There were 276 in King County and Seattle, down from 302 during the same time period last year.

But at the same time, anecdotally, we could be seeing a rise in injected drug use. This may be due to a lower supply of fentanyl coming across the border with Mexico.

Less fentanyl leading to more needles?

Andrea Suarez, founder of We Heart Seattle, says she’s been finding more discarded needles around the homeless than she’s seen in the recent past. Similarly, “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH has seen more discarded needles near encampments and bus stops. Still, fentanyl and methamphetamines dominate the Seattle drug market.

“2021 and 2022 we picked up more than 60,000 needles and then started to see foil blowing down the road like Autum leaves. There was so much foil everywhere. Now we’re seeing a comeback of needles not at the same level but mainly because we’re picking them up versus letting them get accumulated as they had for years in our parks. It’s a comeback, but not anywhere close to a replacement. Most people are still smoking fentanyl,” Suarez explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

Public Health of Seattle and King County have not seen an uptick in needle use as judged by the needle exchange programs. A spokesperson says there number of syringes exchanged with the department is similar in Q1 2025 than in 2024.

“The overdose continues to be on the rise because fentanyl is pretty much in everything, including meth, crack-cocaine, and unpredictable amounts because of its illicit nature,” Suarez noted. “People who are using straight fentanyl or fetty powder are less likely or are not overdosing as much as the surprise fentanyl in people who smoke meth as well.”

Trump deserves some credit

Biden’s “open border” turned into a fentanyl firehose that devastated Seattle and much of the United States. President Trump’s first 100 days shut that hose off to a trickle.

In response to his tariff threats and pressure, Mexico 10,000 National Guard troops to its northern border—yet U.S. agents still nabbed roughly 1,630 pounds of fentanyl between January and February 2025, a full 50 percent less than what was by the same point in 2024. That’s the result of a withering supply.

There were 26 fewer drug overdose deaths in Seattle. Trump doesn’t deserve ��������the credit, but he deserves a large chunk of it. This is the direct or indirect result of a no-nonsense border crackdown.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. -7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on ,��,��, and .

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show weekdays from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on AM 770 KTTH or on-demand wherever you listen to podcast

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On the bus ride into work, I heard King County Metro dispatch warn bus drivers not to allow an “extremely unsanitary man” onto the bus. He was last seen at Mercer Way and 5th in Seattle, according to the dispatcher. The tone of his voice was urgent. He repeated that the man was “extremely unsanitary” ���ܱ��پ��������times, but didn’t explain anything more specific. We’ll have to use our imaginations.

King County Metro confirmed the disturbance was a man “with apparent mental health issues who left one of our coaches in an unsanitary condition in that area” on Wednesday morning.

“That coach was removed from service for cleaning, and another bus was brought in to replace it on the route, and service was maintained for riders. There is no police report, and we don’t have any information that security was contacted or involved,” a King County Metro spokesperson explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

So, they just let him walk away?

A missed opportunity to help someone

That there was no security contact or police involved is the biggest problem. And it only ensures this kind of incident continues to occur.

King County Metro says it started fare enforcement a month ago. Does anyone think the “extremely unsanitary man” paid his fare? Of course not. So why weren’t they called? Why wasn’t anyone called who could at least help get this man the help he so obviously and desperately needs? If not Metro staff, the Seattle Police Department could have perhaps connected this man with the .

This is yet another missed opportunity to help someone who needs it. But it’s also a reminder of how rotten a service King County Metro can be for riders. And letting this man go without any kind of meaningful intervention just means it’ll happen again.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. -7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on ,��,��, and .

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show weekdays from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on AM 770 KTTH or on-demand wherever you listen to podcast

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According to the , a judge would be granted the power to “dismiss any criminal prosecution due to arbitrary action or governmental misconduct.” It would allow them to use their personal judgment on “the seriousness and circumstances of the offense” and “the impact of a dismissal on the safety or welfare of the community (the defendant is part of the community).” The change amends the current rule CrR 8.3(b).

The rule change was proposed by the far-left King County Department of Defense, the Washington State Office of Public Defense, the Washington Defender Association, and the Snohomish County Office of Public Defense.��

Why is this rule change necessary? 

The rule change proponents argue that judges stop viewing themselves as “passive instruments of prosecutorial policies,” citing State v.��Starrish.��

That case imposed a “narrow reading” of CrR 8.3(b), holding that courts lacked inherent authority to dismiss charges “in the furtherance of justice” and effectively reducing judges to “passive instruments of prosecutorial policies.” The proposed amendment directly rebuts Starrish by expressly empowering trial courts to dismiss cases for reasons of “justice” and prescribing specific factors to guide that discretion.

