WhackyNation

What do you think?

Gallup recently asked Americans what the most important issue facing the country today.

Global warming didn’t even get a mention out of 27 different responses.

Governor Christine $pendmore, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the state Democrats are a little out of touch for spending money on foolish global warming programs when Americans don’t give a rip.

Out of the blue, it seems, city, county, and waste agencies have suddenly begun wailing that the public must not, under any circumstances, place throwaway plastic items in their waste, garbage, or trash collections — and they have threatened severe penalties for anyone daring to do so.

They’re telling us that discarded plastics cannot be recycled nor otherwise tossed in with other waste materials, because if they are, terrible things can happen to the waste sites and to the disposal system in general. Puzzled over these new warnings, I seemed to recall a message of vastly different information in the past, so I went to my old files — and, sure enough, there was an entirely opposite approach to the plastics story.

Twenty years ago, to be exact, the director of Washington State’s Department of Ecology joined a key leader of the Legislature in announcing, as the Post-Intelligencer reported, that recycling, not incineration nor landfills, “were the state’s solution to its huge problem of garbage disposal.”

Well, whattaya know. Two decades ago, the state informed us that “several new developments had indicated that recycling was no longer just a dream from the idealistic 1960s.” It was also disclosed that “plastics, which make up 9 percent of the state’s garbage, could now be recycled at a profit, because of a dramatic industry effort in the past two years.”

So, instead of a dire warning, the state told all of us that, not only would it be able to recycle our plastic waste, but it had discovered discarded plastic materials could be recycled and re-used at a profit to the industry! How different that is from the warnings that are being delivered today. How I wish government would make up its mind!

Back in the late 1980s, the Ecology Department opened a division exclusively to promote and support recycling. It was also planning what it called a “major expansion of the office to handle the new wastes.” Guess who the spokesperson was for the notice of expansion. If you guessed Christine Gregoire, you’d be right. At the time, she had just been appointed to direct the D.O.E.

Isn’t it strange — but typical of politicians — that the D.O.E. chief who was then telling us about the great new expansion of plastics recycling is now the governor of a state that is issuing loud and frequent warnings that you and I must not toss away any plastics in our garbage or trash bins?

At the same time, Seattle’s waste agencies were informing the populace in the late 1980s that they were planning a brand-new pilot program, no less, to add plastic materials to the city’s curbside recycling program. King County and other counties were contemplating similar programs.

What in the world has happened in the past 20 years that has brought the city, county, and state governments to change their tune drastically on the issue of disposal of plastic materials?

The Liberal, pro-Democratic reporters and editors at the Seattle Times continue to prove how much their prejudices guide their reporting and Page 1 play of what they call “the news.”  Last week’s Page 1 headline and stories by Ralph Thomas, Andrew Garber, and the Times‘ political editor, David Postman, prove my case conclusively.The headline in bold print announced:  “In Olympia, inaction was part of game plan.”  And Postman’s column for the day informed us:  “Bipartisan harmony is bad news for GOP candidate Dino Rossi.”  Now the Times is telling us what we already knew — that the newspaper’s reporters and editors are flacking for Governor Gregoire and the Demos!

First of all, I must take issue with the reporters and the Times that the failure of the Legislature to “take action,” as they say, is a good thing.  Yes, Governor Gregoire and the Democratically controlled Legislature has failed to do something the public desperately needs — action to reduce the government bureaucracy and the tax burden on Washington citizens.

If the Legislature is to be congratulated for its “inaction,” who needs it?  Why in hell didn’t all the lawmakers simply stay home.  Now, that’s what I would call real inaction.  Secondly, the reporters of the Page 1 atrocity say that, because a few lawmakers of the two major  parties agreed on something, that was “bad news” for Rossi and the GOP.  What malarkey!

If Postman and his pro-Liberal buddies would tell the truth, they would remember that, when Rossi served brilliantly as a state senator, he was able to come up with a reasonable state budget and other legislation because he managed to bring members of both parties together for key decisions.

