The top ten (Or so) stories of 2010.

.
Everyone else is doing it... why not me? So, In no particular order:

Luke Jensen - He was the best and brightest and I will miss him. Take a moment and look over his memorial blog.

The Liar Leavitt's public bridge toll flip - As this blog pointed out repeatedly, Steve Stuart's direct involvement in The Liar's campaign meant that The Liar NEVER opposed tolls... because if he had, there's no way Stuart would even talk to him. The Liar used that as his only real wedge issue, since he and Pollard were two peas in a pod; he counted on the ignorance of those desperate to believe that first he was anything but a fringe-leftist nut job (Which is precisely what he is) and that he actually, really and truly did not want to jam an unwanted toll down the throats of 65,000 families and myriad small businesses in Clark County depending on that disposable income for their survival.

The Liar represents the worst of politicians... a kind of scum we'd like to scrape of our shoes, and hopefully will when he runs for election to whatever office he wants next.

Brancaccio's bitch slap - Our community is cursed with a genuine asshole for a newspaper editor; a fringe-left biased bully who attacked me personally in the midst of the campaign season, primarily because I had on at least 3 different occasions scooped his despicable rag of a paper... On the fake Baird death threats, the Bittner debacle (Where a former GOP State Rep candidate turned out to be John Dillinger, got locked up, and did so without the rag uttering a peep) and my efforts to and actual proof of Jon Russell's lies concerning his education and his wife's fake presentation as a doctor.

For some reason, that silly idiot thought he could control me... or at least control how I write this blog. He's such a slimeball that he felt compelled to goad me via email to respond to his one-sided, exaggerated and deliberately inaccurate portrayal of me in the paper.

While some less-than-courageous politicians bit, to most it didn't make and will not make any difference... most of the local GOP types actually DO have me on their Facebook sites and they actually DO communicate with me. The Kage McClued persona that he so despises lives on and it will continue to live on, the best efforts of a gutless playground bully notwithstanding.

Brancaccio, who's editorial policy of character assassination of those he was opposed to (almost anyone with an R after their name) tried to destroy Peter VanNortwick, the new county assessor and then stupidly tried to nail Brent Boger.

Although the rag wrote like the democrats were paying them, Brancaccio's pathetic efforts were mostly unsuccessful. And he finally crossed the line when he publicly announced he was, in effect, going to bully Boger like he did me by effectively tying him to the whipping post and then going after him.

Even democrats like Betty Sue Morris and Craig Pridemore were outraged by his despicable conduct, and the scumbag was forced to back down and leave Brent alone.

As a community, we are unfortunate to have him and that rag he works for, a stain on journalism that has done this community far more harm than good.

One day, the bankruptcy will stick. And we'll be well rid of them.

The con of the Cowlitz Megacasino - Gambling addicts here locally are doing backflips that the Cowlitz Con has made it temporarily over another hurdle on its way to oblivion when it's crushed in the courts as a violation of the Carcieri decision, the verbal gymnastics of Interior and the various thugs shilling to set up this massive economic black hole in Clark County notwithstanding.

The Senate GOP getting spanked by Obama during the lame duck - Clearly, the guy running the GOP in DC in the Senate is an idiot (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Mitch.) That empty suited moron in the White House played the GOP like a violin, getting almost everything he wanted passed; including open homosexuality in the military, the START treaty, the school food gestapo (While he pigs out on crap I wouldn't feed MY kids) the First Responders Bill, The "We're not going to vote on any bill until the Bush Taxs Cuts and the Budget Resolution are passed" nonsense and the extension of unemployment to THREE fricking years.

McConnell has made Obama look like he invented politics... when he didn't need to, making the task of Obama's political demise that much more difficult.

Obama's tin ear and incompetence/lies - Buyer's remorse setting in. There can be little doubt that the leftist president has caused much more harm to this nation in about any measurable way possible today. Passing legislation over the strenuous objections of the people you would govern; burying this country in generations of debt; weakening the military around the world, turning us into the laughing stock of the nations who certainly have to respect us as a defense against
killing us.

And while the world is many things... one of them is that they now view the United States as hopelessly inept and cowardly.

And like that and so many other things, it is the leadership of this Nation that has caused them to believe it.