What’s particularly galling is that a similar, but less severe change, failed to gain momentum in this year’s legislative session. House Bill 1125 would have allowed judges to reduce sentences for convicted felons, based on nothing more than their own subjective judgments. It failed to advance, only to be upended by a more extremist version that wouldn’t go through the state legislature at all.

Significant push back

The public has until April 30 to provide commentary, though, as is usually the case, almost no one outside of those in the legal profession even knew this rule was being considered. But those who work in the system are deeply alarmed.

Colin Hayes, a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office, told the Washington Supreme Court justices that “this proposal should be rejected.”

“First, it is not necessary. The proponents fail to identify any particular problem under the current rule that calls for this ‘fix,'” he wrote. “Second, it could lead to disparate outcomes in different jurisdictions based on similar facts. Third, allowing for dismissal without a showing of prejudice will lead to reduced public confidence in the justice system.”

Lucy Pippin, a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, echoes those concerns.

“Because the proposed amendment does not require the action or misconduct to prejudice the accused in any manner, it untethers the rule from due process,” she . “As a result, defendants would benefit—and victims and public safety would suffer—even when the State’s action has in no way interfered with a defendant’s right to a fair trial. This significant broadening of the rule and trial court’s discretion would lead to unequitable application of the law.”

Why is this being proposed?

The rule change isn’t reform—it’s a back-door power grab. And it’s driven by radical ideology.

If judges need new “discretion” to toss out prosecutions, maybe they should run for legislative office instead of hiding behind their black robes. The legislature already debated and rejected a milder version of this proposal, so the only reason to sneak it in through court rulemaking is that the architects knew it could never survive a straight-up vote of the people’s representatives. That ought to set off every alarm bell about judicial overreach and unchecked activist judges deciding on public safety policy, not to mention the slap in the face to crime victims who will be left wondering whether their suffering even matters.

If you care about accountability, community safety, or the simple principle that laws should be made by elected officials, now is the time to speak up. Write, call, tweet or carrier-pigeon your objections to the Supreme Court clerk, and your local legislators—just make sure your voice is heard before radical judges rewrite the rules behind your backs.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. -7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on ,��,��, and .

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Seattle Times columnist Naomi Ishisaka is the claim that racism explains why some neighborhoods—like those in south Seattle—lack the high‑quality and plentiful grocery stores that predominantly white areas enjoy.

“While ‘food desert’ might lead people to think there’s something inevitable about certain communities lacking access to healthful food, ‘food apartheid’ argues that these inequities are the result of intentional choices, and can be changed,” Ishisaka writes.

‘Food apartheid’ over facts

Ishisaka, who hasn’t abandoned her dogmatic loyalty to the Black Lives Matter grift, insists that every disparity is proof of racism. Fewer grocery stores in so‑called Black neighborhoods? Racism!

“These inequities, part of what are called social determinants of health, contribute to health disparities that fall along racial and socio-economic lines. They result in poorer health outcomes for Black, Native American and some Hispanic people,” she claims—blaming an anti‑Black, anti‑Native American, and even anti‑(some) Hispanic conspiracy that somehow spares Asians and poor whites.

Eschewing Occam’s Razor, she posits an orchestrated effort—“policies such as redlining and urban renewal”—to starve these areas of investment and amenities. Yet she glosses over the obvious reason Seattle’s black neighborhoods have fewer grocery options: crime.

Near her own house in Rainier Beach, she admits, “we have two Safeways, the closest of which has been the site of numerous incidents of gun violence”—ironically pinpointing the culprit herself.

Naomi Ishisaka already has the answer

Grocery stores run on razor‑thin margins and will avoid neighborhoods where customers and staff face deadly risks. Perhaps that nuance escaped her ideologically blinded gaze.

Granted, the Radical Left did try to turn ��������of Seattle into dangerous neighborhoods when they stopped prosecuting criminals and fought to keep them out of jail. Still, that Ishisaka doesn’t realize that a grocery store that doubles as a criminal’s outdoor shooting range is not a great business model shows you the extend of her ideological blind spots.

Oh the irony

It’s amusing to parse through the inconsistency coming from the Radical Left when they reflexively blame racism on everything. It’s particularly fun when that “everything is racist” mentality intersects with their anti-corporation talking points.