The Times reporters also acknowledged that many Democratic legislators decided long before the current session began that this was going to be a session of inaction.  Their new credo, totally political in essence, was that, by doing nothing, they could get re-elected in November!  If that isn’t a great reason to “dis-elect” the whole bunch, I don’t know of a better one.

Now it can be told, according to the Times reporters.  Governor Gregoire wants so much to be re-elected to a second term in November that she led the campaign of inaction.  She, too, seems to have no interest in chopping Big State Government down to size to relieve taxpayers of the increasing burden on them.

What all this “inaction” nonsense should add up to is, contrary to the beliefs of Postman, et al, just the kind of political material Rossi needs to mount a counter-attack.  I can see it already:  Why should the voting public re-elect a Do-Nothing Governor and an equally Do-Nothing Legislature?

As a onetime Times editor, critic, and daily columnist, I also wonder who is minding the store at the newspaper.  Doesn’t anyone in ownership realize how one-sided and unfair the paper’s staff has become?  Whatever happened to the objective journalism that was the guiding principle in all the 20 years I worked there?

Are you aware that Governor $pendmore is about to sign HB 2815 which directs government to combat the hoax global warming by wasting tax dollars and forcing you to change tour transportation habits whether you like it or not?

According to Lisa Stiffler of the P-I:

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in Washington, because electricity is generated mostly by low-emitting hydroelectric dams. To cut emissions, the number of cars and trucks on the road will have to drop.

The legislation calls for miles-traveled reductions of 18 percent by 2020, 30 percent by 2035, and 50 percent by 2050.

Democrats like Barack Obama talk about change.  The change they have in mind is absolute government control over you.

“Change is going to take place, and we need to prepare for it,” Sen. Rosa Franklin, D-Tacoma, told her colleagues before Wednesday’s vote.

Barack Obama wants “change” in America and his cultists cheer.

I’ve been looking at YouTube videos of Obama’s recent visit to Seattle where Governor $pendmore endorsed him for president.  Then it hit me: Obama and his followers talk “change” and signs wave everywhere “change” and here is $pendmore and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels sitting in front of all these signs that say “change.”

Change after 24 years of Democrat governors and Democrat control of government in Washington State?  Damn right!  I urge you all to heed Obama’s message and help re-elect Dino Rossi and elect Republicans across the board.

Here’s a video from the event a few weeks ago.  See if clever adpeople could take clips and say it’s time to change Democrat control of Washington State.

Washington State spending has increased 33 percent ($8.4 billion) in only four years.

Because of the fiscal irresponsibility of Governor $pendmore and her Democrat Legislature, the projected shortfall in revenue to fund all their new liberal programs is projected to be $2.4 billion for the 2009-11 state budget.

The Democrats are hoping to keep a lid on this until after the next election.  If they succeed, they will create a fiscal crisis …  and they are only one seat away in the senate from having a super majority that can pass major legislation including Constitutional amendments such as a state income tax to solve the “revenue crisis.”

Is anyone awake out here in the so-called objective media?  We don’t have a revenue problem.  We have a spending problem.  And the Democrats are out of control.

As if spending the state government into financial crisis isn’t enough, Washington State Governor Chirstine Gregoire wants the federal government to issue $60 billion in bonds to pay for infrastructue projects.

According to Reuters:

“It’s an idea whose time has come,” the Democratic leader said at the National Governors Association meeting, adding that raising the federal gas tax could be politically problematic and state governments do not have the resources to finance what she called “mega-infrastructure projects.”

According to the article, Senator Patty Murray is “convinced” the federal government should issue the bonds.

But, US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters raises a good point:

“What is the source of funds that would repay those bonds?”

But doesn’t this suggestion by $pendmore give you insight to the Democrat’s mind?  Just tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend.

There’s a reason the Democrats don’t have enough money to pay for infrastructure projects in this state: they created a bloated state bureaucracy that’s filled with overpaid union employees who in turn help elect more Democrats.  It’s a vicious cycle.

