Why Ann "Gas Tax" Rivers should resign.

Well, I can think of 175,000 reasons off the top of my head.

That's the approximate amount of dollars falsely reported by Sen. Rivers in order to reduce to eliminate any possibility of any competition against her in the upcoming election.

Politics is a filthy business.  It's the social sewer of life, and this past two years have convinced me that actions like those by Rivers, Brent Boger, Carolyn Crain and her CCRINO outfit, Shane Bowman and Phil Johnson are cause enough for me to call it a career... which I have done.

People like these make up the effluent of this sewage system.  But the worst of the lot of them is my former business partner, my former colleague... and my former friend, Ann "Gas Tax" Rivers.

To summarize; for over a year, Rivers mislead the entire state as to the amount of money she had collected for her campaign; knowingly and deliberately defrauding those who review Public Disclosure forms as a part of their calculus on whether or not a campaign against her could be viable... showing a number that had it been true, would make most believe she was practically unstoppable... since, in the aggregate, her fake number exceeded even that of Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler by some $36,000 if memory serves.

How her number exploded between a C-4 she reported of Feb 5th last year which showed around $7000 to the number that showed up on her NEXT C-4, filed 5 days later... to an amount of $182,000 or so... is anyone's guess.

What is UNDENIABLE is that she KNOWINGLY left that number up there... festering in its inaccuracy... for over a year.

Over the last 14 months or so, the Ann Rivers I knew... the woman of the people... the bright, shining star... the prototype of the pol who was going to be "different" became the very thing she claimed she despised.  It's like she's being blackmailed... like somebody's got something on her.

Along the way, she blatantly and obviously violated a black-letter pledge to the voters of this district, a pledge to oppose gas tax and tab fee increases, falsely claiming that "the voters have spoken and she has listened."

She explained her betrayal at the Battle Ground Town Hall Meeting on January 9th this way.

Here, she doesn't regret having broken her promises, she regrets having made them in the first place.

(NOTE: THE FOLLOWING THREE VIDEOS USE QUICKTIME WHICH WILL NOT PLAY ON FIREFOX.  Please use your Opera, Chrome or Internet Explorer/Edge Browsers to view them.)

Here, she comes up with a bizarre, FANTASTIC lie that had she not voted for the gas tax, instead of Clark County getting hung out to dry for $700 million, we would have been nailed for $7 BILLION.

Utter nonsense, of course: even without her vote, the massive gas tax increase would have passed.

Even if it hadn't passed, there would have been no tax increase anywhere else to make up for it... and the $7 billion figure is an outright lie.

And this beauty, where Sen. Rivers equates keeping her word to her constituents with being a "pansy."

These videos generally and the last one particularly are reeking with irony:

Rivers actually asks:

"Any of you in this room that I've made a deal with?  Raise your hand if I've broken it."

I immediately raised my hand, but she didn't count it.

That voice saying, "... you made a deal with the voters," is mine.

You see, a campaign pledge IS a "deal."

You say, "I am going to oppose a gas tax and tab fee increases."  You hold out your hand.

The voter believes you, holds out their hand and shakes yours: deal concluded.

So, the reality is she indirectly acknowledges that she "broke" her deal with every voter in this district.

Now, for those who believe I hacked this up as some sort of way to leave out the "good" parts, here's the ENTIRE video so you can view it yourself.

And many thanks to Brent Boger who believed he was surreptitiously videoing this whole thing as if, were he more open about it, I would have changed one... damned... thing.

Without Brent's cooperation, I would not have had these arrows in my quiver.  In the end, it was like I was paying him to shoot it.  And I really do appreciate it... which may not be the result he was after.  (Lew Waters posted it on YouTube)

Rivers admits she knew the gas tax was going to pass.  She lies about the projects: after all, 5 out of 6 Republicans in the Legislature from Clark County voted "no," including her two House seatmates, Rep. Pike and Rep. Vick... and yet, their "no" votes notwithstanding, the projects are still here.

That means that the few, piddling projects we got would have taken place ANYWAY.

Instead of voting "yes" on this betrayal, Rivers COULD have amended the package to have a referendum clause in it, but did not do so.  And that made this even weirder: she claims on one hand that "three town hall meetings" only had ONE person complain about the gas tax vote she was going to take, and THEN, admitted that her entire household voted against the gas tax increase in the advisory vote held last November... as did, it turns out, roughly 75% of the 18th District.

If so few people in her mind opposed this fiscal rape, then why did she acknowledge the reality that her own household voted against it?

And by the way, least anyone believe I ambushed her with this question, let me share this email I sent to her a few days (On January 7) before this town hall meeting:

When you, Sen. Rivers, ran for this office, you pledged that you would not support a gas tax or tab fee increase... which you then did do.  You claimed that it was 'changing circumstances' that led to your decision.

That was utter nonsense, of course.  A pledge is a pledge under ALL circumstances.  Every conceivable circumstance.  And your excuses for voting that way fail to meet the straight face test when you had other options available, such as amending out the emergency clause out or voting "no" because there was no referendum clause included.  As a result, you hung a $500 million debt on Clark County for which we will receive absolutely nothing of measurable substance.

We get $200 million in projects, including an absolutely unneeded and unnecessary rebuild of one of the few well-designed freeway intersections in the Vancouver area at Mill Plain and I-5 that takes half of that amount, while your district gets next to nothing, comparatively speaking, in return for you... effectively, ignoring your promise to us.

I get that you made a deal with others up there in return for your yes vote.

But you made promises to us to even get elected... and those, I believe, should come first. 

So now, the question remains: how are we to believe anything you tell us here?  Do we take everything your say with a grain of salt... a hidden, unmentioned, "changing circumstances" clause in every promise"

Your response, unedited, will be presented in my blog, Clark County Politics.

K.J. Hinton
- Cell
- Fax

Well, she never substantively responded to my question... so the video, wherein she hangs herself repeatedly, is the response.

I have since also emailed her to ask her to clarify that irresponsible lie about $7 billion we, as a county, would have been on the hook for if she had voted "no," EVEN THOUGH THE GAS TAX HAD THE VOTES TO PASS ANYWAY, which she admits and acknowledges.

To date, she has refused to respond.  After all, I'm nothing but a constituent.

Sadly, I have no doubt that, like she said in the video, she "held true to her principles."

It's just that her principles clearly include both telling falsehoods to get elected and the ability to throw us constituents under the bus by doing both the exact opposite of what she promised as WELL as doing it while knowing we were steadfastly opposed to her actions (the response "of the 300" at her town hall meetings notwithstanding)... And we now know that if 3000 of us had shown up in opposition to her betrayal it would have made absolutely zero difference in her vote.

But lying to provide cover for your betrayal?  Seriously?  Is that also one of her "principles?"

After all, she says, "it was a business decision" and, of course, "business decisions" won't be swayed by the mere will of the people who oppose their "Senator's" agenda.

Clearly, then, we no longer need legislators who represent.  What we need are accountants who make "business decisions."

And this betrayal of her constituents is just the harbinger of things to come: she reiterated in the videos that if she had to make the decision to lie to us again, she would do it.

Between her confirmed fraudulent reporting on the PDC and her admitted and obvious betrayal of her constituents, Rivers should resign and do so effective immediately.

There's no amount of lipstick she could slather on that pig that would change it from being a pig.