I've warned repeatedly that if you live in a "blue state" or "blue city" (i.e. one controlled by progressive-left-wing liberal politics) you need to move, sooner rather than later, because anybody not in lock-step with the politically correct administration(s) there is going to be forced into line, whether they like it or not.
Washington state proves me right yet again.
The Washington Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) filed an emergency rulemaking package last week extending emergency powers to Democrat Governor Jay Inslee. This package, which is an extension of current mandates, grants Inslee the ability to enforce COVID vaccine mandates on all private businesses in the state of Washington, according to elected officials.
Washington state house representatives Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) and Jesse Young (R-Gig Harbor) released a statement on Monday condemning the actions of L&I.
"This mandate from L&I demonstrates a complete lack of transparency, which dilutes public trust in our government and fails to show the agency's good faith in promulgating the rule. The reality is this move by L&I is a blank check for the agency to enforce any of the Governor's mandates or edicts on private employers."
There's more at the link.
Isn't that lovely? Washington's governor finds he doesn't have enough legal authority to make the rules he'd like to make: so, instead of passing legislation or allowing the electorate to have a say, he simply has his bureaucrats introduce an "emergency rulemaking package" extending his powers. The phrase "power grab" might have been invented to justify Gov. Inslee's approach to his job, and his constituents.
This is arbitrary, capricious, and dictatorial. Washington state is deeply divided, with a coastal left-wing elite among the most progressive in the country, but a population in the interior that's of drastically different persuasion. Inslee, needless to say, is among the former group - and he clearly doesn't care if he rides roughshod over the perceptions and principles and desires of the rest of the state. He probably enjoys it.
The traditional motto during the Crusades was "Deus Vult" - "God wills it". I guess now it's "Inslee Vult", as far as Washington state is concerned. Just like divine will, any lack of enthusiastic cooperation will brand those concerned as faithless, pagan heathen, as far as the progressive left is concerned.
I truly sympathize with small businesses in Washington state. A lot of them are going to be driven into bankruptcy or closure by this edict, particularly in those parts of the state that retain an independent spirit. There appears to be nothing they can do about it - unless they move to a free state that respects their rights.
I hope many of them do precisely that.
Peter
Here in WA. Got my religious exemption which allows me to make changes at my pace, not because I don't have a job and need one. So there's that. Just need to make sure I don't fall back into the comfort zone of thinking there's no rush. Cause sure as god made little green apples, the exemptions will become more restrictive, just like the mandates are.
ReplyDeleteNotably, Walsh and Young have been locked out of their offices at the capitol because they haven't documented being vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteNah, there is something else they can do. They can descend upon Olympia en masse and slaughter Inslee and his jack-booted thugs until the streets of Olympia and Capitol Lake alike run red with the blood of tyrants.
ReplyDeleteFrustrating that no news articles or the reps in question have provided any links to the rule. I am always skeptical of stories that won't provide source documents. There is no indication of a rule on the L&I website. No listing of a proposed rule on the Code Reviser's Office website, nothing anywhere. Not saying it isn't a proposal, just wish I could read it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen you can't edit a comment you you just made, you sometimes need to delete it and post again.
ReplyDeleteheresolong,
You are right. It's hard to tell from that news release what those two politicians are talking about. The closest thing I could find on the Washington Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) website is this:
Health Emergency Labor Standards Act (HELSA) Implementation
"The Washington State Legislature recently passed and Governor Jay Inslee signed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5115, known as the Health Emergency Labor Standards Act (HELSA). This law became effective on May 11, 2021."
Washington is about to implode from Inslee et al's actions...
ReplyDeleteSam, Thanks for the link. Don't see anything in that rule regarding mandating of vaccines or giving the governor more power though. And given that those rules were adopted in August and, having read them, only talks about reporting of outbreaks and use of protective devices (PPE), that probably isn't it. I am assuming that this rule hasn't been posted to the internet yet so I wish the legislators who are complaining about it would have released a copy to the public.
ReplyDeleteNFO, Wouldn't be surprised. Trying to get through as best I can while making alternative plans. Started scouting last summer (2020) but it never seems urgent til it's urgent is probably a good rule of thumb.
Ah, we can't move from the Colorado mountains, but we join so many others who aren't metro hive dwellers and do what we can via legislative action; as in Amendment 78, since Governor Polis got 1.6 Billion and spent it without independent accounting.
ReplyDeleteWe're also dealing with the worst possible State-Mandated Long Term Care insurance proposal. Where they put a 0.56% tax on your wages (Washington is forbidden from having an income tax, but they WANT something income-based SOOOO BAAAD), which will go to pay for a long Term Care insurance plan that will, at best, pay $100 a day for 1 year for LTC. But that's only if you've paid into it for ten years, and if you stay in the state when you retire, because otherwise, that money is just gone.
ReplyDeleteThere is a ONE-TIME way to get out of it, which is to buy your own LTC insurance, even if you don't need or want it. And if you do, you're exempt For-ever! (They say it like it's a bad thing) future workers in WA don't have that option.
Move, schmoove.
ReplyDeleteThat's just hoping the alligator in your jacuzzi will eat you last.
I'm sitting here hoping they ratchet the issue up again.
Because inevitably, there will be clear and open cause to open fire.
And once that happens, everything starts getting better, because zero-sum.
Hmmm, could any mandate be considered a "taking" by the government, and so has to go through a certain rule making process.