The irony is that the same activists who demand recognition of “food apartheid” also oppose proactive policing, screeching “ACAB” on every street corner. It’s almost as if they champion policies that keep crime thriving, just so they can keep declaring neighborhoods victimized—while lecturing businesses for daring to turn a profit while staying away from violence.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on ,��,��, and .

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show weekdays from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on AM 770 KTTH or on-demand wherever you listen to podcast

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Harvard—just like most elite universities—jumped at every woke demand from Black Lives Matter activists and gender extremists. It amplified every lie about police brutality and now pretends gender is an endless buffet of identities you can switch on a dime. But the moment someone dares defend Jewish students from discrimination, Harvard suddenly morphs into a crusader for “academic freedom.” Don’t buy it.

Now, Harvard is suing to unfreeze those funds, insisting it’s owed tax dollars with zero oversight. Newsflash: No institution gets a blank check.

Yes, academic freedom matters. No, the federal government shouldn’t script curricula. I agree. But when billions of taxpayer dollars are on the line, we deserved some guardrails. Critics of this move aren’t upset because it’s a slippery slope—they’re clinging to misinformation, ignorance, or outright lies.

CNN panel claims Trump demanding Harvard stop teaching Middle Eastern history

Consider CNN’s panel claiming the administration wants Harvard to stop teaching African‑American or Middle Eastern history. When a fellow panelist corrected them, left‑wing author Alencia Johnson doubled down, “That’s what the demands say.” Except they don’t.

The from the Trump administration to Harvard is public.

Harvard must commission an independent audit of programs “that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.” It should also identify faculty who “discriminated against Jewish or Israeli students or incited students to violate Harvard’s rules following October 7.” If there’s nothing to hide, why block a neutral audit?

Stop fueling antisemitism

The other faux concern from the left involves the Trump administration demanding Harvard promote viewpoint diversity in hiring, the very thing universities used to strive for.

Instead, they push groupthink and actively discriminate against or silence conservative viewpoints. Or, in the case of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), the school promotes antisemitism, according to many. And apparently, the Trump administration was right to specifically call out CMES.

Last month,��The Harvard Crimson  that the university “dismissed the faculty leaders” of CMES after the program had “come under fire for its programming on Israel and Palestine.”

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers wrote in a March post on X that a February panel at CMES about “Israel’s war in Lebanon” was “very likely” antisemitic under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which Harvard adopted as part of a settlement agreement in January.

A report from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, an alumni advocacy group, in May accused the CMES of demonizing Israel as the “last remaining colonial settler power embodying the world’s worst evils: racism, apartheid, and genocide.”

Harvard is actively fighting the Trump administration. They did not have to make this change, but did anyway.���ճ󲹳�’����how bad the alleged antisemitism was.

Trump administration can save Harvard

Did Harvard really demand CMES teach—or ignore—some particular topic? No. The Trump administration isn’t dictating course syllabi; it’s insisting Harvard stop turning its Center for Middle Eastern Studies into an antisemitic echo chamber. In plain English: teach, don’t indoctrinate.

If CNN panels or left‑wing activists can’t fathom a Middle Eastern Studies department that doesn’t villainize or call for the destruction of Israel, that’s their problem—not the White House’s. The Trump administration’s real goal is, perhaps ironically, to rescue Harvard’s reputation. Once a world‑class university, it’s devolved into a left‑wing circus that graduates activist warriors, not thoughtful citizens.

You can argue the White House shouldn’t play dean of Harvard. Fair. But taxpayers shouldn’t underwrite a truly awful investment.

Taxpayers deserve guardrails

Billions in federal support deserve guardrails—especially when programs have “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias,” per the public letter. Harvard can either submit to an independent audit and restore viewpoint diversity, or keep begging for blank‑check funding from George Soros.

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House Bill 2050 is supposed to save funds for K-12 schools. State Rep. Travis Couture (R-Allyn) offered one amendment that would cap the severance agreement for the superintendent at $50,000.

Predictably, Democrats said no to both amendments.

Washington Democrats argue for excessive severance

Couture, arguing for a severance cap, argued that “there are some superintendents who are in charge of the performance of a lot of the school districts in our districts and across the state, who aren’t up to snuff.” Yet, he argued, it’s expensive to get rid of them, essentially rewarding failure with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“When we when the school board, and therefore the community through their elected school board, wants to discharge a school superintendent, what we often see is this very frustrating severance payout to those school superintendents,” Couture argued. “Sometimes it’s $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 or even more than $350,000 to pay out a school superintendent employee who has failed to manage their school or their employees, or even… sometimes fail to even show up to work.”

