Thoughts on the Kent departure.

First thought:

I live in would have been, had he not twice lost to Glusenkamp-Perez, his district (WA03). The left, which has heretofore hated Kent and everything he stands for (go back and review the mailers, campaign ads and the comments from the fringe-left nutjobs during his congressional campaigns) will now lionize him for being a visionary who stands by his principles when, in fact, (like him or hate him) he's no different now than he ever was.

But if he opposes Trump on anything? Then suddenly they'll claim he's the greatest thing since canned beer.

Second thought:

Doesn't upset me.

Joe has to do what Joe believes he has to do.

I disagree with him on much of his take, but his position is his position... that's his privilege and my privilege to disagree.

I'm not going to try and make political hay out of it regardless.

I disagree with him on some issues. But I honor his service to this country and the sacrifices he's had to endure... which certainly exceed that of my own.

Post thoughts:

Sometimes, we should look beyond the politics.

I disagree with his claim that Iran is not an imminent threat... but I guess it depends on your definition of "imminent."

Thousands of Americans were killed and 10's of thousands were wounded, in everything from the Beirut bombing to both Iraq and Afghanistan using the explosives, weapons and ammo Iran supplied.

We SHOULD have attacked them the moment we found out Iran was providing weapons, etc to the Iraq/Afghan insurgents.

Hell, we SHOULD have done it when Iran took those American hostages, a total act of war.

For decades, Iran has chanted "Death to America" in conjunction with their ongoing development of nuclear weapons, development only temporarily halted by the air strikes months back... a nuclear program they insisted on rebuilding. That slogan is a bit more than a bumper sticker to them.

I'm reminded of the axiom that goes something like this:

When someone tells you who they really are; by word, by deed, or by thought?

Believe them.

The muslims running Iran don't care about "MAD."

They would cheerfully suffer the entire eradication/annihilation of Iran if they could, using nuclear weapons, destroy or severely damage US first.

Their continued insistence on developing nuclear weapons after Trump warned them not to do so, does, IMHO, rise to the level of an "imminent threat."

So, what would Joe Kent have us do? Wait until they put a nuclear weapon or weapons together as they inevitably would have?

Little late then, isn't it?

Post WW2, we had a 5-year window where we were the only nuclear power.

We could have used that to end the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and end communism in China, all of which would have meant no Korean War, no Vietnam War, likely no Iraq or Afghanistan War.

But we did nothing. And that didn't work out all that well for this country and the hundreds of thousands dead as a result of our lack of will and our foreign policy intransigence.

Trump is acting on a threat BOTH sides of the political spectrum have for decades indicated needed to be done. Kent, as far as I know, offered no viable alternative.

In my 30 odd years in politics, from legislative staff, to campaigns, to consulting private business, I heard a great many complaints about hundreds of issues.

What I rarely heard was a presentation of viable solutions.

Doing nothing, as Kent seems to advocate, solves nothing and risks a great deal.

Doing what we're doing now ALSO risks a great deal. But when compared to the prospect of a nuclear Iran?

I'll take Trump's action any day.

And militarily?

It's always more strategic to act when you WANT to, than it is when you HAVE to.

And isn't that a lesson we should have learned on December 7, 1941?

This WILL be what happens on the loot rail project masquerading as a bridge replacement.

We know that going in.

Larson provides a more local example, but you need look no further than the Sound Transit scam, where those living in the Sound Transit Concentration Camp, voluntarily walked into a gas chamber of a $53 billion dollar scam without reading the fine print (And oh, how they were shocked, SHOCKED, I TELL YA, when they discovered how they were going to PAY for that rip off (massive tab fee and property tax increases) only to discover that, once again, the budget was 10's of billions short ($30 billion? $35 billion? $40 billion?) that Sound Transit KNOWINGLY lied about when it was passed in the first place, which resulted in the State Supreme Court ruling it's perfectly OK for cities, states and candidates to engage in campaign lying)) only to find out it wasn't water coming out of those shower heads.

As sad as that outcome is, that's what THEY voted for.

No one is asking us for this. And no one's asking us because they know what the answer would be and they simply don't care that the people of this region do NOT want their crime train/loot rail project.

Larson says:

The Northwest Nonsense

If you want a quick preview of the multi-billion dollar disaster coming at us if the interstate bridge project actually goes forward
Look no further than ODOT’s Abernethy Bridge Boondoggle near Oregon City.

The Oregon Department of Transportation lied to lawmakers about the cost and the schedule.

