The Invisible Asylum: Olympia, Washington,
is a microcosm of the problems created
by the emptying of mental hospitals
Posted By: Ron_lfp, 4/13/2021 10:20:43 PM
The story of American deinstitutionalization has become familiar. In a long arc—from President Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Act of 1963 to the present (snip) In the absence of the old asylums, Olympia’s mentally ill are now crowded into a city-sanctioned tent encampment, then shuffled through the institutions of the modern social-scientific state: the jail cell, the short-term psychiatric bed, the case-management appointment, the feeding line, and the needle dispensary. In the name of compassion, we have built a system that may be even crueler than what came before
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Washington’s unemployment agency was “wholly unprepared” to prevent or even detect a massive criminal fraud scheme that stole more than $640 million amid a surge in jobless claims last year, a new investigation has concluded. (snip) The audits laid out vulnerabilities that left ESD exposed to cybercriminals, who used stolen Social Security numbers and other personal information to file tens of thousands of bogus unemployment claims.
As The Seattle Times previously reported, ESD missed warning signs about attacks by a group of Nigerian scammers known as “Scattered Canary,” including payments to out-of-state banks and suspicious email addresses
The story of American deinstitutionalization has become familiar. In a long arc—from President Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Act of 1963 to the present (snip) In the absence of the old asylums, Olympia’s mentally ill are now crowded into a city-sanctioned tent encampment, then shuffled through the institutions of the modern social-scientific state: the jail cell, the short-term psychiatric bed, the case-management appointment, the feeding line, and the needle dispensary. In the name of compassion, we have built a system that may be even crueler than what came before
Members of the Seattle School Board demanded the mayor’s office not sweep dangerous and growing homeless encampments on two school properties. In emails obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH, Seattle School Board President Chandra Hampson and Director Zachary DeWolf stopped tried to stop Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office from sweeping encampments near Meany Middle School on Capitol Hill, and at Broadview Thomson K-8 in Bitter Lake. CORRECTIONS*
Washington saw one of the biggest estimated increases in people experiencing homelessness in the country between 2019 and 2020, according to new national figures from an annual report to Congress.
Overall homelessness across the U.S. grew by more than 2% that year, according to the report’s estimates, but Washington saw an overall increase of 6.2%, or 1,346 people — the third largest increase in the number of homeless people among all 50 states. (snip) Washington, for example, saw a 20% increase in family homelessness between 2019 and 2020, one of the biggest nationwide
Seattle may not be dying, as the saying goes. But it could be doing something we haven’t seen in decades around here: shrinking.
Whether it was the pandemic, the protests and riots, the urban decay, the high costs, the work-from-home trend or pick your reason, people appear to have ditched the Emerald City last year in unusually large numbers, new data shows.(snip) The number of households filing change-of-address requests to move into Seattle was about the same as it was in 2019. But the number leaving the city limits soared, by 36%.
In the fall of 2019, a white man spat on Edwin Lindo while he was riding his bicycle with a friend around Mercer Island.
“It gets on my jersey and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening right now,’” he recalled.
Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous from Nicaragua and El Salvador, and his friend, Aaron Bossett, who is Black, viewed the encounter as a racist attempt to exclude them from the biking community. (snip) Lindo has joined a chorus of individuals and organizations calling for the repeal of the King County law that requires bicyclists to wear helmets because of disproportionate enforcement, especially among Black, Native and homeless riders
Amid mounting layoffs in Washington state that have been linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for security guards has jumped, a silver lining following a year of virus-related closures and street protests that have roiled the country and the state.
Security guards are now one of the most in-demand occupations in the state, landing in the top 25 roles being sought by employers, despite the nature of the job in which guards could be confronted with life-or-death decisions.
"The summer hit and that is when we had a surge in demand," said Steve Jones, CEO of Allied Universal,
Rolling power blackouts were ordered across Texas early Monday morning as a winter storm gripped the state.