But Democrats claimed this was unreasonable, voting it down.

State Rep. Monica Stonier (D-Vancouver), who took a lead role in undercutting parents’ rights by dismantling the Parents’ Bill of Rights, argued that the amendment would “undercut the responsibility that local school board directors have and the relationship that they have with their communities” in negotiating for a new superintendent. Her argument didn’t really make much sense.

Washington Democrats suddenly okay with high-paid failures

But Republicans were not done trying to save school districts’ money.��Couture offered a second amendment. It would cap superintendent salary at $250,000.

The Allyn Republican explained that over 85 superintendents make more than $250,000 a year, which is far higher than the average salary for the district they represent. The Chehalis superintendent makes $545,00 and Renton superintendent brings in $428,000, for example.

“And what are we getting for it? Like you heard previously, we have a stunning crisis in our academic outcomes, some of the worst outcomes in three decades in Washington state for reading, writing, math, and science. That’s unacceptable. These people are the superintendents. Are the captains of the school district ships,” Couture explained.

Again, Democrats pushed back and shot down the amendment.

State Rep. Steve Bergquist (D-Renton) argued, again, that the amendment “take[s] away local control of our school board directors.” He said allowing for high salaries will bring in the best candidates for the job, though he did not explain why so many of them are failing to perform with the current limitless salary opportunities.

Suddenly Washington Democrats want total control of their districts?

Washington Democrats have never been champions of local control. Under their far‑left, Democrat‑run legislature, lawmakers have bent over backwards to strip school boards of the power to keep pornographic, left‑wing propaganda off library shelves.

Last year, Democrats sponsored and passed House Bill 2331 (HB 2331). It prohibited school boards from refusing to approve books and other educational materials, including library books, if the subject “relates to or includes the study of the role and contributions of individuals or groups that are part of a protected class as established in public school nondiscrimination provisions.” While it applied to all protected classes, the intent of the bill was around LGBT-themed books.

But the Democrats’ effort didn’t stop all so-called LGBT “book bans.” A school may still ban books or other materials if it expressly criticizes progressive political movements, such as the one proclaiming gender a “social construct” that is fluid or that we “assign gender at birth.”

What happened to Washington Democrats’ support in maintaining local control in school districts? They never had that priority. Instead, it’s about supporting educators, no matter the cost, and no matter the results. Ideologically, they feel mandated into it.

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This move is wise—and long overdue. Girls deserve a chance to play football safely, and there’s clearly enough interest for programs to flourish (the grants to help schools get started). But you can’t ignore the elephant in the end zone: the WIAA’s decision to let biological boys compete against girls.

They’re quick to acknowledge football can be dangerous for girls—yet they won’t admit that their redefinition of “girl” creates that very danger.

WIAA sends mixed messages on gendered sports

Flag football removes tackling to make the game safer.

That change makes sense, especially when girls might face faster, stronger boys. We’ve already seen transgender females causing injuries to girls both here and nationwide. And it’s obvious why nobody objects to transgender boys (biological girls) playing against boys: they don’t have any physical advantage.

Biological girls don’t suit up for tackle football against boys because they’d risk serious harm—or worse. Yet the WIAA tiptoes around that reality without ever saying it out loud.

It’s about safety and reality

Why girls’ flag football and not just flag football for all? This was an easy opportunity to open the sport to both genders and embrace the idea of gender-free sports. However, that approach would undermine the WIAA’s political stance that “feelings” can override biology.

But it accepts the premise that athletic boys perform better—or at a minimum, differently—than girls. Would there be as many girls getting time on the field when competing against boys who are faster or have stronger throwing arms?

They’re willing to accept �ٳ󲹳���reality, quietly accepting that boys typically outperform girls athletically. But politically, they can’t admit that transgender girls enjoy a competitive edge. So they send mixed messages: acknowledging the danger but pretending it doesn’t exist.

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I got to the bus stop around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. It was more packed than usual, with three homeless people (a couple, and a single man) camped out at the bus stop. One looked high, the other two giggling and talking. At the time, the Transit app said the bus was about ten minutes away.

More and more people started to crowd the bus stop. And out of the corner of my eye, I see one man approaching. He was tall and skinny, and coughing up a storm. Others turned toward him, but I didn’t because there have been many instances of riders hacking up a lung, hopping on a bus with the rest of us. I moved away from my spot waiting for the bus so he could get on before me and I could sit as far away from him as possible.