The election of our local empty suit, Ridgefield Barbie - When people are bound to be corrupt, as those who backed this complete waste of political skin were, when they allow outsiders to interfere; when they demand a representative who won't represent US but who will represent a district in Eastern Washington; when they support an SEIU shill who helped the dems strip out the last of our money from the budget... then they get the worthless representation they deserve. And that, unfortunately, is what we have.

For more details, go to http://jaimeherrerawatch.blogspot.com/

Weakening of the military through the DADT fiasco - Like a great many people who have never bothered to serve (You know, like you, Mr. President?) DADT was repealed and now homosexuals can publicly begin to cause damage to the security of the United States.

All in a good cause, of course.

The Eyman tax initiative redux - Tim Eyman has saved the people of this state BILLIONS of dollars through his initiatives. And he did it again this past November, reining in the democrats running state government by implementing the supermajority requirement to raise taxes while requiring a simple majority to raise fees.

The leftists at the state level, with their unquenchable thirst for our cash, got rid of I-960 when it suited them so they could rocket state spending out of control.

Well, now there isn't any more money, and the left is squirming just a tad bit. And we owe that to Tim.

The ongoing bridge/loot rail lies and the democratian's Goebbelian propaganda - The continuing effort of the local rag to shill for the several billions and generational debt their pet project will generate is unceasing.

Like downtown redevelopment, where those slime actually SUPPORTED suing the constituency into silence, the rag fails to have the guts to demand an advisory vote. Steve Stuart took election credit for pushing for a required vote to pay for loot rail (Even though Pridemore's gerrymandered, stick it to rural Clark County tax bill require such a vote...) and we can expect the rag to provide literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of in-kind lies, exaggerations and falsehoods to get their agenda adopted.

The rag supports Craig Pridemore's gerrymandering bill, a bill that will, with typically underhanded and corrupted "screw the will of the people paying the bills" mendacity, keep tens of thousands of us will from being allowed to vote on this steaming manure pile... but none of us so exempted from voting will be allowed to skip paying the tax... just like they did when CTrans scammed the same gig by cutting 70,000 or so voters out of the election that jacked up the sales tax to help screw us some more... while, again, failing to give us a voice but not failing to charge us the tax.

CTrans was successful screwing us. That's why Pridemore is helping them screw us again.

And the rag, quite despicably, since none of those clowns will have to pay the toll to go to work, will support that extortion.

Exposing Jon Russell- It's been my misfortune to have known Russell for around 7 years. He was a disaster working for HROC, when the second call he ever made to me was to see if he could get Pam Brokaw's social security number. Additionally, Russell worked very hard to get the Vancouver Port Levy passed, and made several thousand dollars doing it... but was an abysmal campaigner, as his failed congressional and state representative campaigns showed... and the campaign that he ran for the port levy was slaughtered.

In his past campaigns for Congress and State Representative, Russell continually claimed that he had a 4 year degree in Political Science degree from Thomas Edison College. Once again doing the democratian's job, I called the fine folks at Thomas Edison, and they indicated that Russell was lying... that they had never given him a degree.

In Oregon, that lie actually would have seen him ARRESTED.

He also habitually lied about his wife being a Doctor (She is, in fact, an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner) in both print and in public, lied to the 18th District PCO's about how much money he had raised to that point in his campaign; lied to the PDC by listing congressional campaign debt as state representative campaign debt; violated PDC rules by repeatedly failing to file electronically as required by state law; he made up names to post under in comments in the democratian, he made up a fake Facebook identity to do the same, and generally engaged in dishonest, underhanded conduct, all the while championing himself as some kind of "Christian."

Personally, Jon, I think that when the time comes, you're gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

For more details, go to http://jonrussellwatch.blogspot.com/

Rossi's pre-ordained loss - I knew, and repeatedly stated, that Rossi was going to lose.

He had waited WAYYYY too long to announce. Then he first dissed, and then alienated those on the far right, who simply didn't vote; because of his mishandling of the Didier campaign.