The rotating outages will likely last throughout Monday morning and could continue until the state's weather emergency ends, (snip)
Rotating blackouts occur when power companies cut off electricity to residential neighborhoods (snip) "At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines
TR International, a global chemical distributor, is moving from its home of more than two decades in downtown Seattle, crossing the county line to neighboring Edmonds.
The company is one of at least 160 businesses that have left Seattle since last March.
While some of the companies that have left Seattle is due to the coronavirus pandemic, business leaders have said that much of it could be traced back to a sense that no one is minding the store in Seattle anymore, and a lack of accountability from city leaders.
TR International CEO Megan Gluth-Bohan said the decision to leave was easy. She cited ongoing violence, along with rampant homelessness and drug use.
Seattle cruise season again a victim of
COVID-19 after Canada extends ban
through early 2022 12 replies
COVID-19 after Canada extends ban
through early 2022 12 replies
Much of Seattle’s 2021 cruise season could be canceled after Canadian authorities on Thursday extended a pandemic-related ban on large cruise ships in Canadian waters through February 2022.
Passage through Canadian waters and to Canadian ports is key for the Seattle-based cruise business, which has been largely on hold since last spring due to U.S. and Canadian restrictions. (snip) Cancellation of the 2020 cruise season cost around 5,000 local jobs and at least $900 million in economic activity. In 2019, the Seattle cruise industry had its biggest year: Seven cruise lines carried 1.2 million passengers on 11 vessels over more than 220 voyages, a port spokesperson said.
Much of Western Washington had reason to rejoice Thursday when Gov. Jay Inslee modified his COVID-19 restrictions and allowed seven counties, including Pierce, to move to Phase 2 in his revised reopening plan. (snip) Washingtonians shouldn’t lose sight of the extraordinary power that remains entrenched in the executive branch.
The Legislature now has a chance to balance the scales, at least somewhat. For the next three months, Washington’s 49 senators and 98 representatives can reassert their status as a co-equal branch of government, no longer sidelined by a governor who wouldn’t call a special session as the public-health crisis dragged on last year.
The president of the Pasco Association of Educators (PAE) claims reopening schools for in-person learning is an example of “white supremacy,” and compares listening to concerned parents to following rioters breaking into the U.S. Capitol. He even says concern over student suicide is an example of “white privilege.”
Scott Wilson, PAE president, made a series of unhinged, controversial remarks during a Pasco School Board meeting this week.
The statements come as the union pushes for total remote learning for elementary schools, even with near-consensus from the medical community that it is safe to reopen schools with mitigation policies in place.
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she would have fought Capitol rioters should they have entered the House chamber, according to USA Today.
Pelosi and other members of Congress were in the House chamber on Jan. 6 when a group of rioters entered seeking to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Pelosi was asked by USA Today what she would have done if she wasn’t evacuated in time, to which she responded, “Well, I’m pretty tough. I’m a street fighter. They would have had a battle on their hands.”
The U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot dead an Air Force veteran during the tumultuous events on Jan. 6 will not be charged, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division decided jointly not to pursue charges against the officer.
The decision came after a “thorough investigation” into the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old who joined others in storming the U.S. Capitol in Washington during a joint session of Congress in January. Babbitt was shot while trying to climb through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby, adjacent to the House chamber.
Yesterday, news broke that somewhere around 100 companies joined a private conference call to discuss how to combat red states that dare have reasonable regulations around voting. This is, of course, all stemming from the lies surrounding Georgia’s recent election reform law (see here and here for more details on that).
The companies involved included such mainstays as Coca-Cola, United Airlines, Wal-Mart, AMC Theaters, and Aflac. Apparently, this entire “conflab” was put together by Jeffrey Sonnefeld, a Yale professor. As per our usual arrangement, this garbage starts in our ivy league schools.
Let me explain how this works. These woke activists get the leaders
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday on MSNBC’s “All In” that the Democrats would try and work with Republicans but not by “sacrificing the bold, progressive change that America demands.”
