disappeared.

The Chief Architect of the Income Tax was asked "Is income property?" and..uh...just watch.

@future42org Detroit priority one calls got as bad as 58 minutes in 2013. EMS were around 20 minutes. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen here.

Street takeovers by hooligans doing donuts and burnouts are nothing new in Seattle. But a 20 minute Seattle PD response time to the takeover at Seattle Center... That is just straight embarrassing. Even worse; neighbors are now sort of accepting that this is the new normal. @Eric7homas | @KIRO7Seattle Article: kiro7.com/news/local/man…

If your position at The Washington Post was recently eliminated, please consider applying to write for The Babylon Bee. We are seeking applicants experienced in writing fictional content presented in the tone and style of a legitimate news organization.

Since a video surfaced from Minnesota alleging rampant fraud at child care providers, there have been calls to look into day cares in Washington state. Although there has not been an instance of fraud thus far, some are asking for an independent audit to verify that state funds are properly allocated. KOMO News is continuing to dig into the story and asking to talk with DCYF and DSHS.

WA Families for Fascism, The WEA, and Monica Stonier all get up and say well we think most parents are good but not all of them are so the schools need the authority to decide what secrets should be kept from parents… Not infrequent Counter point…. “Jury Finds Key Peninsula elementary teacher guilt of 11 child molestation counts” If the question is trust parents or trust government employees to look out for the best interest of the child, I side with the parents….. kiro7.com/news/local/jur…

@bkheywood @DeAngelisCorey Someone should do one with salaries

And @DeAngelisCorey brings the receipts for Seattle schools Employees way up students down The Perfect WEA design chart x.com/deangeliscorey…

🚨 BREAKING: The FBI just notified us that Antifa is openly calling for violence against our volunteers this weekend in Tumwater. They want to intimidate Washington citizens into silence. It won’t work. We’ve already endured 50+ physical assaults and a hit-and-run this year alone. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere.

@1BethDutton @bkheywood I think he said medals and honors (rather than Medal of Honor?)

What a well-deserved honor for them!

@jasonrantz Maybe someone should play them the video from @secstatewa that they committed voter suppression which is a gross misdemeanor

A truly awful look. Here’s what the PD chief tells me: “We are reviewing the incident involving the signature gatherer at Walmart.  We will be meeting with the officers at Covington PD to ensure we appropriately respond to this type of incident in the future.  Although the suspect was not booked, the suspect, in this incident was charged with Theft in the Third Degree and Malicious Mischief in the Third Degree and those charges were submitted to prosecutor that same day.”

This is what leadership looks like Steve Hobbs, @secstatewa the WA Secretary of State is honorably fulfilling his role and responsibility as SOS in defending the initiative process. In 2024 we were concerned that there could be biased actions in counting and verifying signatures. But under SOS Hobbs leadership it was a professional and honorable process. This year we have been attacked, vandalized, and threatened, as we gather signatures but once again SOS Hobbs has stepped up. His video below is a master class that Bob Ferguson needs to watch 1. He goes on camera and talks directly to the citizens of the state 2. He explains the principles, the law, and the citizens rights 3. He condemns the violence in no uncertain terms 4. He does not use squishy language that could justify the intimidation and violence - he makes it clear their actions are wrong and illegal 5. He gives verbal state support to citizens to report the crimes and law enforcement to prosecute the crimes, Thank you SOS Hobbs we appreciate your statement and your efforts.

@townhallcom @grok who is the man commenting in this video

🚨MSNBC is now blaming Charlie Kirk for being shot. “You can’t stop with these awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place” What a disgusting thing to say.

This is it folks, our last chance. Do you want an income tax in WA or do you want to keep our long tradition of an income-tax-free state? Vote YES on i2109 to repeal the backdoor income tax. Find 5 friends and ask them to vote. We must fix this now, or it will never be fixed.