Murray and her fellow far-leftists were able to beat the hell out of Rossi for months, because he was unable to raise money since he had failed to announce. FEC figures showed that Rossi's intransigence gave Murray a 6 million dollar edge in fund raising... and Rossi was never able to come close to closing that gap. His campaign was uninspired, he failed to answer Murray's lies of being a veteran's advocate, he failed to excite the base and just generally, mailed it in. Fortunately, we're now through with him and he can now sink into his well-deserve anonymity

The lies of the state income tax proponents - We had what I believe to be the 10th effort to jack our taxes up through a state income tax. There was no lie they wouldn't tell, and they believed the people of this state to be outright stupid. It was, fortunately, crushed at the polls.

David Madore's political misadventures - We had a political newcomer arrive on the scene: David Madore is a successful small businessman with a political view. He spent heavily in the last campaign, but essentially wasted his money, since he had no real clue about the politics of the thing.

His failure to understand politics, his failure to cull Steve Stuart out of the herd and kill him politically along with his failure to organize and galvanize the 65,000 or so families where at least one family member commutes over the bridge into Oregon and will be extorted out of $1300 per year for the rest of their lives for the privilege (as long as they live here and work over there) essentially has turned Madore into a punchline instead of someone to be feared.

He can change all that... but he needs to get someone who knows what they're doing to run his political, public and media show. Meanwhile, the democratian will continue to publicly belittle and berate him, and the slimeballs like Tim "The Liar" Leavitt, who SHOULD fear him, will just continue to attack him every chance they get.

The failure of government leaders at all levels to set the example - Our economy is in horrific shape. Those who "lead" us need to set the example.

Since our economy has tanked, have you seen anyone in government at any level take a realistic pay or benefit cut?

The president, who has become a multi-millionaire as a community organizer, should stand behind the podium and begin by taking a 25% pay cut.. if he can find the time between his million dollar vacations, weekly White House parties and golf games.

The Congress should follow that lead, and similar pay and benefit cuts, which would serve to bring the the government sector more in line with the private sector, should be required at every level of government down to the local sector.

And speaking about "the local sector," neither our county commissioners nor the members of the Vancouver City Council have made substantial cuts in their pay. They've had no difficulty in laying off a few hundreds people, but that they could take pay cuts and force those working for us to do the same has apparently not entered in the equation.

In fact, neither the council members or the commissioners even pay a dime for their own health care benefits. And how realistic is that? Taking it a step further, instead of requiring county employees to pay anything for their health care... the commissioners raised our taxes... in the midst of a horrific recession. How clueless is
that?

Marc Boldt's rebirth as a democrat - Since Marc Boldt, who is my brother in law, has taken office, it has been the rare tax increase that Marc hasn't voted for, including increasing our sales tax without a vote to fund rehab services, increasing our property tax to fund county health services (where, coincidentally, his wife and my sister-in-law just happen to work) and other actions of that variety.

Additionally, a titular Republican, Marc has endorsed democrat Steve Stuart for re-election every chance he got... including the last election, where Stuart eeked out a 2% or so victory against an unknown candidate with no clue as to how or what to campaign over.

Finally, last February, Marc lied to my face by telling me that this past November, he would hold an advisory vote on the horrific I-5 Bridge replace/loot rail project.

Did you get the chance to cast a vote on that issue last November?

I didn't.

Keath Huff and the Winged Monkeys - Ridgefield Barbie attracted a wide variety of scum to support her. Keath Huff was one of the chief slime, as Huff used a cowardly, anonymous website to attack his alleged friend; now State Representative Ann Rivers, by attacking me.

Others included in his cabal were Lisa Schmidt, Jon Russell, some moron named Steve Jones, were among those involved in that despicable effort, picked up and ran with by that slimeball running the democratian.

Others included the utterly worthless Nansen Malin, Social butterfly, pathological liar and Pacific County GOP chair, as worthless a position as ever existed. Malin's most recent accomplishment?

Not a single Republican ran for anything in Pacific County last November... thanks to Malin, who only uses her position as a county chair to gain entrance into the state GOP social circle... at the expense of the GOP in her own county.

Everyone has their stories for the last year... a horrific year for this country... and one that I can only "hope" will be "changed" by the weakening of the empty suited, Anti-American racist bigot in the White House to insignificance as political events and control are removed from his power and returned to that of the people through a much wiser and more resistive Congress.
.