joehoffard

Washington just became the first state in U.S. history to terminate a public employee pension plan. The plan belongs to retired police officers and firefighters. LEOFF Plan 1 was 160% funded as of June 2024 per the state's own actuarial valuation. It had not required a single contribution in 25 years. By 2029 it was projected to reach 200% funded with a $4.3 billion surplus. The legislature terminated the plan, swept $3.9 billion, and is using $880 million of it to refill a rainy day fund it already drained to cover a deficit it created. Days ago, retired first responders including former Congressman Dave Reichert sued the state to stop it. The bill passed the House 55-39 and was advanced out of Appropriations without a public hearing. Every yes vote was a Democrat. The governor signed it in April. I publish the full research and sourced breakdowns on Substack every week. Search Shane Kidwell if you want the deeper dive. I sacrificed my body and a good chunk of my life for our state, they committed to providing a benefit for me and raided it. @GovBobFerguson @komonews @KIRO7Seattle @KING5Seattle @fox13seattle @seattletimes

Winston Churchill fought his depression with bricks. He'd lay them for hours at his country home in Kent. He joined the bricklayers' union. And in 1921 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 75 years to catch up. He called his depression the "Black Dog." It followed him for decades. His method for fighting it back was as basic as it sounds: laying brick after brick, hour after hour. Churchill spelled out his theory in a long essay for The Strand Magazine. People who think for a living, he wrote, can't fix a tired brain just by resting it. They have to use a different part of themselves. The part that moves the eyes and the hands. Woodworking, chemistry, bookbinding, bricklaying, painting. Anything that drags the body into a problem the mind can't solve by itself. Modern psychology now calls this behavioral activation. It's one of the most-studied depression treatments out there. Depression sets a behavior trap. You feel bad, so you stop doing things, and doing less means less to feel good about. Feeling worse makes you do even less. The loop tightens until you can't breathe inside it. Behavioral activation breaks the loop from the action side. You schedule the activity first, even when every part of you doesn't want to. Doing it produces small rewards: a wall gets straighter, a painting fills in, a messy room gets clean. Those small rewards slowly rewire the brain. Action comes first, and the feeling follows. Researchers at the University of Washington put this to the test in 2006. They studied 241 adults with major depression and compared three treatments: behavioral activation, regular talk therapy, and antidepressants. For the people who were most severely depressed, behavioral activation matched the drugs. It beat the talk therapy. A 2014 review of more than 1,500 patients across 26 trials backed up the result. Physical work like bricklaying does something extra on top of this. It crowds out rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches of depression. Bricklaying needs both hands and gives feedback brick by brick: each one is straight or crooked. After an hour you can see exactly how much wall you built. No room left for the mental chewing. The line George Mack used in his post, "depression hates a moving target," is good poetry. The science behind it is sharper. Depression hates a brain that has somewhere else to be.

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.” — John Muir

Look, I realize we live in a divided culture. But can't we all agree - regardless of one's political ideology, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc. - that the Mariners need to bring back this fucking relief pitcher boat?

Darrell Jackson. That Hawk rocked.

REPOST if you OPPOSE the House Democrats' $4 BILLION raid of the law enforcement and firefighter pension plan.

@Schultz_Report SEATTLE SEAHAWKS

🔥 Signed Helmet Giveaway! 🔥 I'm giving away a signed Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III helmet. Rules: 1. Follow @Schultz_Report 2. Like this post 3. Reply with your favorite team

Sam Darnold has won 78% of his games with a 99.4 quarterback rating an 7.1 adjusted net yards per attempt since 2022 in the regular season. Patrick Mahomes has won 73% of games with a 95.7 rating and 6.7 ANY/A since 2022 People hate hitting refresh on their takes don’t they?

pretty epic first career sack tbh

When the Seahawks drafted Rylie Mills, John Schneider said “if we wouldn’t have drafted him, I’m not sure if (defensive coordinator) Aden Durde would have showed up for work on Monday.” Faith well placed!

Seattle Seahawks LB Derick Hall was born at 23 weeks. He had no heartbeat and doctors gave him a 1% chance of survival. But his mom refused to take him off life support. Today he's playing in the Super Bowl.

@Schultz_Report 112

🔥 Signed Helmet Giveaway! 🔥 I'm giving away a signed Jaxon Smith-Njigba helmet. Rules: 1. Follow @Schultz_Report 2. Like this post 3. Reply with how many yards JSN has vs the Patriots

The only way to win is to fight

Alright 12s it's giveaway time again... We've got one @mitchell_ness Throwback Blue 12th Fan jersey 👀 *This is only for a size Large jersey* RT TO ENTER TO WIN!

SEAHAWKS HAT GIVEAWAY *only for a fitted size 7 7/8* Repost this to be entered!

Seahawks lost 3 games in regular season by a combined 9 points. Only Super Bowl champions to be outscored by less than 10 points in their losses: 1972 Dolphins 0 (17-0) 1984 #49ers 3 (18-1) 1966 Packers 4 (14-2) 1991 Washington 5 (17-2) 1989 49ers 5 (17-2) 1986 Giants 8 (17-2)

Ernest Jones emotions on 🔥 “I poured a lot into that program - to go out the way I did - I didn’t like it - but it is what it is - I’m glad I’m here with these guys…” How about Sam Darnold? “Ohhhh like I said, f**k you!” @nflnetwork @NFLGameDay #SeattleSeahawks #Seahawks

How every Seahawks-Rams game felt this season

@skinnyqb10 HAWKS

SEA

Sam Darnold's grandfather is a former Marlboro Man named Dick Hammer.