ODOT didn’t have the money but went forward with the project anyway. (My comment: Sound familiar? That's precisely what the thugs shilling the CRC/IBR scam want to do to us under the guise of once construction starts, it MUST be finished, no matter HOW long it takes and no matter HOW much it costs!)

I know, it sounds crazy but it has worked for ODOT for a long time and no one ever gets fired.

Today, the project has spent twice the original cost…half a billion dollars…and the bridge is only 70 percent done. Like the kitchen remodel contractor from Hell…telling you your cost has now tripled but your house is already torn apart and your choice is pay up…or live in chaos

But for all that money…now about 800-million…at least it will be finished on time, right?

Wrong.

Originally, contractor Kiewit was supposed to be done by the end of LAST year…which ODOT agreed to extend to October of this year.

Now, Kiewit says they may be done by January of 28…almost two years from now.

But that’s a contractor promise…I wouldn’t exactly take it to the bank.

That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. I’m Lars Larson.
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One does wonder why the contracts for that scam... and our own bridge replacement/loot rail scam, didn't/doesn't have contract costs/completion penalties attached.

The absence of those requirements is a license to steal.

And steal they will. And there's nothing we can do about it since government at every level, from state on down, doesn't give a rat's ass what the people of Clark County, who will bear the lion's share of the costs for this rip off, want or don't want.

If they did? We'd have a vote on it.

Like Sound Transit had a vote on their expansion.

And last I looked?

The leftist governments we're cursed with have made it clear that the people they would govern are not nearly as important as the "save them from themselves" agenda.

An interaction with a local county sheriff

I was working on my flag pole in the front yard a week or so ago (it’s one of those telescoping, 20 ft poles) collapsing it so I could bring the top down to get to the US flag and replace it with a new flag. I had my "Army Veteran" hat on.

A man and his son are riding their bikes past my house... They stop. He asks, "Are you a veteran?"

I look at them and say to him, "Yes, Sir, I am."

He gets off his bike, walks over to me and introduces himself, saying, "I'm such and so, and I'm a _______ County Sheriff Deputy. If you drive this street to get to the freeway, you'll see the car sometimes at my house."

I'd seen in many times.

I shook his hand and told him I appreciate what he's doing, that there is no way *I* would get in that car, day after day, and put up with a public that all too often hates him because of his badge.

He told me that in a short time, he was leaving to join the Coast Guard. And without saying why, I totally got it.

He is driven to serve. And in 2026, the cost to his family and himself was far too high, day in and day out, so he was making a major career change so that he could continue to serve, but also continue having a family that would not be faced with the stress of wondering, day after day: "Will my husband/father come home tonight?"

I didn't ask him what job he was enlisting for. He was, perhaps, 30 or so. He's an adult who charts his own course. And jobs in the Coast Guard can be extremely hazardous (A Coastie was just killed just off Astoria, Oregon a few days ago) but his job as a deputy requires him to face danger which, IMHO, is geometrically more... for geometrically less... than any job he's signing up for.

We chatted for a few minutes... I thanked him and his son for stopping by. Wished him luck in his new career. Told him I appreciated what he has done and will be doing.

He thanked me for my service... which lacked anything close to the dangers he experienced on a routine basis... and I left him with this:

"You and your family were worth it."

As were you all.

God Bless the men and women in Blue.

Our congresswoman (Perez) complains about Iran.

 

To which, I responded thus:

Here's the reality; one you, never having bothered to serve in the military, know nothing about:

We are well aware of the risks we take when we hand over a blank check to Pay To The Order of the people of the United States with, if necessary, our lives.

Those of us who have worn, or are wearing the uniform of the US Military understand going in that we are putting our lives at risk in ways that the non-serving simply cannot get.

No one put a gun to our heads to serve. Regardless of what we do when we're in, we don't come out the same. Most of us suffer some form of injury or wound, mental or physical, that changes us forever.

But we're aware of that from the get-go.

Here's the bulletin you clearly do not understand: We are more than willing to bear the cost that concerns you so much. Like the Marines Iran slaughtered in Beirut 40 years ago, murdered by an Iranian bomber IED, bore it.

Like the thousands killed/wounded in Iraq/Afghanistan bore it from the Iranian weapons and explosives they supplied to insurgents.

