Thoughts on the Kent departure.

First thought:

I live in what 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?

Tough choices for governor in Washington.

I’ve mostly been silent about this election cycle, which is definitely unusual for me. It’s difficult to explain, exactly… or even inexactly.

But there is no doubt the cringe-factor has played a role. I’ve spent the better part of the last 40 years observing, involved in, analyzing, advising and consulting in primarily local politics. The wear and tear on me has been horrific and now, as I approach my 69^th birthday, I find the once roaring fire that drove me to have been reduced to the size of a single ember, little more than a spark.

Over time in a river, even the sharpest stone is typically worn down to a pebble.

Real life combined with medical issues and stress finally did the deed.

And situations like those confronting us now have also played a role, combined with the cynicism resulting from candidates claiming to be one thing, only to become something completely different once sworn in.

The culmination of these experiences where those false promises are clearly bereft of accountability in a state where the Supreme Court has ruled that lying as a part of any campaign by either public agency (Sound Transit) private organization (the Drug Policy Alliance) and individual candidates, among them Sen. Ann Rivers (R?-18) and former Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt, are perfectly legal has led to a certain level of “why bother?”

Which brings us to the question of which GOP candidate, if any, will advance to the general election this November.

I say “if any” because the misguided efforts by both parties to force party registration (which I strongly opposed and made every effort to stop while I was the state GOP’s Executive Director) led to our top-two primary system where regardless of party, the top two vote-getters move to the general, which has led to a great many democrat-only general elections and to a lesser extent in this dark blue state, the odd Republican-only general elections.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of the Washington State Grange, we’ve so far managed to avoid the cancer of party identification, save for going through the motions of the lightly-voted presidential primary (35.26% of registered voters earlier this year) where if you participate at all, you have to write your party allegiance on your ballot envelope.

I, personally, am known as a 4 of 4 voter. This is based on my participation in the last 4 elections, regardless of politics or school levy or bond or what have you, or any other balloted election. 4 of 4’s can be counted on to vote. And that’s a very valuable commodity.

Except this last time. The requirement of party identification on the envelope, which I steadfastly oppose, made that impossible for me so I skipped it. And I will skip it again in 2028 due to the party identification issue as well as the reality that the left could run a brick for president in this state like they did in 2020 and they’d vote for it and the leftist federal candidate would win the electoral votes here.

Democrats are rerunning a president too dementia-addled to stand trial for his theft of documents as a Senator and Vice President and subsequently the storage of some of those documents in cardboard boxes in a garage, while somehow simultaneously remaining sharp enough to be president.

That is obviously either an indictment of the position of the Presidency of the United States, as in any simple-minded idiot can actually perform that role… OR, it’s an indictment of our justice system because the democrat-controlled Department of Justice just sees this as yet another instance of the weaponized double-standard where Biden’s political opponents face a level of accountability they otherwise wouldn’t experience… while he avoids ANY accountability outside a ballot box.

In short, like the Washington State rule on lying, if your side is in power, it’s perfectly OK to lie your collective ass off as long as you can win.

There is also, I believe, a substantial overlap between the state and federal elections confronting us and frankly, I find the whole thing to be exhausting.

The microcosm of our state gubernatorial primary election is a reflection of the choices confronting the entirety of the American people at the federal level.

I’ve seen, up close and personal, voters make decisions to oppose someone not because of what they have done or will do, but because they don’t “like” them. And that’s a major part of the problem confronting us today. It’s a complete abrogation of responsibility. Arrive at an outcome of the “like” test, and you no longer need to do the work. You don’t have to pay attention. You don’t have to understand what’s going on and who bears responsibility for this horrific state of affairs.

The “like” test supersedes all of that, “end of discussion.”

Of course, that’s how some historical figures in the past who were very, very bad actors came to power.

Vision doesn’t matter. Ability doesn’t matter. Record doesn’t matter. The reality of past=prologue doesn’t matter. For far too many, the only thing that matters is if the voter “likes” them.