A King County ghost bus revealed a homeless man without half of his face

Seven minutes left before the bus was supposed to arrive, I started to hear a weird noise. An airy sucking; the sound you make when you’re slurping soup. Two women to my left kept looking, somewhat discreetly, towards the coughing man, then back at each other. Again, I assumed they were just annoyed that he’d be getting on the bus and spreading all his germs around. Again, I thought nothing of it.

Looking at the Transit app, the bus was scheduled to arrive in two minutes. Those two minutes came and went, the weird airy-sucking sound kept going as the coughing man started to pace to my right, and when I checked the Transit app again, the bus had disappeared. It became a “ghost bus”—a bus that is scheduled to arrive, shows up on metro apps, then just completely disappears. King County Metro is plagued by this issue and never seems to have an answer. It’s gotten so bad that the King County Council is now involved.

Needless to say, I was annoyed. The annoyance grew more intense when I started to smell the weed that one of the homeless people started to smoke at the bus stop. The idea of waiting there for another 10-plus minutes for the next bus, if it arrives at all, prompted me to walk to the next stop. It was nice out this morning and I enjoyed the walk.

But when I turned to walk away, headed in the direction of the coughing man, I realized why people kept looking his way. The airy-sucking sound was coming from the fact that he was missing almost the entirety of his left cheek.

This is Seattle compassion

The man was homeless. He had a bandana wrapped around his face, apparently to support the skin around his jaw. I saw his gums and teeth. I saw red flesh that looked to be rotting. He didn’t appear to be in any pain, and he didn’t even look uncomfortable. He was just going through his morning, coughing up a storm, and sucking the saliva back into his mouth, though there was a thread of some dropping from his chin.

Welcome to Seattle, where “compassion” means exporting our problems onto the streets and expecting riders to just grin and bear it.

No consequences, no dignity

Metro used to be the domain of working commuters squeezing into morning buses and college kids zoning out with headphones as they made their way to the University of Washington. Now it’s a front‑row seat to the city’s failures: untreated mental‑health crises, rampant drug use, and a bureaucracy so protective of “compassion” that common‑sense enforcement has gone missing—just like that homeless guy’s cheek.

When you smoke weed in public or pass out on a bench, you’re supposed to get help—or at least a polite nudge. When you’re walking around with a missing cheek, you need help. Desperately. But they don’t get it.

Instead, Seattle’s “tolerance” turned into policy: do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. The result? A rolling social experiment on wheels, with paying customers effectively trapped inside. And you better not complain for fear you’ll be labeled uncompassionate.

Safety on hold

King County Metro drivers simply call dispatch when situations deteriorate, leaving riders to swap horror stories instead of schedules. Meanwhile, the county touts “fare enforcement” as the solution—but where this so-called fare enforcement is happening is a mystery to me.

Seattle city and King County leaders brag about unprecedented spending: billions poured into housing, mental‑health programs, and outreach teams. Yet every sweeping plan seems to raise the same unanswered question: if we’re spending so much, why are so many people still on the streets?

Commuters pay high fares and risk their safety for the sake of a city that treats its most vulnerable like afterthoughts. And the homeless? They stay in the same vicious cycle—neglected, unmanaged, and often dying on our doorsteps.

If Seattle truly cared, we’d enforce basic standards: no open‑air drug dens; mandatory mental‑health assessments; real penalties for public intoxication. We’d pair enforcement with real rehab, secure housing with rules, and accountability with services.

Seattle’s problem isn’t a lack of heart—it’s a lack of backbone. And until we grow one, our buses will stay the last refuge for those we’ve let down.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on ,��,��, and .

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show weekdays from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on AM 770 KTTH or on-demand wherever you listen to podcast

Listen to the Jake and Spike Show every weekday from 12pm – 3pm on ����Xվ Newsradio 97.3 FM. Listen to ����Xվ Newsradio 97.3 FM or go to MyNorthwest.com to learn more!

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show weekdays from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on AM 770 KTTH or on-demand wherever you listen to podcast

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In a KING 5 interview, Seattle Pride Executive Director Patti Hearn complained that the organization is losing sponsorships. And she has a “relatively urgent” budget crisis where she needs $350,000 from local donors to make up for the deficit. Naturally, Hearn blamed President Donald Trump.