As predicted by Republican legislators, the bow-wave effect of Democrat spending will put the state in deep doo-doo in a couple of years.

A new report for the State Senate Ways and Means Committee show the state will be nearly a $ billion short for the next biennium’s budget … and $2 1/2 billion short for the following biennium.  And those are the numbers before a new state revenue forecast is released in two weeks; … and it’s predicted to be gloomy.

Now enjoying themselves in the “I-told-you-so” position, can Dino Rossi and the House and Senate Caucuses communicate the problems wrought by Governor $pendmore and Speaker Chopp-Chopp?

State spending has increased by over 30 percent these past three years.

What are the chances the Seattle media will pick up on this?

The worst hoax foisted on the American people, global warming, is descending upon the people of Washington State in full force, thanks to the machinations of its three leading political figures, Governor Christine Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims, and Seattle Mayor Gregory Nickels.

Of course, their actions are being supported and boosted by several environmental extremist groups, several civic groups, some scientists at the University of Washington, who should know better, and, worst of all, by Seattle’s two newspapers, The Times and the Post-Intelligencer.

Lost in the mad dash to extract millions of dollars to fight a problem that doesn’t exist are the voices of the nation’s honest, responsible scientists, who have been trying to tell the world that global warming is a myth and that whatever stratospheric warming may exist from time to time is certainly not man-made.

One would think that the leading politicos and certainly the news media in the state would at least make an effort to present the other side — the sensible side — of the climate-change issue. But, no, that would upset their ambitious plans to spend millions of tax dollars for an imagined “bogey man” in the atmosphere.

Governor Gregoire has decided to lead the “hoax assault” with a set of global-warming initiatives she wants the current Legislature to consider and adopt. According to The Times, “the measures are aimed chiefly at creating a foundation for future attempts to regulate and reduce greenhouse gases.”

To their shame, several Republican lawmakers have joined the hoax-loving Democrats in supporting plans to reduce gas emissions, industrial carbons, and other pollutants that are supposed to be the evils that contribute to climate change. By the way, “climate change” is the politicians’ term intended to allay fears of “global warming.” What hypocrites!

Surprisingly, a few industries have joined the phony parade of hoaxers who have joined the parade to oppose the danger that doesn’t exist. One would think they should be providing the major opposition to the global warmers, because they would be line to pay the major burden of all the ridiculous legislation that the politicos are proposing.

The last hope for sanity on the issue lies with members of the state Legislature. If its leaders are aware of the fallacy in the Gregoire program, they will summon reputable climatologists from the U.S. and other nations to testify in Olympia and reveal the truth about the global-warming hoax.

Many of the responsible climatologists and scientists around the world have begun to speak out to warn us about the hoax and to offer recent studies that have proved that no danger exists — and certainly that the occasional warming trends are caused by the sun, the oceans, and other natural actions, not mankind.

Legislators should also consult Dr. Arthur Robinson, director of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, whose recent survey of reputable world climatologists drew 20,000 signers to a petition calling global warming a hoax.

Americans in general and Republicans in particular had better gird themselves to fight off a Democratic Party assault on one of the most important principles our forefathers built into the United States Constitution — that is, the concept that the final election of Presidents should be determined by the Electoral College.

Maryland Democrats have already approved a compact that would eliminate the power of the Electoral College and deliver its 15 votes to the presidential candidate winning the popular-vote count in Maryland. Now New Jersey is also considering the same action, prompted again by the state’s Democrats.

The Associated Press has reported that the Republican governors of California and Hawaii have vetoed similar legislation. Legislatures in a few other states, also motivated by the Democratic Party, are also considering the compact. The A.P. said “the compact could take effect only if enough states — those with a majority of votes in the Electoral College — agreed to it. A candidate needs 270 of 538 electoral votes to win.”