It’s not surprising, really. We’re a feelings-based society that typically ignores reality, driven instead by manipulation and social media combined with fictional advertising. So why not vote for a guy bent on this country’s destruction because you dislike the other guy; even though America was better off in every imaginable way during his term, considering the impacts of covid?  For many voters, the destruction a candidate has caused, destruction they see with their own eyes and the blood he has spilled and which is dripping off his hands means nothing.

The vote this November will be driven by hate. And the unreasoned, never ending hatred of a candidate and, for that matter, a religion; frequently by the SAME PEOPLE, is on full display here.

One is dementia-addled and brain damaged idiot with a worthless, incompetent, ignorant toad as a VP, a heartbeat from the absolutely unimaginable horror of taking over for Racist Joe. He has done more damage to this country in his almost four years than Obama did in his eight. It will take decades to repair every aspect of our lives that’s been infected by their cancer.

The other did mean tweets and drove leftists insane which, to be sure, isn’t that far of a trip.

Here at the state level, there are two main candidates for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the general. One is a former member of Congress and a former King County Sheriff. The other is a former Special Forces soldier.

One has a voting record in Congress frequently more in keeping with the Congressional Democrat Caucus than with the GOP. The other is being chastised for wearing awards and qualification badges on his uniform that he is not entitled to, and claiming to have done things he didn't do.

The former soldier was endorsed by the State GOP. The former Congressman threw a hissy fit over losing out, which from the 10,000 foot level certainly qualified him for losing what little chance he had for that party endorsement.

Here is my professional opinion of the outcome.

The GOP candidate in the general will be the former Congressman.

When the GOP-endorsed candidate gets clobbered in the primary, two things will happen.  First, the GOP base will stay home in droves for the general. There will be zero ways to incentivize the base to throw their support behind a candidate who, along with his surrogates, never misses the opportunity to belittle the soldier’s supporters... and who, all while the non-endorsed candidate, when he was in Congress, on the surface at least, has a voting record in office that would make Patty Murray smile.

Think in terms of Jaime Herrera voting to impeach Donald Trump in that totally unconstitutional congressional kangaroo impeachment court… or Liz Cheney/Adam Kinzinger's democrat efforts on the Jan 6 Committee.

But the exact, same, thing would happen if the Soldier won. The leftist Republicans would refuse to vote for him, making the outcome inevitable and a replay of the Culp campaign 4 years ago.

Second, by committing political hara-kiri, the state party will have been reduced to the political laughing stock of the PNW.

Far too often, even those actively engaged in the political realm fall victim to the “is he like me” syndrome instead of the “can he win” syndrome.

That’s what happened here.

Conservatives are frequently unable to separate the two because a major part of conservatism all-too-frequently involves feelings instead of political reality.

That is not to say that conservatives are wrong in their thinking as to what is the best course of action of those available. But that IS to say that frequently, conservatives as a group forget that they make up, perhaps, 30% of the electorate. And in this state? Likely even less.

But the political choices to date for the GOP in this state appear to be between fringe-left Republicans which results in the conservative base staying home, or conservative Republicans which result in the independents and fringe-left GOP’ers staying home; or, as they did in the WA03 Congressional allowing their fringe-left hatred of conservatives to shine through by actively supporting an antifa-leftist in the Congressional race.

Democrats, for their part, are just as guilty. For example, they’ll run a fringe-left, downtown-Seattle democrat in the most rural of legislative districts that have been GOP for decades. Not because that candidate has even a remote chance of winning but because they will support no other, which leads to their inevitable defeat n those districts.

This state is a deep, dark, blue. There’s no denying it. And after the general in November is over; it will, if anything, be even a deeper and darker blue. Because as badly as things are going in this state, democrats dominate and have party discipline the GOP can’t even dream about.

To be successful, we’ve got to take baby steps. And as Culp proved 4 years ago, doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome IS a definition of insanity.

