This is a Newspaper You Want to Read
Who knew a small town paper, owned by everyday men and women with no ties to political parties or obligations to donors, could be this amazing and relevant to the entire country? (We did.)
Wednesday, February 12th, 2025
I don’t feel proud very often. Or, I don’t talk about it. I never go on social media and wax poetic about my kids (because they’d kill me), and I tend to discuss my past exploits in a dry, common sense way. I’ve done things that were successful, just like everyone else, no reason to brag.
But today, I’m feeling very proud of The Vashon Loop, which I helped rebirth in 2022, with the other four people who are still owners. I retired from ownership after a year and now write for them. And, boy oh boy! Is this paper not amazing!
People tend to see the world of news as hierarchical…
Piddly stuff at the small town level
Only locally relevant, even at the city level
Often boring or tedious, and disconnected, at the state level
And then, at the national level, we suddenly feel like it’s OUR business!
Funny, isn’t it? Well, I think of it very differently. Depending on where you live, the “local” news has two strengths going for it.
It’s just plain better to have local newspapers owned by real people without allegiance or oblitation to distant puppet masters.
What happens on my island (Vashon Island, in the Puget Sound, between Seattle and Tacoma) is very, very often a “microcosm” of national and global events.
The Vashon Loop prioritises locally relevant stories. If it’s not written by an islander and about obviously island-relevant issues, then it doesn’t get published. BUT, we are living in King County, in Washington State, and in the United States of America.
In other words, sometimes the “trickle effect” of county, state or even federal issues upon our lives here on Vashon Island justify an article about something that’s primarily taking place at those higher levels of human society.
And this month, we see such an example in an article written by Caitlin Rothermel, titled “WA State Legislature 2025,” and subtitled “Control, Acrimony & Taxes!” Here is the first 1/3 of the article:
Washington state politics are absolutely lit this year.
To start, we are broke. As a state, we are broke. Only after the November election did we learn that Washington has at least a $12 billion deficit – maybe more like $15 or $16 billion. On his way out the door, 12-year former Governor Jay Inslee made a plea to not go “backwards,” and recommended increased spending and a $13 billion tax hike.
Next, newly elected Governor Bob Ferguson (state attorney general for the past 12 years) acknowledged a growing affordability problem in WA state and struck an unexpected, bipartisan tone in his inaugural speech by acknowledging the deficit, and suggesting up to $4 billion in cuts.
Then, on January 13, the WA State Legislature 2025-2026 session opened in Olympia. Based on its actions, the Legislature is sticking with team Inslee; based on interpretation and rumor, they have zero tolerance for team Ferguson’s more moderate approach.
Last I heard, more than 1200 bills had been introduced by 147 representatives to cover in this 105-day session. As with many other areas of life right now, things are moving very quickly. To facilitate this need for speed, the Legislature ended a 132-year-old practice requiring a two-thirds supermajority to terminate debate on any bill – now, only 50% of votes are needed.
SOUNDS A LOT LIKE THE OTHER WASHINGTON, DOESN’T IT?
By a 54-33 vote, Democrats lowered the supermajority 2/3 threshold required to end debate and vote on bills down to a simple majority. Democrats were close to a supermajority following the election but not quite there, frustrating the party’s efforts to pursue their agenda. Previously, Washington Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad expressed her desire for a supermajority, saying she wanted to "clean up the Washington Constitution.”
Some have speculated that this means she wants to get rid of the initiative process by which voters can repeal bills they aren’t comfortable with — something which happened in November 2024, when citizens across the state successfully voted to stop a legislatively-passed bill that would have eliminated access to natural gas in homes.
Seriously, folks. Who in their right mind wants to reduce fuel and energy diversity, at a time like this?
Um — Democrats? I (and enough voters to overturn that awful legislation) don’t know what they’re thinking, but we can guess it involves “magical thinking” along the lines of “money doesn’t grow on trees, but paper is made out of trees, and we have lots of trees, so let’s print some more money!”
Remember — the Governor’s Office had been held by Jay Inslee for the past 12 years, and his outgoing speech called for “increased spending and a $13 billion tax hike.”
THIS ALIGNS SO CLOSELY WITH THE “OTHER WASHINGTON” — where the President’s Office was held by whoever held the puppet strings of Joe Biden, and they also had a deep love of spending newly printed money by the billions.
OUR (future, yet to be earned) MONEY. As in, DEBT FOR OUR CHILDREN.
If life were a computer game, the Democrats of WA just beat the second to last BOSS handily, gaining a super power/tool they’ll surely weild against the FINAL BOSS (which just happens to be us, the American Citizens living in Washinton State).
Bing! Bing! Bing! — POWER GRAB ACHIEVED! — Bing! Bing! Bing!
Of course, with all the pressure being faced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which weilds tremendous influence over lots of people, not the least of which is the Democratic Party of WA State), it’s not surprising that Democrats in Olympia are willing to do anything to OWN AND CONTROL our state.
They’ve even shown hostility toward our new Governor, simply because he suggested we reduce out of control spending and focus on recovering our economic stability after five years of horrendous Covid-blamed/justified mismanagement.
To remain relevant going forward, the Democratic Party is succumbing to the worst of the worst of bad human habits, which is to “insist” everything that was done during Covid was good and necessary and “refuse” to apologize for anything.
A strategy, I might add, that matches perfectly with every evil government ever known to humankind, from facism to communism to cults to kingdoms to sultanates to dictators, tyrants, totalitarian regimes — oh my!
As the Trump/Vance Coalition ploughs through our government in D.C., cutting off the endless hemorraging of tax dollars to myriad organizations (via USAID, among other corrupted agencies) — Democrats everywhere are scrambling for power, power, and more power.
All the while, screaming Fascism!
When THEY are the biggest “fascists” in the room.
And it’s in my little, small island newspaper that you’ll read about this with a level of blunt honesty that doesn’t often make it into print at the corporate media level.
Did your paper cover the despicable smearing and rigging that cost Joe Kent’s election? And the ongoing disgraceful, specious character assassination labeling him a “ Right Wing extremist conspiracy theorist with ties to White Nationalism and Neo-Nazis”?
Which couldn’t be further from the truth? The American Green Beret who for decades served our country selflessly with honor overseas in active combat , fighting the most savage Islamist terrorists? Was one of very few who was in the CIA that wasn’t corrupt and worked to protect America? This now widowed father of two whose wife was the first woman to serve in active combat, killed by ISIS? This “ Neo-Nazi White Supremacist” who’s only district mail in ballot box was bombed and spray painted with” Free Palestine” pro-Hamas filth and the approximately 3000 ballots “ destroyed beyond legibility “, but somehow, the spray paint was very legible, went uninvestigated? The ballots were a shoe-in for Kent, mailed in by veterans and when Kent requested a two day extension after calls poured in from voters for replacement ballots, was denied ? Yet the ballot count results were extended for weeks while his lead “ mysteriously” waned?
Though I’m not a Washingtonian, I’m an American Jewish Independent pragmatic patriot , neither right nor left, non-hyper- ideologue who heavily supported Joe Kent, the “ White Supremacist Far -Right Extremist Conspiracy Theorist”aka decent, man of honor who is neither extreme, aligned with White Supremacist Neo-Nazis , racists nor q
Tulsi Gabbard campaigned with him. I’m crazy about her, but she too is an “ extremist, racist, conspiracy theorist, far-right Hindu Nationalist Putin, Assad , Modi.Trump Puppet, supporter of traitors , cultist and a “ Threat To Democracy”. . Regardless of her 20 year military service, her unassailable decency, conviction and refusal to be owned.