The Stasi was able to inflict totalitarianism on East Germany with the help of millions of informants. Washington State is taking the same approach:

Substitute Senate Bill 5427 is now on the governor’s desk. Its supposed purpose is “supporting people who have been targeted or affected by hate crimes and bias incidents.” To that end, it establishes “a reporting hotline” and sets up a mechanism for “tracking hate crimes and bias incidents” that will be overseen by the Washington state attorney general’s office.

This goes beyond actual crimes that are punished more severely because the victims are members of favored identity groups. The hotline is to be used to turn in those who say anything members of these groups don’t like.

It also targets reported instances of “a person’s hostile expression of animus toward another person, relating to the other person’s actual or perceived characteristics…” Literally, the hotline gives people a way of informing on others supposedly guilty of thought crimes – or, perhaps, speech crimes.

Image the laughter if someone were to report to Jay Inslee’s Stasi that they perceived animus for being white, male, Christian, an American citizen, heterosexual, to the right of Chairman Mao, et cetera. Thoughtcrime legislation only cuts one way.

The First Amendment used to protect us against such ham-fisted tyranny. But the US Constitution was written by Dead White Males, and is therefore subject to incremental cancelation.

The flaw of all hate crime legislation applies, as noted by State Rep Cyndy Jacobsen (R-Puyallup):

“I think it’s difficult to put things into law which look at the intent of people rather than the actions that they take.”

To the extent our rulers punish us for what they think we think, we are not living in a free country.

The potential scope of abuse with this new hotline is vast – especially since any identifying personal information provided to the hotline is “confidential and exempt from public inspection, copying, or disclosure.” Neither is that information to be included in any written reports. That means if anyone wanted to go after someone whose political opinions they don’t like, they could, conceivably, fabricate a “hate crime” or “bias incident” out of nothing. In fact, this new law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025, exempts so much information from public disclosure that there will be no accountability at all to the people of the Evergreen State. After all, faking hate crimes has become common practice for the progressive left.

Refer to the Hate Hoax List for confirmation.

On tips from R F, Straight Shootr, and DCGere.

They have them in Australia and Canada. Why shouldn’t we have them in the USA? Authoritarians are planning concentration camps for those they want held in isolation in the name of Covid.

From the moonbat-ruled state of Washington comes a bill called WAC 246-100-040. It starts out like this:

At his or her sole discretion, a local health officer may issue an emergency detention order causing a person or group of persons to be immediately detained for purposes of isolation or quarantine in accordance with subsection (3) of this section, or may petition the superior court ex parte for an order to take the person or group of persons into involuntary detention for purposes of isolation or quarantine …

Now that any extreme of tyranny can be justified to the media’s satisfaction in the name of public health, health officers are the new Gestapo:

A local health officer may invoke the powers of police officers, sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and employees of any political subdivisions within the jurisdiction of the health department to enforce immediately orders given to effectuate the purposes of this section …

Reportedly, internment camps have already been constructed in the Evergreen State. Video apparently of a Covid quarantine site under construction in Washington was posted here previously. The administration of leftist Governor Jay Inslee — who ran for president on a platform consisting almost entirely of global warming hysteria — has been recruiting what it has called “strike teams” to run the camps.

Maybe Democrats won’t need global warming after all. Even as it peters out into the mild Omicron variant, Covid may serve as pretext enough to impose Total Government.

As noted earlier, the People’s Republic of New York has already produced legislation allowing for the internment of undesirables in the name of public health. Naziesque Assembly Bill A416 has passed the Assembly and the Senate and only needs the signature of Governor Kathy Hochul to become law. Hochul is a tyrant who has squeezed every drop of power she can get out of Covid (see here, here, here, and here). She can be expected to sign the alarming bill.

The CDC has already taken steps to impose Covid quarantine camps at the federal level.

It becomes increasingly obvious that the exploitation of Covid by authoritarians is more dangerous than Covid itself. With Democrats controlling nearly every lever of power, there is no guarantee that even the most fundamental liberties will survive.

On tips from Chris Neilson and 100Bravo.

You don’t have to be O.J. Simpson to use the race card to get away with murder. From the Evergreen State:

Jurors convicted Joshua Kioni Ellis of second-degree murder for the death of 25-yar-old Wendi Traynor, and Ellis was sentenced to over 23 years in prison.

These days, the story isn’t over until the criminal walks free.

On appeal, Ellis argued that deputy prosecutor John Neeb’s reference to The People v. O.J. Simpson and an implicit bias exercise were improper during jury selection.

Murder can be dismissed as trivial in the face of political incorrectness.

“Ellis argues that the prosecutor committed misconduct during voir dire because he invoked racial stereotypes and appealed to the prejudice of the jury,” Judge Bernard Veljacic wrote for the panel. “Because the prosecutor committed misconduct that deprived Ellis of a fair trial, we reverse his convictions.”