In all of this, we can see the symptoms. No one realistically believed Reichert could win statewide. The Establishment hacks that put him up to it are the same hacks that supported the democrat over the Republican in the 3^rd Congressional District 2 years ago and spent millions to torpedo him, which they did successfully.

The GOP establishment would rather have a democrat win than a conservative Republican.

Sadly, my professional opinion in all of this is that absent some major October Surprise, this election is already over. And my professional opinion is not the result of any bias for or against anyone. It is my assessment of politics in this state.

Were I wrong in this assessment, leftists would be rioting against their city governments. Seattle has turned into a sewer. Tacoma may even be worse. Most every city of any size in this state, including Vancouver, refuses to act to end crime, homelessness, drugs and everything that goes with it. And the majority of these cities continuing to foster these outcomes all have the commonality of leftist dominance in city government.

Even Lynnwood has city council members involved in drag queens for 2 year olds. Grooming is obvious and open. And who’s doing anything about it?

ANGER is required to replace incumbents or titular incumbents.  And it’s just not there at the state level. It SHOULD be. But it isn’t.

And as a result, the winner in this state will not be a Republican.

The Democratian's hatred of the right again on full display.

For years now, the Democratian has regaled us with the line that they, as an organization, have precisely zero bias in their politics, and their attacks on those to the right of Mao are honest and sincerely based on sober reflection as opposed to their endemic, institutional efforts to portray Republicans as scum generally, and conservatives particularly as dregs of the earth.

The lie that they lack fringe-left political bias is easily proven.  This blog is rife with the kind of tales of Democratian hatred towards Republicans and their manifold efforts to either ignore leftist thuggery (Oddly, their efforts to cover for then state Rep. Jim Jacks, forced to resign over his mistreatment of female staffers in Olympia... first broken here in my meager effort... and consistently ignored, belittled, or covered up by the local version of Pravda Izvestiya until they were forced to concede the truth that *I* provided.... SIX YEARS AFTER IT HAPPENED... ) or downplay it or turn it into some sort of leftist victimhood.

Who can forget their so-called endorsement of a guy who didn't even live in the 17th District but who had a D after his name and who was running against hated CRC Scam opponent and conservative Don Benton, then state Senator:

“...although sincere and well-intentioned, lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the important policy questions for Southwest Washington and the state. About the only attribute in his favor is the fact that he’s not Don Benton. And on that admittedly flimsy basis, we endorse Peterson.”

Yes, these things happened a LOOOONG time ago (The anti-endorsement endorsement of a Benton opponent merely because he wasn't Benton was 2000, and the Jim Jacks cover-up started with his forced resignation in 2011) that merely sets the table as cornerstone examples of the fringe-left hatred The Cancer on Clark County has expressed for decades, dozens of other examples notwithstanding.

So, it was no real surprise that the Democratian's local version of Goebbels would use terminology like this in trashing both David Madore (An institutional icon for leftist hatred generally and Democratian hatred particularly) and Joe Kent.

"But mostly, judging by her first week as a candidate, she is focused on defeating “progressive Perez.” That, of course, is the goal of all area Republicans, even if it requires labeling one of the most centrist Democrats in the House with an oxymoron."

It takes a great deal of chutzpah to label a fringe-left #antifa supporting thug as "centrist."

"So Jared, Mary, and I (Perez) actually just took over the Blue Dogs," Gluesenkamp Perez said during the July 31 event, which was hosted by the Downtown Nasty Women Social Group, a group of so-called progressive activists in New York City, and Markers for Democracy. "They basically lost some of their membership before we came in, and we are sort of rebuilding it into – Mary, Jared, and I – are rebuilding it into this sort of antifascist rural [group]."

The Democratian, BEING the Democratian, made no mention of this fact that I can find, because, well, that just blows their meme of a fake centrist democrat (hopefully) flying under the radar.