I experienced political intimidation for the first time today. I went to my garage to check my mail and found an envelope addressed to me from someone I did not know. On opening the letter, I found a hate-filled screed directed against me because of my participation in Washington state’s political process. The letter told me to “Go to Florida”, and that if I do, the schools there would not admit my “brown kids”. The author of the screed called me a “useful idiot” and that “nobody here gives a fuck about you.” The person who sent this physical mail to my house must have stalked my address online to find out where I live. I have lived in Washington for 18 years and I deeply love this state. I think Seattle is the most beautiful city in America and I cannot imagine living anywhere else. I have the strange feeling when I visit Australia - the country where I was born - that I am actually away from home. I am raising my four young children here. I have not, however, ever taken part in Washington state’s politics. While I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, I have long despaired at Washington state’s politics. When a state is governed by a single party it can only lead to corruption and complacency. I did not think I could have any meaningful impact or think things could change for the better. I did have some hope in Washington’s state constitution as a bulwark against the overreach from politicians in Olympia, but even that last defense seemed to have crumbled in recent years. Then in February of this year I came across an upstart campaign called Let’s Go Washington that had managed to get 6 different initiatives on the ballot, and miraculously had 3 of them passed into state law. Even more striking was that the initiatives had been added to the ballot in a truly bipartisan way. Over 50% of the hundreds of thousands of signatures required to qualify for the ballot came from Democrats. All of the initiatives were commonsense proposals to help rectify some of the grievous legislative mistakes made by politicians in Olympia in the last few years. It was a breath of fresh air to think that change could be affected by going directly to the people, rather than relying on Washington's legislature. I was so inspired that I decided that I would get involved in Washington’s political process for the first time and support one of the initiatives - I-2109 - to repeal the newly created capital gains tax. I genuinely believe that the new capital gains tax will have a devastating impact on our vibrant tech sector and on small businesses in Washington, which together are the biggest drivers of job growth in our state. I wanted to bring my own perspective as an immigrant who had had success as a software engineer and understood the impact this tax would have on other tech workers, many of whom are migrants like myself and receive a large part of their compensation in the form of stock. I threw myself into the process by participating in a live debate on TVW in Olympia, doing an interview on KUOW, writing an op-ed in the Seattle Times, and canvassing tech workers at Amazon and Microsoft to try to better understand how they felt about the new capital gains tax. At all times I have tried to show respect for the opinions of those who disagree with me and to assume those on the other side of this issue are acting in good faith. I never imagined that by participating in the political process I would now become the subject of harassment and vile attacks. I believe it is deeply un-American to threaten another person simply because they have different views to your own. In the letter that was sent to me, the author refers to @StephanBlanford glowingly as someone “well known in Seattle and beyond”. Stephan was the person I debated about the capital gains tax in Olympia. While we had strong differences of opinion, our debate was always polite and respectful. Stephan, I hope you will join me in condemning this attack directed at me simply because I decided to participate in the political process for an issue I genuinely believe in. I have attached the letter I received today but redacted the name and address of the sender, because I do not want them to experience the same harassment that I did.