Schumer said, “The question that everyone’s asking is why is there such a dichotomy between the Republican voters, electorate, and the Republican Senators. For instance, 60% of Republicans think the ARP, the American Rescue Plan, the most comprehensive progressive piece of legislation we passed in decades, is a good thing. How many Republican Senators voted for it? Zero. Why? It’s because Trump still controls them. They’re still afraid of him.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, a cartel controlling the multibillion-dollar college athletics business, may be painting itself into a corner. Probably because it is a creature of the higher education industry that has gone off the deep end in its commitment to far-left politics, the NCAA is taking an extreme position on transgenderism and apparently seeking a confrontation with the State of Florida if it passes a law currently under consideration that would limit participation in women’s sports to biological women. (snip) Florida’s Governor Rick Scott is not cowering in fear as 2 tweets yesterday demonstrate
A New York parent who wants to marry their adult biological child is suing to overturn laws banning incest, saying marriage is a matter of 'individual autonomy'. The parent filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on April 1 asking a judge to declare incest laws 'unconstitutional' and unenforceable so that they can wed their offspring in a ceremony in New York City.(Snip)
According to the suit, the parent and child regard themselves as a 'PAACNP' couple—'Parent and Adult Child Non-Procreationable' couple—and believe it would 'diminish their humanity' if they could not marry one another.
Newly uncovered hidden camera footage reveals CNN’s technical director admitting that stories surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz are “propaganda” aimed at aiding the Democratic Party. In a stunning admission, Charlie Chester admits, “If the agenda say, is to like get, like Matt Gaetz right now, he’s like this Republican. He’s a problem for the Democratic Party because he’s so conservative and he can cause a lot of hiccups in passing of laws and what not. So it would be great for the Democratic Party to get him out.” Chester then admits, “So we’re going to keep running these stories to keep hurting him and make it so that it can’t
The NCAA reaffirmed its decision to refuse to hold college championships in states where laws “discriminate” against male athletes who identify as female. The board of governors issued a statement that “firmly and unequivocally” supports the inclusion of transgender athletes in college sports.
The statement comes after several states have passed laws preventing biological males from competing in girls’ athletics.
Apparently, the NCAA, which governs rules on competition in college sports, thinks it’s OK for biological males to compete against biological females. The only way they can allow this is if they ignore the biology in favor of being fashionable. In truth, the NCAA isn’t doing anything differently than
Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday she has no plans to visit the U.S. southern border but she’s looking forward to a trip soon to Mexico and Guatemala to address the core causes of surging migration from Central America. She also cautioned that her work isn’t likely to show noticeable results anytime soon. “It will take some time to see the benefits of that work,” Ms. Harris said. “These are not issues that are going to be addressed overnight in terms of the root causes.”(Snip) Ms. Harris said the U.S. needs to provide the region with economic development aid, to give “some hope
NBC will be hosting an hour-long vaccination special on Sunday titled “Roll Up Your Sleeves,” in a bid to raise awareness and encourage Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19.“Nearly 100 million people across the U.S. have already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — and now Michelle Obama and a few famous friends will do their part to encourage the rest of the country to get their shots,” reported NBC’s “Today” show. Presented by Walgreens, the special will feature former first lady Michelle Obama, Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old black man fatally shot during a traffic stop in Minnesota, was “afraid police would do something like this to him,” his former mentor said—as his parents refused to accept it was an “accident.”
Jonathan Mason, a youth development specialist who became close with Wright when he was a student at Edison High School in Minneapolis, said he, Wright and other young black men often talked about how to handle interactions with cops.(Snip) “We talked about this daily. We talked about police brutality. We talk about these things in the black community.
Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama said that the police-involved killing of a black man in Minnesota, Daunte Wright, shows 'how badly we need to reimagine policing and public safety' in America. 'Our hearts are heavy over yet another shooting of a black man, Daunte Wright, at the hands of police,' the former president and first lady said in a statement on Tuesday.(Snip) In his statement over the shooting, the Obamas said: 'The fact that this could happen even as the city of Minneapolis is going through the trial of Derek Chauvin and reliving the heart-wrenching murder of George Floyd