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Senator Murray: “Our live entertainment venues are often the heart and soul of our local communities—this is about saving jobs as well as arts and culture. I’m going to keep pushing in the Senate to make sure we are doing everything possible to support small businesses in Washington state.” WASHINGTON D.C.–U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) has joined the Save Our Stages Extension Act, which would extend the timeline for using Small Business Administration (SBA) Shuttered Venue Operators Grants, created by the bipartisan Save Our Stages Ac...
By Mariya Frost In the 2015 Connecting Washington transportation package, lawmakers included a provision that requires the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to “report annually on the amounts expended to benefit transit, bicycle, or pedestrian elements within Connecting Washington projects.” Though transit, bike and pedestrian projects are funded largely by driver fees deposited into the state’s multimodal account, the legislature wanted to know how much it cost to implement any multimodal elements as a part of larger road i...
A. F. Branco...
It’s true that my steer is all-natural I’ve dispensed with all vaccines and drugs Not one pesticide is poured on his hide He’d be lonesome without all the bugs! The lice are his own peanut gallery The ticks and the heel flies, too. He scratches all day while they nibble away But it does give him something to do. I’ve no use for antibiotics. For those drenches and potions and pills. He’s had a rough time, but now doin’ fine. Though he’s pore as an ol’ whippoorwill. He’s had rickets and doubl...
Due to the federal government changing the unemployment benefit eligibility rules mid-pandemic, some Washington residents, who have been receiving unemployment benefits, will now have repay the benefits despite being approved to receive benefits initially. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, launched shortly after the pandemic started, did not fully verify that a benefit claimant was eligible for program benefits. Claimants that applied under the rules of the PUA program...
I took a trip to the museum of natural history. It was a fascinating place: a taxidermist’s showcase. A dog heaven, what with all the prehistoric bones. But as I walked through the halls and stared at the infinite variety of creatures that stalked the earth, I began to feel uneasy. I started seeing familiar faces looking back at me. There stood the reincarnated remains of Stegosaurus. He was twenty-five feet long, had a hump in his back, big spikes on his tail and a skull about the size of a S...
The more people hear about Washington’s coming long-term-care law and payroll tax, the less people like it––and for good reason. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against it, an initiative is being pursued, and Idaho sent the state a cease-and-desist order concerning the law that impacts workers who live in other states. Starting in January, the unpopular law imposes a stiff new tax of 58 cents per $100 earned for every worker in the state, with no earned income cap. The money will go to a new state program, called the WA Cares Fund, p...
Most would admit it was an unusual location to put a chain in the first place. Not that it didn’t look at home amongst the rotting posts and rusty headgate, but there it was. Miles and his wife decided their little place could carry a few more cows. It was a good year on the Montana high line but bred heifers were high. So they agreed that buyin’ yearlin’ heifers would be the ticket. They could select a good sire, synchronize the heat cycle and breed them artificially. They bought forty head...
In a 7-2 ruling this morning the State Supreme Court said the partial vetoes the Governor made in the 2019 transportation budget were unconstitutional. When issuing those vetoes the Governor said: “While my veto authority is generally limited to subsections or appropriation items in an appropriation bill, in this very rare and unusual circumstance I have no choice but to veto a single sentence in several subsections to prevent a constitutional violation and to prevent a forced violation of state law.” The State Supreme Court disagreed tod...
A. F. Branco...
“There’s only one thing worse than eating next to a left-handed person, and that’s heading for him. It’s like trying to screw the male end of a garden house into the matching threads on your stock tank drain,” so spoke Bob to Allen, two fair-to-middlin’ team ropers, both fives, in the prime of their addiction. The equivalent of two-pack-a-day ropers. “Yeah, team ropin’s gone to hell,” answered Allen. “Used to be one guy had an arena and twelve guys came to his place to rope. You got in good pra...
By Sen. Mark Schoesler Last Friday, Secretary of the Senate Brad Hendrickson sent an email to all senators and Senate staff to announce how the Senate will conduct the 2022 legislative session after the Senate’s Facilities and Operations Committee voted along party lines, 4-3, to approve the 2022 session plan. All three Republican senators on the F&O committee voted against this plan. Unfortunately, the public once again will be prevented from attending Senate committee meetings in person, as co...
“Twas a matchup made in Elko for the cowboys in the know Called the Rough and Ready Knock Down Finals All Ranch Rodeo. Now the Texans entered up a team they thought could never lose When they bet their reps against the Jordan Valley Buckaroos. You could tell from where they hailed if you put ’em up for bids, All the buckaroos wore fancy scarves and Amish lookin’ lids While the Texans wore their jackets for the brush down in the draws And them twenty dollar roll-yer-own, cheap Guatemalan straw...
By Jason Mercier TVW recently held a Q&A event between students and the Governor discussing various topics. The full interview is worth watching. Topics included dam breaching, homelessness, climate policy, police reform and vaccine mandates. One question was about the governance structure of the state and whether there should be more statewide elected officials to help improve bipartisanship. The Governor replied instead that there should be fewer statewide elected officials to improve accountability (31 min mark). We agree. At present the...
OLYMPIA–House Republicans today called for a repeal of the Democrats' new long-term care insurance program and payroll tax. Rep. Joe Schmick and Rep. Peter Abbarno have drafted legislation to repeal the state program, saying it is unfair, inadequate, insolvent, and that the payroll tax is regressive. "This program creates the false hope that people's long-term care needs will be satisfied, when in fact, it will be woefully inadequate for the majority of those who eventually need long-term c...
I had just finished loading 184 seven-foot steel T-posts, old ones, by the way, in my pickup and was unloading a mere 24 bales of hay from the front section of my gooseneck stock trailer. It was a hot, humid afternoon in early fall when the dead braches begin to stick out of the cottonwood greenery, and the garden starts goin’ to heck and no one cares. I could almost smell the cumin from Ramon’s #6 Combination Plate being distilled in my sweat from lunch earlier. Then I saw the blue box. The...
When Governor Inslee issued his COVID vaccine mandate for most state employees and health-care workers in both the public and private sectors, we wondered if and when he would try to extend that mandate to all private employers. This week the agency known for cracking down on employers over other COVID mandates set the stage for the governor to make that next move. In short, the Department of Labor and Industries has effectively extended the emergency rules dating from May 2020 that allow it to...
Washington, D.C.–Eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Congressman Dan Newhouse (WA-04), and Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03) respond following Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Patty Murray announced they would begin a joint federal-state process to examine replacing the benefits of the Lower Snake River Dams. This announcement comes on the heels of the Department of Justice announcing a settlement in the motion for injunctive relief filed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over the Columbia River System O...
It was a severe case of vegetable defamation, the makin’s of a landmark case of harassment and abuse. The plaintiff, a Miss Parsley, was demanding compensation of one Paul Pierre Potato and, to-be-specified produce. “So how do you plead, Mr. Tater?” “Not guilty but let me relate I’m a victim of mass inflammation, au gratined and smeared on a plate, laid next to a lecherous cutlet whose gravy kept touching my cheese. It was all I could do to keep silent. Then I felt the promiscuous peas. Nudging...
Inslee is still targeting Snake River dams It’s no secret that Gov. Inslee is not a fan of the four dams on the lower Snake River. I think it had been a few months since our governor last said anything about these dams, but his silence ended somewhat dramatically when I read a story in today’s Spokesman-Review that said the guy told a group of environmentalists at a virtual fundraiser yesterday that he and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray are exploring options to breach the Snake dams “and replace the b...