The campaign to abandon the Electoral College concept is led by the National Popular Vote movement, which is the brainchild of the Democratic Party. It has gained momentum directly as a result of the 2000 national election, in which Al Gore drew a majority of the popular vote nationally but lost in the Electoral College, a decision that was bolstered by the Supreme Court of the United States.

In order for the people and Republicans to recognize the need for action to oppose and discard the aim of the Democrats, they should review the reason the forefathers created the idea of an Electoral College for presidential elections. They realized that a few states with a large share of the population could control presidential elections by their numbers, thus shutting out the influence of the smaller states.

It’s quite clear that the intention of the Democrats is to control all presidential elections, since most of the large cities of America are predominantly Democratic, while the much larger number of cities are Republican or independent. The Electoral College has leveled the playing field politically and given the smaller states an equal voice in elections.

It’s also clear that the Democrats will soon be trying to control gubernatorial and other elections within the states. Along with other observers, I have tried to promote the idea that each state should borrow the national Electoral College plan and invest the state with a similar electoral system.

Washington State provided a perfect example of the reason it should adopt a state Electoral College. In 2004, Senator Dino Rossi won the governorship, won again in a recount, but lost when Democrats in the state’s largest county, King, manipulated a hand recount that declared the Democrat, Christine Gregoire, had won by 129 votes.

If Washington had had an electoral system, Rossi would have won by a large vote, because most of the rest of the state voted Republican. We must not permit the Democrats to solidify their political control forever by permitting them to banish the Electoral College.

The state is spending $8 billion more since Governor Christine Gregoire took office.

And has education improved?  Has traffic congestion improved?

What do we have to show for the $8 billion increase in the state budget?  Who is really happy except the labor unions?

These are good questions that the drive-by media is not asking.  And why not?

State spending has ramped up over 30 percent … and the state’s two most critical concerns are getting worse.  Doesn’t this sound like mis-guided priorities and bad management?

If the state’s political reporters ever wanted to do their jobs, they could begin by asking good questions.  But don’t hold your breath.  I doubt if these questions get asked by the current crop of lap-dog reporters.

The Washington State “Gestapo,” led by its Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire, has trained its sights on the state’s motorists who imbibe too freely on the joy juice. She will ask the Legislature to write and pass a bill giving the police the right to stop any car they choose to arrest drinking drivers.

The state once had such a law, but Washington’s Supreme Court declared it to be unconstitutional back in 1988 because it infringed on the public’s privacy rights. It’s obvious that the governor, who is highly politically minded, was influenced into calling for a new law by MADD, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Like the Supreme Court, I am opposed to such a law because of its “Gestapo” characteristics and the excessive power it gives to police, who have been known to make arrests to shore up monthly income-gathering. Besides, the State Patrol and local police already have the power and authority to stop autos whose drivers are driving recklessly.

My opposition to the governor’s automatic sobriety checks puts me in the embarrassing position of agreeing with the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization I once praised but which has turned decidedly Leftward in its pronouncements of the past 30 or 40 years.

The governor’s latest diatribe is in keeping with recent moves by the Democratic Party nationally and locally to invest the arm of Big Government, whether it’s the bureaucrats or the police, with the increasing assaults on private rights, private industry, the professions, and every other phase of the once-private sector.

In a Seattle Times article reporting Gregoire’s intentions, she was quoted as saying:

“The fact of the matter is it’s a different day than it was 20 years ago. It is literally a partnership with every single citizen to make sure our roadways are safe.”

The state’s A.C.L.U. spokesman, Doug Honig, told The Times his organization will ask the Legislature to kill the governor’s proposal or any other that presumes to set up the same type of “Gestapo” system. He was quoted as saying:

“Our courts have found that to stop a motorist without any suspicion that the person is doing something wrong is unconstitutional. It interferes with the right of law-abiding people to travel. Our hope would be that the people in the Legislature would take a look at the proposal and say the intentions may be good, but it interferes with people’s rights.”