“I think that rhetoric coming from the executive branch of the government at this time, the laws that are attacking members of our community, the executive orders that have been made, a lack of sponsors, that does feel causal to me,” Hearn explained to .

No LGBT community members are being “attacked” and, instead of blaming Trump, Hearn should have her team look in the mirror.

Seattle Pride’s anti-police positions did them in

Seattle Pride has made headlines in the last several years for its fringe views. In particular, the group has been .

Since the height of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, Seattle Pride has banned LGBT-identifying cops from its march. That they claim to support the LGBT community when they intentionally erase members who hold jobs (or political opinions) they don’t like is tragically ironic. They effectively told cops, in a department that is incredibly LGBT-friendly, to stay in the closet. And they did so for a bigoted movement that just a few years earlier parade so they could make a political point.

They became so virulently anti-police, leadership previously that officers protecting the route not wear uniforms, “as a show of respect for the LGBTQIA+ community which has experienced much trauma at the hands of uniformed officers over a long history of criminalization of queer people and police violence against marginalized groups.” How laughable. Apparently, those hard feelings didn’t exist from 1994 through 2019 when police marched.

Can what seems like an anti-corporation activist group really get money from corporations?

It’s also clear that Seattle Pride is filtering any corporations through an ideological litmus test that extends well beyond LGBT issues.

Seattle Pride said that it will reassess its current partnerships. They said they’d be judging organizations’ “political donations and lobbying activities, LGBTQIA2S+ policies, ties to the weapons industry, labor and supply chain ethics, involvement in immigration and carceral systems, and overall public impact.”

Most of their concerns have nothing to do with LGBT pride because the organization doesn’t represent LGBT communities. It represents progressive activists. They push people away, not bring people together. That’s, of course, a shame. LGBT Pride could be less divisive, but they choose to make it so.

Seattle Pride pushes corporations away

Under the leadership of then-Executive Director Krystal Marx, a stunningly failed Burien politician, it willing to back the Seattle Pride parade.

Seattle Pride rejected an Amazon sponsorship because it donated $11,000 to Washington lawmakers the group pretended are anti-LGBT. They also said they didn’t like Amazon donating to federal lawmakers who opposed the Equality Act. That legislation would have infringed upon religious freedoms and would have offered protections for transgender female athletes to compete against biological women. There were also around medical and parental rights.

There was an ideological litmus test that Seattle Pride was applying to corporate sponsors and there was no room for any dissent on the Radical Left’s positions. Now, if a corporation backs Seattle Pride, it’s telling consumers it stands with the 20% on so-called 80/20 issues.

Corporations don’t feel bullied into supporting fringe movements anymore

Despite their fringe views and past radical leadership, mainstream companies and Democratic politicians stuck with them.

Some corporations and Democratic politicians did so because they didn’t really have a choice. If you didn’t stand with the Radical Left mob, you’d be bullied, protested, boycotted, and hounded. Rather than take a stand and do the right thing, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell did what he almost always does: He showed political cowardice and attended as if their anti-police views didn’t matter. Even then-San Francisco Mayor London Breed did the right thing and over the anti-police positions at her city’s Pride march.

Other corporations and Democratic politicians didn’t mind the fringe views because they agreed with them. In 2022, in light of the group’s anti-police positions. They said they sponsored Seattle Pride because “we support the entire LGBTQ+ community in Seattle” and that the parade is a “celebration of inclusivity and unity.” In other words, at the time, Tito’s Vodka was fine erasing LGBT cops from their “inclusive” pride parade. They went on to try to clarify their .

But…a Seattle media play?

Times, thankfully, have changed.

Corporations no longer have to pretend to care what the Radical Left thinks about anything—police, transgender competitions, pretending not to have ���Բ���gender, racist diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. They’re no longer under a meaningful threat from the activists, not even in Seattle.

But that doesn’t mean some won’t still give in to earn social currency amongst the Seattle activist community.

It seems that a strategy for Seattle Pride is to use far-left news outlets like KING 5 to generate public pressure on corporations to sponsor the parade. It’s a smart strategy in Seattle because Seattle Pride should know local media will never offer the situation an honest look. KING 5, for example, didn’t note the controversies from Seattle Pride. The KING 5 staff are overwhelmingly left-wing and have never seemed to mind the anti-police activism.

The report might generate employees from local corporations to implore their employer to “save” Seattle Pride (even though it doesn’t really need saving and can easily get wealthy left-wing donors to make up for the deficit). It’s not like they’ll get negative press from most Seattle and area media outlets.

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