Bob Ferguson-appointee sworn in to WA Supreme Court 5%

By Sarah Mizes-Tan41%

5/18/2026, 12:47:42 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 9 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Begging the Question, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 10.4% saturation with 35 hits. Analysis detected 274 faulty-reasoning hits from 336 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 19.3% and a BS Rank of 5% (20,935 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 95.70% of the article peer group.

Theodore “Theo” Angelis was sworn in as the newest Washington state Supreme Court justice on Monday. 
Gov. 
Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, appointed Angelis to the seat of outgoing Justice Barbara Madsen, who announced her retirement in February. 
Angelis will take the seat through the end of this year. 
He'll have to run for election in November to keep his seat. 
“Anyone who has ever worked with Justice Angelis will say the same thing: For such a brilliant legal mind, he’s also the nicest guy you’ll ever want to meet,” Ferguson said at the swearing-in ceremony. 
Before joining the Supreme Court, Angelis worked at K&L Gates LLP as an intellectual property litigator for 26 years. 
During that time, he met and worked with Ferguson when the governor was a young lawyer. 
He also served as a trustee for the King County Bar Association and co-chaired the attorney general’s Youth Internet Safety Task Force. 
Angelis is a graduate of Yale Law School and will be the first justice of Middle Eastern descent to serve on the court. 
He said he was honored by his appointment. 
“It is our duty and obligation to use what we have, to use our gift to make a genuine difference; to work extremely hard and always to serve the people of this state,” Angelis said. 
Retiring Justice Madsen has served on the Supreme Court since 1992, when she became the first woman to join the court by popular election. 
She will now teach state constitutional law at Gonzaga University's School of Law. 
During her time as justice, she chaired the Gender and Justice Commission, which worked to eliminate gender bias in the justice system. 
She was also awarded the Joan Dempsey Klein Award for her work to improve the number of women serving as judges. 
Angelis has two challengers for his seat in November: Sharonda Amamilo and Dave Larson. 
Whoever is elected will serve out the remainder of Madsen’s term, which runs until January 2029. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.3%KUOW: 2.6%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.4%KUOW: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.7%KUOW: 3.4%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 6.8%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.3%KUOW: 1.2%Representativeness Heuristic6.8%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.6%KUOW: 0.7%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.8%KUOW: 1.4%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 6.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 7.4%KUOW: 7.4%Framing Effect6.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.7%KUOW: 1.0%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 6.3%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.2%KUOW: 1.0%Status Quo Bias6.3%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 3.2%KUOW: 3.8%Optimism Bias10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.5%KUOW: 1.8%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 5.4%KUOW: 8.0%Negativity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.3%KUOW: 2.0%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.6%KUOW: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.2%KUOW: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.0%KUOW: 2.0%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.7%KUOW: 0.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.1%KUOW: 2.7%Halo Effect10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.0%KUOW: 1.1%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.5%KUOW: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.0%KUOW: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.1%KUOW: 0.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 4.1%KUOW: 4.3%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.2%KUOW: 1.4%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.1%KUOW: 0.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.2%KUOW: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 3.9%KUOW: 4.1%Hasty Generalization10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.0%KUOW: 0.8%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 8.3%KUOW: 6.1%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.9%KUOW: 0.8%Begging the Question10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.7%KUOW: 2.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.6%KUOW: 0.3%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.2%KUOW: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.1%KUOW: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.8%KUOW: 3.3%Anecdotal10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.0%KUOW: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.8%KUOW: 1.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.0%KUOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.2%KUOW: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.2%KUOW: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.4%KUOW: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.0%KUOW: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.8%KUOW: 1.0%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.4%KUOW: 0.8%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 2.2%KUOW: 3.2%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 10.4%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.6%KUOW: 1.5%Indoctrination10.4%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.9%KUOW: 1.1%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 1.4%KUOW: 0.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Mizes-Tan: 0.5%KUOW: 1.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

336 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers23%attributed speech258writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageBob Ferguson • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageTheodore “Theo” Angelis • 8 words • 0.0% coverageTheodore “Theo” Angelis • 35 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Bob Ferguson

100%flagged-word coverage
35 attributed words45% of attributed speech25% writer coverage

No manipulation-pattern hits were found in this speaker's attributed words or the writer's voice.

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.