ReplyDeleteMauser, the opt out is an attestation. You fill out the form and say you have other insurance. There is nothing to stop you cancelling that other insurance the second you have your opt out confirmed. Agreed that it is just another BS tax for a crap benefit. Amusing anecdote, the opt out website promptly crashed due to the number of people trying to access it. The process of going to the website is, however, a PITA as you have to create a "Secure Access Washington" account just to get there.
ReplyDeleteAesop, easy to say from a computer. The percentage of people in this state who are 100% on board with the progressive experiment is disgusting. We can't even have simple rational discussions on a local page (Nextdoor) about vaccine mandates or masking without a bunch of harpies screeching about how we are killing everyone. Can't even start a private group to discuss the issue as it promptly got reported to ND and cancelled. No amount of voting by those of us who love freedom can get past the fact that the vast majority of the population lives in the single major metropolitan area and consistently votes in active socialists. Meanwhile our lives are destroyed for nothing, we are forced to go hat in hand to beg the government for an exemption, we are still wearing masks everywhere we go, etc.
Just out of curiosity, isn't there a general rule that the one who actively promotes initiating violence is the fed in this group? Seems to be the trend what with all the "FBI informants" who turn out to be the ones driving all the violence when it comes to domestic terrorism. 🙂
Also, you may wish to ask a few of the people on this blog, including the author, what it is like to be involved in a civil war. It does NOT just get better from there.
Unknown, there has been no indication that the courts are leaning towards stopping vaccine mandates. The last SCOTUS case was in 1904(? Jacobsen?) and it actually upheld a state mandate. Also under Washington state's open ended emergency powers the governor has wide latitude to do anything he deems necessary. He can only be stopped by the legislature and they are controlled by his party.
Finally, on the subject of moving, it has long been my plan to leave upon retirement to go somewhere less expensive and with more freedom. Washington has slowly deteriorated in spite of the efforts of those of us who care. All mail balloting, widely popular amongst the people, has resulted in a lack of meaningful conservative representation in the government (Inslee won with over 60% of the vote while he was shutting down the whole state outside of a few favored large companies, albeit against a fairly weak candidate but we've had much better candidates in the past and they lost anyway)
Calling the folks on the seaboard side of Washington state 'progressive' seems too kind. I think 'wild eyed liberals' would be the lowest that bar should be set.
ReplyDeleteI live in Washington State. I just checked the L&I website as well. It states the information provided by the previous poster in here. I don't see anything in that bill that allows Inslee to mandate vaccines for people working in the private economic, other than "frontline" workers.
ReplyDeleteThat means I can breath easy for now. Contrary to what many of you are saying. Washington State in general, including where I live (Clark County), is red. Only King County (Seattle) is blue. The problem is that half the state lives in King County. So they carry disproportional political weight on the state level. Even Pierce County (the blacks) and Thurston County (where Olympia itself is) are red counties.
Do consider that blacks and hispanics are as skeptical of the vaccines and distrusting of the medical establishment and the so-called tony-class "experts" that have emerged over the past 30 years in this country as we are. Contrary to guys like Vox Day, I'm starting to view blacks and, especially hispanics, as my "allies" these days.
The GenX alt-right guys what to make this into a racial thing. However, most of the problems seem to be the liberal-left whites. At least this is the case in Washington State.
I live in Washington, but near the MIGHTY COLUMBIA RIVER, and inland from the Pacific Ocean by about 40 miles.
ReplyDeleteAesop is often wrong, a lot more often than he thinks, but as for his statement above, he's right.
ReplyDeleteLook at the geography of Washington and Oregon - at some point there will be a reenactment of Sherman's March To The Sea, but headed west this time. And it will be epic.
Heresolong,
ReplyDelete1) Tell me again how much easier it is for me on my computer, in Califrutopia. It is to laugh.
2) Then tell me about begging government for an exemption. I'm getting tested bi-weekly for refusing the exact same mandate you're worried about, and up until two days before the deadline, there was no guarantee I'd be employable in this entire state if they dumped me.
My current status could change at any time. IDGAF. I'm still not taking the jab, under any circumstances. I like my DNA just the way it came from the factory.
And anyone who thinks I'll quietly stay at home, exhausting my savings, and then quietly and obediently starve to death has another think coming.
3) I'm not a fed, and I'm not promoting violence. I'm predicting it as inevitable, and I'm preparing for it when it comes.
4) A civil war in this country will necessarily be better than the way things are headed now. Just not for everyone. Some people are going to be surprised when they meet their Maker. Anything I can do to arrange that meeting for a goodly number of them is something which, while regrettable on some level, I won't shirk.
And all civil wars are not created equal. Discuss the civil wars in England, France, Russia, any Turd World Trashcanistan or Sh*tholia, and the U.S., and compare and contrast. QED.
5) Inslee, like all petty tyrants, is going to find out one day that his last words will be "Ow! Ow! Ow!" accompanied by the long-overdue staccato music of gunfire spanging off the brick wall he's standing in front of at the time, or something close to "UNNGHGRGTHHPT!" as the noose tightens, to the enormous drumbeat of his pulse pounding in his eardrums, and his legs kicking at the air.
And it will be quite the happy day for the citizens of the Evergreen State.
It's a tale as old as time.
Be of good cheer.
Time wounds all heels.