The costs of allowing Iran to restore their nuclear program... the costs of sitting back and watching them murder tens of thousands while you leftist women sat on your hands as they killed and disfigured women for refusing to wear that omnipresent mark of oppression none of you care about... those tablecloths on their heads... a cost you never lost sleep over... a cost ignored by the paid protestor leftist scum YOU support as THEY don't protest the murders of those women, but instead, because of their constant hared of all things Trump, actually SUPPORT that variety of oppression that you would have us turn a blind eye towards...

There are some things worth fighting for. No matter how much you complain while others actually go out and BEAR the REAL costs of doing what YOU stay home and whine about for political posturing... this is one of them.

Were I still in, or capable of being in, I'd cheerfully answer the call of my country to go put an end to that cesspool of the islamic cult.

Unfortunately, I can't. I'm totally disabled from the service I did provide, including 8 years in Combat Arms. Either way, 70-year-olds just don't hold up all that well in combat situations.

But you won't. Those that DID, VOLUNTEERED to risk their lives and futures for governmental policies. Just like the 13 Biden allowed to be slaughtered at the Kabul airport.

ALL leftists want Trump... and therefore, this country... to fail. And they don't give a damn how many bodies they have to step on to see that happen.

The men and women in the US Military made a choice. and this is them... living and sometimes dying... for that.

The democrat lie of a state income tax: Saying it's a "millionaires tax" was like the Germans claiming Auschwitz was a "work camp."

The comparison is clear. "Arbeit Macht Frei" is a lie here in the Washington Soviet as well
Anyone who so much as drives past the state Capitol in Olympia knows the left has issues.

Their main problem?

They lie. A lot.

Any sentient being is aware of the reality of leftist politics in 2026. Lies, exaggerations, violence, hatred, fringe-left communist policies and insane tax increases to pay for asinine programs and projects that are lie stacked on lie (The I-5 loot rail project, billions waiting to be wasted on a light rail scam that the people of Clark County have REPEATEDLY made clear we do not want, do not need and cannot afford, as just one example) are the order of the day.

The leftist wet-dream for the Washington Soviet has always been a state income tax (which has really worked SOOO well in the train wreck of a state called "Oregon") to facilitate income redistribution to buy votes from their base to remain in power through Soviet-style politics. Ramming their latest extortion down our throats with no concern for the repeatedly (TEN TIME) rejection of public opposition in the past and overwhelming opposition today..

It is the later-day implementation of Soviet-type "democratic centralism," the communist model writ large.

It was easy to conclude that the underlying plan was what's called "the camel's nose under the tent-flap" approach to politics where the so-called "millionaire tax" scam was merely to ease what they knew would be overwhelming opposition. Until now, however, there was no proof and beyond the usual democrat claims of conspiracy theory, scant attention paid to such claims.

After all, they hold a majority in the Soviet that makes them dictatorial in nature.

In short, they presumed the people of this state are morons (and it's difficult to argue that, considering the lying scum the leftist sheep insist on electing in this state) and have acted accordingly concerning this and other legislation they've lied about with a perfectly straight face.

Senate democrat Majority Leader, Jaime Pedersen (best known for his declaration that kids can/should become sexually active WITHOUT PARENTAL INTERFERENCE:

Pedersen’s full response: “When you’re talking about a young person’s health care, it’s a lot more complicated, right? Young women, if they’re old enough to get pregnant, they’re old enough to make their own decisions about what happens with their bodies, and parents do not have the right to change that or make a different decision or be notified in advance.”

(The kinda increasingly islamacist-type thinking where adult men routinely marry and impregnate prepubescent children in the guise of their religion) the moment they become capable of bearing children, let the cat out of the bag with this short email, sourced from Clark County Today:

It lays out the truth of the matter, a truth any knowledgeable observer knew intuitively but could not prove... until this moment.

The email is lie stacked upon lie.

There would be no reduction in taxes anywhere.

And even if there were, such a reduction would have the life span of a gnat in duration. (Which is one week. I looked it up)

The income tax isn't about fairness. It isn't about the will of the people. And, as this email from the Senate leader proves, it isn't about millionaires.

If this passes, ALL of us will feel the pain of yet another testicle revenue squeezing moment, all done without asking (Not surprising, given the ten times voters in this state have rejected this extortion in the past) for the singular purpose of extorting MORE money for MORE programs for another massive  expansion of an already out of control government.

In short, the fringe-left scum running the government of this state have proven, ONCE AGAIN, that they don't care what the people want, think or believe.

And they'll be reelected this November.

Because as Obamacare architect, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber once said: voters are stupid.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

Just like the state's latest effort at imposing slavery.
And far too many Washington State voters provide proof of it every November in election years.