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Democrats’ brilliant plan: squeeze landlords, wish for more housing.
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Bob’s Rent Control Reality Show: Now With 10% More Government!
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In a dazzling display of “fixing” the housing crisis, Governor Bob Ferguson has proudly signed HB 1217 into law—a rent control bill that caps rent hikes at either 10% or 7% plus inflation, depending on which is less devastatingly high. Washington now joins the exclusive club of West Coast states that think punishing landlords will magically create more housing.
Democrats are patting themselves on the back, calling this “comprehensive” policy a win for renters—except the 38% of them living in single-family homes, who are now exempt from the cap. Apparently, equity has its limits when you’re trying to herd cats in the Legislature.
While Rebekah Gardea from QLaw Foundation called it “meaningful progress,” what it really means is more bureaucracy, more rules, and more reasons for small landlords to exit the market altogether.But don’t worry—rent hikes are still allowed after the first 12 months of a lease, just with a little more paperwork and a government-sanctioned percentage cap.
The bill barely scraped through the Legislature, with a handful of Democrats defecting and not a single Republican buying the fairy tale. Starting June 2025, the state will annually announce just how much more your rent is allowed to go up—because nothing says “free market” like government-approved pricing tied to the Seattle CPI.
In the end, Democrats get a headline, renters get false hope, and the housing crisis gets exactly what it didn’t need: more state meddling and fewer real solutions. Bravo. Read more at MyNorthwest.com.
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Clyde’s Got Company—and This One Doesn’t Lie About His Résumé
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Looks like Democrat Rep. Clyde Shavers (D-Oak Harbor) will have to do more than inflate his military record to hang on to his seat—because Robert “Chili” Hicks is in the race, and he comes with actual Navy credentials. Master Chief Petty Officer, retired. No embellishment necessary.
Hicks, currently a Stanwood City Councilmember, announced his candidacy by doing the unthinkable in politics: telling the truth. He even had the nerve to point out that when your own family calls you out for lying, as Shavers’ did, that might be a sign your moral compass needs replacing.
Hicks says he’s jumping in because Washington is becoming increasingly unaffordable, unsafe, and unrecognizable under Democrat rule. He’s pushing for fiscal sanity, education transparency, and public safety—all things that used to be bipartisan until Democrats decided feelings were more important than functioning cities.
On schools, Hicks wants parents to actually know what’s going on when their kids are in class—how radical! And on crime? He’s noticed what most voters already know: when you don’t prosecute criminals and you don’t fund jails, you get… well, Seattle.
Bottom line: Clyde’s facing a challenger who didn’t have to lie his way into the Navy or his community’s trust. That alone should make Democrats nervous. Read more at MyNorthwest.com.
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Sound Transit: Lighting Billions on Fire, One Grant at a Time
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Sound Transit has pulled in a staggering $3.8 billion in federal cash over the past seven years and expects another $9 billion for ST3—because nothing says “efficient public spending” like lighting money on fire while ridership circles the drain post-COVID.
Despite having already vacuumed up more than $20 billion from taxpayers since 1996, and projecting nearly $94 billionby 2046, the agency is somehow still shocked—shocked!—to discover that construction is expensive and property values are up. Their brilliant solution? Revisit the financial plan… again. Because clearly, the fifteenth time’s the charm.
Even with an extra $2.3 billion in projected tax revenue, Sound Transit is prepping its Board for more “financial headwinds.” Translation: “We mismanaged your money, again, and now we’re hoping D.C. bails us out.”
This same agency that once got $1 million in federal funding per year now rakes in half a billion annually, yet still can’t finish projects on time or under budget. And now, they might actually have to justify future grants? Shocking development in the world of unaccountable public transit empires.
As former Bellevue Councilmember Kevin Wallace noted, Sound Transit’s days of automatic handouts might be numbered—especially with their dreams of running light rail through low-density suburbs that never asked for it. Good luck selling that to D.C. when your stations are emptier than a downtown Seattle Walgreens.
In short: Sound Transit is the poster child for government waste—so flush with cash they can’t stop tripping over it, yet somehow always short when it’s time to deliver. Read more at Center Square.
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Dumpster Fires and Death Threats: Academia’s New “Free Speech” Movement
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What started as another “peaceful protest” at the University of Washington quickly turned into a full-blown antisemitic meltdown—complete with arson, building takeovers, and protesters hurling not just slogans, but feces. This is what the far-left now calls “activism.” The Trump administration, thankfully, has stepped in with a federal review, because apparently UW leadership needs help remembering that committing crimes is not, in fact, allowed.
The group behind the chaos, “Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return” (or “Super UW,” because why not give your hate group a cute acronym?), claims their violence was all about severing ties with Boeing—because nothing says justice like torching campus dumpsters and threatening Jewish students over an engineering building.
The U.S. Department of Education and Health and Human Services aren’t buying the moral posturing. They’re warning that if UW keeps enabling lawless, antisemitic mobs, the billions in federal funding might just disappear. As Secretary Linda McMahon put it, Jewish students deserve to go to class without fearing for their safety. Wild concept, right?
And just to prove this isn’t isolated, the campus saw even more unhinged protests the next night—this time targeting a Turning Point USA event. Attendees were harassed, threatened, and told to kill themselves—because apparently, “inclusion” now means silencing anyone you disagree with using feces and fire.
This isn’t “civil disobedience.” It’s radicalized hate fueled by academia’s cowardice. And if universities can’t (or won’t) protect their students, they don’t deserve a dime of taxpayer money. Read more at Center Square.
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Seattle Leftists: Public Meetings Are Racist, So Please Stop Listening to Them
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Apparently, public meetings are the great villain of Seattle’s housing crisis. Why? According to the far-left Urbanist, it’s because they’re dominated by older, wealthier homeowners who really just want to protect their views, their parking spots, and their property values. A lengthy hand-wringer article in the Urbanist argues that the whole idea of public input is structurally racist, classist, and biased — which just so happens to coincide with why it keeps blocking the author’s preferred housing agenda.
So, when Seattle’s City Council asks for more public feedback on rezoning and its Comprehensive Plan, the implication is: stop listening to people who actually show up. The real public — renters, workers with night shifts, people stuck commuting — don’t attend meetings, therefore their absence should carry more weight. You see, participation is now oppression.
The piece argues that public input doesn’t reflect the “true community,” and thus the city should mostly ignore it in favor of sweeping housing reforms rubber-stamped by lefty activists. When homeowners sue to demand environmental review or speak up in meetings, it’s framed as “predatory delay” — because the only acceptable form of advocacy is cheerleading activists’ agenda.
Local elections get slammed too, because not enough low-income renters vote in off-years — so clearly, the solution must be to strip away homeowner influence and hand the reins to people who may not even live in the city yet but would benefit from denser housing later.
In short: Public meetings are racist, public feedback is regressive, elections are skewed, and the only fair process is one that ensures housing activists get their way. After all, why bother with democracy when you can just declare your opponents structurally privileged and undemocratically wrong? Read more at the Urbanist.
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