Leftist newsletter masquerading as a newspaper will, of course, do all they can to get Perez reelected. That's what they've always done when it comes to democrats, real or fake (For example, RINO Jaime Herrera)

And to do it, they'll be selective with facts:

"Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was the winner of the 3rd Congressional District race last year; Republican Joe Kent was the loser. With both in the race for next year, the general election match up for 2024 has been considered a fait accompli."

A minor detail, deliberately left out?

Kent lost because of the RINO vote, since RINOs despise conservatives as much as the Democratian, by around 2700 votes or so. He also failed to mention that right around $4 million was dropped on the election attacking Kent by outside interests.

Take a moment and ask yourself: had Kent won, does anyone reading the Democratian's tripe believe for one second that Goebbels would have written this about Perez?

And far be it for the Lazy D to miss an opportunity to backhand David Madore, who they hate like few others (And do you note that those they DO hate all seem to have an "R" after their names? Why would an "unbiased" rag not be just a touch more even-handed in their horrific approach to local politics):

"During her 2021 campaign for Camas City Council, Lewallen’s biggest financial supporters (aside from herself) were David Madore and his wife. As a Clark County councilor from 2013-16, Madore embodied the worst traits of the modern Republican Party, seeking to break government to prove that government is broken."

Not unlike the leftist scum at the Democratian embody the "worst traits" of journalism? The kind of thing that makes rags like this one among the least trusted forms of media in the country?

And this beaut:

"And all of which makes a serious Republican challenger to Kent (Lewallen already has the backing of former Secretary of State Sam Reed) a most welcome addition."

This, of course, is a major reason to OPPOSE Lewallen, not to support her... and where, for example does Sam Reed happen to reside?

Not in the 3rd District.

It's easy for others who don't suffer the effects of representation from those they want to ignore the best interests of those they would try to impress.

So, he just another establishment RINO who see's what he wants as important somehow. Just look at how many candidates he's endorsed who, well, actually won.

Generally speaking, time has repeatedly told us that it's always better to oppose the Democratian in every respect. From the CRC/Loot Rail Scam, both a decade ago and now, to the Ballpark rip-off propaganda scam they ran, to bogus, completely biased endorsements, to obvious fringe-left, DNC-style hatred of the GOP, we're all much better off then we ignore Clark County's Carbuncle than we are when we allow them to tell us what to think.. and do.

Time to start locking up some teachers: Kent teachers vote to defy court order to return to work.

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So, the scumbags that are the majority of the members of the Kent teachers union have told a judge to get screwed.

Now, it is illegal for teachers to strike in this state, and these particular scum seem to think that while the rest of us suffer (I've lost an average of 54% of my revenue since last June) they are somehow worthy of special consideration for their part time jobs.

Clearly, they are not.

At this point, were I the Kent school board, I would start by firing every striking teacher.

Were I the judge in this matter, I would get an alphabetical list of these worms and then I would start locking them up at the rate of say, five a day. I'd put them in with the worst criminals Kent or King County has to offer, and I'm sure there are some beauts.

Back in the day when I was on legislative staff, my boss actually had a constituent wrongly locked up in the Purdy Correctional Center form Women. I actually had to go there a few times, and while I was there, I was struck by the fact that some of the women there would not have looked terribly out of place as defensive tackles for the Seahawks.

Imagine some of these union agitators, holding our children hostage, being forced to share a cell with one of these Bubbettes over night.

Man, the stories they'd have to tell.

Anyway, one or two nights of that, and they'd be begging to come back to work.

Meanwhile, the school district could hire from a wide variety of junior, younger teachers laid off from other districts.

This would have the advantage of sending a message to these criminal law breakers that if you break OUR laws, you'll go to prison like any other criminal.

And, by the way.... if you don't like it?

Quit.

It's a pity that I don't have children in the Kent school district. If I did, I'd be in court to get a contempt order at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

The teachers unions have done more harm then any other to our children. And it's time to make them pay, like they're making our children and the district's support personnel pay.
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