Too bad Veljacic won’t be charged as an accessory if Ellis kills again.

On a tip from Dragon’s Lair.

Google Docs may need adjustment to flag the word “marijuana,” because the moonbats running Washington State have deleted it from the Newspeak Dictionary on the grounds that it is racist:

Legislators recently passed a law that changes every Revised Code of Washington with the word “marijuana.” The change gets rid of the term, swapping it out for the word “cannabis.”

Supporters say the word “marijuana” has a long history of racism.

Good thing they have other words to use instead. Democrats encourage the use of marijuana because of course they do, so long as we refer to it with approved language.

Barks Democratic State Rep Melanie Morgan:

“Even though it seems simple because it’s just one word, the reality is we’re healing the wrongs that were committed against Black and Brown people around cannabis.”

No doubt her eyes misted over as she was swept away by this great historic moment.

The word “marijuana” is mainly racist becomes it comes from Spanish, implying in the minds of Evergreen State bureauweenies that Mexican immigrants were accused of smoking it back when it was bad.

This means the word is also transphobic, as Spanish is a gendered language that insists on the male/female dichotomy. If you must use the word “marijuana,” please say “marijuanx” instead, just as you would say “Latinx,” so as not to offend our transsexual cultural overlords.

On a tip from seaoh.

Remember when Obama stimulated the economy and saved the planet by redirecting hundreds of $millions of taxpayer money to campaign donors via green energy boondoggles like Solyndra? Hold onto your wallets; we are in for more of the same. Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has been chosen to head the Department of Energy.

This is great news for Democrat donors, less so for taxpayers.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

[D]uring her governorship from 2003 to 2011, Ms. Granholm handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to politically favored startups to create “green jobs.”

For example,

fledgling electric-car battery manufacturer A123 Systems, which was awarded a $249 million DOE grant plus $125 million in state tax credits. Plagued by manufacturing problems, A123 went bankrupt in 2012. China’s Wanxiang Group bought most of its assets.

Granholm + Biden = plenty more of this:

Fisker Automotive … went bust in 2013 after receiving a $192 million DOE loan with the goal of manufacturing a hybrid at a plant located in Mr. Biden’s senatorial backyard. Fisker was backed by prominent liberal investors including Al Gore. “Lobbying by all local politicians is said to have won the day for the Wilmington plant,” the Washington Post reported in 2013.

In the green energy sector, you don’t need to provide a useful product. You just need to have the right friends.

Granholm also offered battery manufacturer LG Chem $125 million on top of the $150 million in federal stimulus dollars it received. While LG Chem is still in business, its employees at the time were caught watching movies and playing games on the clock because they ostensibly had little productive to do.

One of the benefits of “green jobs” is that if you can snag one of these rare positions, you might not have to do any work.

Then there was the biofuels startup Mascoma, which was awarded $20 million from Ms. Granholm and up to $100 million from DOE for a plant to convert biomass into cellulosic ethanol. The plant was never built. Ms. Granholm also approved $100 million for a renewable energy park that was scrapped.

What a tragedy that they never built the biomass plant. Think of the polar bears we could save by mandating that cars run on weeds (people should run on weeds too).

And don’t forget her dim solar-energy bets including United Solar Ovonic, Evergreen and GlobalWatt. According to the Mackinac Center, the Michigan think tank, only 2.3% of Ms. Granholm’s investments in the state’s main incentive program met their job creation promises.

With a record that stellar, they should have made her Green Jobs Czar, the position held by current CNN propagandist Van Jones under Obama.

Government is a lousy venture capitalist and, more often than not, misallocates scarce capital.

This is due not only to incompetence, but to a different objective. Real venture capitalists expect businesses to produce wealth. Bureaucratic venture capitalists are motivated by ideology and graft. A percentage of subsidies will come back as political donations, as with Planned Parenthood.

Investors these days are piling into electric-car and battery start-ups, betting on government subsidies and tougher emission rules by the Biden Administration that will force-feed electric vehicles. Startups received both during the Obama Administration but still failed because of technical problems and scarce demand.

The demand problem is easy enough to fix. Democrats will just regulate energy-efficient cars out of existence so that we have to buy the electric ones or go without.

Granholm is infamous for her sharp elbows and flakiness, but she may not be the nuttiest slice of the impending fruitcake administration:

Biden has also tapped North Carolina environmental regulator Michael Regan for EPA Administrator. Progressives are praising Mr. Biden’s choice of a black American after lobbying hard against California Air Resources Board director Mary Nichols because she was insufficiently concerned with “environmental injustice.”

Better find a piece of leather to bite down on. Whatever environmental justice might mean, it is guaranteed to hurt.

WSJ aptly sums up the policies likely to be inflicted in the coming years under the pretense of controlling the climate: “more subsidies for the politically connected, and more rules, mandates and taxes for everyone else.”

On a tip from Varla.