I suppose Gregoire’s next step will be to require that all motorists stopped by the police will have to utter those famous two words upon getting out of their cars: “Ach tung!” Sound familiar?

The Department of Health will tell Governor Christine Gregoire Thursday that the state must educate the medical and citizen communities about the need to wash hands a lot more often than most people do.  And that’s going to cost money.  How much is not known yet, but lawmakers can expect a spending bill to be dropped in the coming weeks to fund a public relations campaign with a message along the lines of “Use soap and use it now!”

And not just any soap.  Specifically, plain soap, and not soap with anti-biotic or anti-bacterial additives.  It seems, we as a society have overused anti-biotics not just medically but also in agriculture feed products and everyday home products such as anti-bacterial soap.  As a result, some microscopic life-threatening “bugs’ have mutated and grown resistant to anti-biotics.

This information comes from Dr Maxine Hayes who, at Gregoire’s request, organized a scientific panel over the holidays to urgently study and recommend actions that state government might take to help stop the fast growing epidemic of MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).  MRSA is now responsible for more deaths in the United States than HIV-Aids.  That report will be delivered to the governor Thursday.

MRSA is mostly communicated by skin-to-skin contact and enters the body through a break in the skin.  Since one out of three people are carriers of MRSA (where it colonizes for life in the carrier’s nose), frequent hand washing is the single most effective protection from spreading the disease.

Especially hand washing by doctors, who according to Hayes, are the worst offenders of not washing hands between patients.   Almost 80 percent of MRSA cases are communicated in hospitals.

The panel is recommending a public relations effort to educate the medical community, especially hospital administrators who face a negative incentive provided by Medicare.  Starting this coming October Medicare will stop paying hospitals for the treatment of MRSA if the disease is communicated at the hospital.  Medicare feels hospitals should bear the financial cost since the disease is spread mostly through the fault of poor hygiene procedures in the hospitals.

The panel identified the single best metric for measuring hand washing: measure how much soap is being consumed.  The more soap consumed, the more hand washing.

There is a disturbing trend that MRSA is starting to be spread more in the civilian community.  At risk communities are nursing homes, high school locker rooms, childcare facilities, to name a few.  The panel is recommending public relations efforts to educate these communities as well about the need for better hygiene.

So, for those of you who watch afternoon soaps, be prepared for state-paid public service announcements promoting, you guessed it, more soap.

Imagine Dean Martin saying his priority was sobriety.  Or John Candy’s priority was low calorie.

Now take this is: Governor Christine Gregoire’s priority is “fiscal responsibility.”  Yep, that’s what the Guv said to the Seattle P-I’s Chris McGann about overseeing the legislature as it’s gavelled to order Monday.

I used to work for someone in the media who used to say, “If you tell them often enough, they will believe you.”  I bristled at that.  But as I have gotten older, I must admit the maxim is unfortunately true.

Governor Spendmore it seems is practicing the maxim.  Tell the public often enough, and they just might believe your number one priority is “fiscal responsibility.”  If anybody wants to check the numbers, state spending has increased 33 percent since Spendmore took office.  In the 2007-2009 budget, Spendmore added 3,800 employees to the state payroll, a population greater than 153 of the state’s incorportated cities.

Of course, since this article is “in the P-I“, you wouldn’t have read about the spending increases in the past.  In fact, there wasn’t one Republican quoted in the article.  Just another day in Seattle’s biased journalism.

While her Liberal friends in the news media and elsewhere are heaping praise on Governor Christine Gregoire for her latest budget proposal, Washington State taxpayers will be singing quite another tune when they finally realize that she is once again treading her spend-and-spend political track.

Will these Liberal politicos never learn? Apparently not. One of the major moves in her new budget is to seize a large chunk — $1.2 billion — of the taxpayers’ money and put it into what she calls “reserves for a potential economic downturn,” which is the latest label for the ill-considered “rainy day fund.”