Today I had an op-ed published in the @seattletimes explaining why Washingtonians should vote yes on initiative 2109 to repeal the anti-innovation, anti-small-business, capital gains tax that was created in 2021. I co-authored the op-ed with serial entrepreneur Marcus Charles, who is responsible for creating some of Seattle's most iconic small businesses. I am deeply disappointed that my original text was edited, without my permission, by the Seattle Times to remove a crucial section explaining that proponents of the capital gains tax have already created new legislation (SB5335) to drastically lower the threshold at which the capital gains tax applies (down from $262,000 to $15,000) while also increasing the rate from 7% to 8.5%. By censoring my op-ed, the Times is responsible for hiding crucial information from Washington's citizens that erodes their ability to make an informed decision. The politicians who created the capital gains tax had always wanted an income tax in Washington and said so in private. Their strategy was to impose a capital gains tax, and market it to the public as tax that only affects the rich, while working behind the scenes to expand the tax to everyone and increase the rate. Washingtonians have one chance to reverse this massive and devious overreached by Olympia by voting yes on i-2109. If we do not repeal the capital gains tax it will slowly but surely transform into the income tax that Olympia has repeatedly tried to impose on the people of Washington. Below you will find the un-edited version of my op-ed: ---------------- Washingtonians all want a strong and vibrant economy. Our kids also deserve a world class public education system. In 2021 politicians in Olympia decided to create a capital gains tax with the ostensible goal of helping our public education system. Unfortunately, the capital gains income tax will do tremendous harm to our small businesses and tech sector without fixing the significant structural problems that plague our K-12 system. At the same time, politicians in Olympia are already trying to expand the tax to everyone’s income, including yours. Let's begin with a simple question: what are capital gains? They are profits from selling assets like small businesses, stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, and even homes. The IRS defines any capital gains tax as an income tax. So even though the State Supreme Court ruled it an excise tax, it’s just a smokescreen for a backdoor income tax on Washington voters. Those same voters have overwhelmingly rejected income taxes 11 times. Yes on 2109 protects Washington’s culture of no income taxes. Politicians in Olympia cynically promoted the capital gains tax as being necessary to help our children, while in private they explained that it was actually a strategy to circumvent Washington’s constitutional protections against an income tax. Voters have rejected income taxes eleven times in the last 90 years, so clearly some legislators knew they had to sneak their agenda through. The new tax was promoted as only applying to a small group of wealthy people but, as expected, legislators could not resist the temptation of expanding the tax to everyday Washingtonians. Currently, the capital gains tax applies to profits over $262,000 from the sale of assets. However, Senate bill 5335 was introduced this year to lower the tax threshold to $15,000 and increase the tax rate from 7% to 8.5%. Home sales and retirement accounts are exempt for now, but given Olympia’s track record, it's only a matter of time before they look for new ways to increase their revenue. The argument for taxing the wealthy may seem appealing, but the reality is more complicated. Wealthy individuals are the most mobile residents of any state. They can pick up and move to more tax-friendly environments whenever they choose and many have already done so. When they leave, they take their businesses, tax contributions, and the jobs they create with them. This isn’t just a hypothetical scenario—it’s happening across the country in states that over-tax their residents. Connecticut, Massachusetts and California should all serve as cautionary tales. High income taxes in all three have driven out residents en masse, and California’s experiment with high taxes has caused such an exodus that the state lost representation in Congress for the first time. And let’s not forget, Washington State doesn’t have a revenue problem—it has a spending problem. Over the past five years, Washington has had a $19 billion budget surplus and our state’s constitution guarantees funding for education ahead of all other projects. Yet rather than using that surplus wisely, or reducing taxes, politicians have found new ways to squander our money. The capital gains tax hurts small businesses and the tech industry which are the most vibrant parts of our economy and the biggest drivers of jobs growth. In particular, small businesses with fewer than 500 employees are less able to pay additional benefits to their employees due to this new tax. The tax penalizes success, drives out talent, and discourages new entrepreneurs from settling in our state. It is well known that Amazon was founded in Washington due to our (previously) friendly tax policies. What would our state have looked like if Amazon had not been founded here and the tens of thousands of well-paying jobs it created had gone elsewhere? By repealing the capital gains income tax, I-2109 aims to protect small businesses, entrepreneurs and all Washingtonians from a backdoor income tax. If we continue to tax success, we risk losing the very people who help our economy thrive. Vote yes on I-2109, and let’s return Washington to its long tradition of not punishing success and welcoming the world’s best and brightest to our beautiful state.

@SenMarkoLiias The gas tax collected $1.8 billion, so how exactly would it “strip $4.5 billion”? Also, there is a $3.1 billion surplus this year, maybe start there and stop the fear mongering? 🤷‍♂️

I-2117 would repeal the Climate Commitment Act, stripping $4.5B for transportation funding projects across WA. That devastation would force difficult choices and potentially put at risk funding for critical work on the preservation and maintenance of roads in every community.

@dubduphuskies It allows the school and the employees/coaches to help negotiate/find NIL deals for student athletes.

‼️Good News: NIL‼️ app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?bi… This bill was brought to my attention by someone well connected who listened to our space the night before KDB left. It would essentially even the playing for with NIL law for our state and many others (like Oregon for instance). “Think we are hoping it’s passed by March.”

@Softykjr Does this make you look at the Grubb trip to Alabama last year as something more than just offering him the OC job?

What I’m hearing: Washington is expecting DeBoer to leave. But still fighting. Going on KJR soon to discuss

@choeshow @Starbucks @StarbucksNews I’m sure this has nothing to do with the founder of Starbucks being Jewish.

STARBUCKS VANDALISM: Look out for this middle aged white woman. She vandalized the Starbucks Reserve Roastery(@starbucks, @StarbucksNews) in Capitol Hill. This is her handiwork. It says: "Boycott Starbucks end the occupation now." Also, listen to the tail of the video. There are people in the crowd who openly admit to being anarchists and communists. Welcome to Seattle. @FrontlinesTPUSA @TPUSA #Seattle #Israel #Palestine #Hamas #Terrorism #War #Jew #Muslim #Starbucks #BoycottStarbucks