Some of the media people are saying that she has borrowed a favorite Republican formula for running a government. That’s a lot of hooey. If there are any Republicans around who favor the “rainy-day fund” conundrum, they have been sadly misinformed and don’t follow Conservative thinking.

Consider the funding action the governor supports. She wants all that tax money set aside to enable the legislators, most notably those of her own Democratic Party, to dip into the reserves, or “rainy-day money,” whenever they spot a situation they say is an “emergency” or a “vital need.”

In other words, they want to fall back on that reserve fund to suit personal or political needs that you and I would not regard as emergencies. Talk about setting up a piggy bank for the politicians’ “pork” needs! As a longtime taxpayer, I protest, and I say such financial shenanigans should be outlawed.

The legislature meets regularly to determine the needs of the state and its citizens. If a real emergency exists, they can easily and quickly approve the financial help the state should apply. It doesn’t need the billion-and-a-half pork barrel to meet the imaginary emergencies.

It’s just another in the continuing list of gimmes Governor Gregoire and her Democratic friends rely upon to win political favor. For instance, she has said she favors spending $1.4 million to build an 8-foot fence along the two sides of Seattle’s Aurora Bridge to prevent suicides.

The few desperate people who choose to end their lives by jumping off a bridge undoubtedly would find other means to kill themselves if they can’t do it from the Aurora span. Maybe that sounds harsh, but wouldn’t that money be better spent with health services that might help save the lives of would-be suicides?

Also, it should be easy for the fence-builders in the Gregoire camp to realize that there are many other bridges in the area that could also serve the needs of the suicide-prone individuals. Is she also going to set aside a million and a half bucks to build fences on every one of those bridges, as well?

If all this sounds like a comedy routine, I’m sorry. I’m quite serious in my criticism of a governor who has little or no desire to cut down on the extravagances of Big Government and to put money back into the pockets of taxpayers who have been struggling to make ends meet these days.

A current article by Wright Talley in Human Events Online is so important on the issue of honest elections in America that it should be read by everyone in the U.S. — and it should jump-start a national campaign in every state of the Union to take action to make all elections honest and free of fraud.

With painstaking research and a mountain of statistics and evidence, Talley’s report indicates very clearly that fraudulent elections have taken place in virtually every one of the 50 states and that — this is the most distressing element — the Democrats are the culprits in all but one or two of the cases in which fraud has been proved.

Talley included one special case we already know about too well in Washington State — the 2004 election, in which Senator Dino Rossi won the final count, as well as a recount, only to have the election totals reversed by a third recount, done by hand, in heavily Democratic King County, the most populous county in the state.

When the Rossi forces took the case to court because it rightfully charged something was amiss in King County, a judge refused to approve the request for a new total recount or a new election. Rossi’s opponent, Christine Gregoire, Democrat, won the hand recount by a mere 129 votes.

If only the judge had had the wisdom to wait a few weeks, he would have had to consider the result of an investigation of the vote count in King County which revealed that close to 2,000 votes — and probably many more — had been cast illegally, many of them by felons who did not have the right to vote.

Talley detailed similar skullduggery in many other states, most notably in New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and California. The indications are, from Talley’s investigation, that no states have escaped the stigma of voter fraud.

A few states have already taken action to halt the fraud with laws that require a photo identification by every voter before permitting him or her to vote. It’s a common-sense idea that has won Talley’s endorsement — and mine, as well. But — hold it! — the Democrats are at it again!

The frauds can be t r aced back to 1993, when the Democratic Congress passed the ill-advised National Voter Registration Act, which created numerous loopholes, as Talley put it, “that have permitted thousands of dead voters and former residents who have long ago moved to remain on the voter roles.”

Early next year, the Supreme Court of the United States is expected to pass judgment concerning a case that will approve photo-ID laws or ban them. To clean up the election mess, it is imperative that the American people rally behind the need for such laws — or be hounded by fraudulent elections everywhere thereafter.

And, you guessed it, the Democrats in Congress want no part of the photo-ID idea and want the court to declare them to be invalid.