Tag Archives: Washington

Jonathan Yarbrough: Washington State Government Mistake 4 (1)

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by Jonathan Yarbrough

Living in the state of Texas is a blessing. Sound conservative State government continues to make Texas the best place to live, work, run a business, and enjoy life. Even with the impacts of grossly poor Federal leadership in Biden’s first year, Texas continues to fight for its people. We are not insulated from BidenFlation of fuel price and near every other staple, but at least we do not have a liberal State government piling-on other burdens.

Citizens of other states are not as fortunate. Recently, Washington State acted to pass future extreme restrictions on their citizen’s choice of personal transportation. The law sets a near future requirement for all personal and commercial light duty vehicles to be electric. In order to purchase, register, or drive in Washington by 2030, you will forced to use an electric vehicle. They say this is absolutely required in order to demonstrate that the number one fear-mongering tactic of Democrats is real and serious. You know, global warming. No, it is not warming, so now they call it “Climate Change” and any storm, fire, or natural weather event is now blamed on “Climate Change.” Whether real or not, and how serious Climate Change may be, is a subject for another day. For today, mandates by government that restrict people to uneconomic and infeasible positions is wrong- regardless of any purpose. Typically, behind such poorly conceived mandates, there will be private sector winners and losers, and likely the winners are somehow funneling money into the elites in power.

Why is mandating electric cars in one State wrong? First, there is no science that says electric cars lower emissions. The electric power grid in the US is primarily served by fossil fuel power generation. Natural gas is the fastest growing form of electricity generation, coal is still over a third of power generation. But the cars run on wind and solar, right? No, wind and solar power are growing, only because of tax dollars funneled into subsides, but the small amount of wind and solar is not what makes the newly required electricity. The growth in electricity demand, if all transportation were electric, would out -pace the grow in wind/solar power ten-fold. So, Washington State’s cars will run on coal, with CO2 emissions similar to gasoline, just relocated away from the state by power lines.

The facts of power supply and demand make Washington State’s mandate meaningless for emissions, but how will the mandate hurt citizens? First, electric cars are about twice as expensive as the similar gasoline car. So, double the car note. Yes, but then it is “free” to drive. No, power to charge the batteries is at least as expensive as gasoline. How about the power distribution capability in your neighborhood? An electric car quick-charging home unit is typically 75 Amps of power draw; most normal homes have a total power supply of 100 Amps. So, if everyone on the same street gets a 75Amp car charger and plugs in at 7pm, the supply lines will overload and trip off. The government of Washington State does not have a newly designed power distribution network that is 175% expanded in their 5 year plan. So, the short-sighted mandate just might put the citizens of Washington State out in the dark.

If subject to the Democrat elites in Washington State, the best plan would be to leave the State and bring productivity and taxes elsewhere. Those who fail to grasp facts and fall for this political nonsense should make sure the bicycle is serviced and have a good supply of candles. Those that leave the dictates are most welcome in Texas, the land of the free and fearless. Just do NOT bring the liberal nonsense that has destroyed the Sate you are fleeing.

Jonathan Yarbrough is a 60 year old devoted Christian, a father and husband, a conservative thinker, proud American, retired executive, rancher, expiring to better horsemanship on a daily basis.

 

Bill Lockwood: Gas-Powered Vehicles & Outlawing Freedom 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

One of the greatest current ironies is that our government schools ramp-up “anti-bullying campaigns” to keep our children from intimidating or coercing others to do something to which they are opposed—all the while the government itself systemically bullies both the consumer plus the manufacturer to conform to its Green Agenda.

Make no mistake. Outlawing gas-powered vehicles, as is now being pressed by our own government, and actually planned by states such as California and Washington State, is in reality the curtailing of freedom and liberty.

“Tucked into the state’s new $17 billion transportation plan is a lofty goal: No new gas-powered cars by 2030,” writes David Kroman in The Seattle Times (4-1-22). This “represents the culmination of years of advocacy in the Legislature for what is now the most aggressive timeline in the country.”

“Matthew Metz, executive director of the environmental advocacy organization Coltura, who’s helped lead the push for more zero-emission vehicle sales, said that winning the new language creates a standard by which officials in government and the private sector must now be measured.”

In requiring these electric vehicle goals, “Washington has committed itself to following California’s vehicle emission standards, which are more stringent than the federal government’s … California is in the process of finalizing rules that would mandate that all new car sales be electric by 2035, which Washington would then follow.”

Good-Bye Liberty

In the name of the supposed Global Climate Crisis the Democrats have signed on to the Green Agenda. Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, while signing the bill this week, stated that the measure will “move us away from the transportation system our grandparents imagined and towards the transportation system our grandchildren dream of.”

Yes, the grandchildren who have been indoctrinated from grade school through the university system—they dream of a non-fossil-fuel future. But that is just the point. There never has been any real debate or discussion on the entire issue, just hard core indoctrination filtering from the socialistic United Nations down through our society.

Still others, such as Jeremy Horpedahl, an economist at the University of Arkansas, said the 2030 target is “overly ambitious.” “A better approach would be to gradually encourage consumers to switch to electric vehicles for private enterprise to build the charging infrastructure with incentives.” He told The Center Square that consumers should not be “forced to purchase electric vehicles.”

“But whatever the ideal approach is, using economic incentives to encourage” electric vehicles is “far better than a strict mandate that bans fossil-fuel automobiles.”

What of This?

First, this is good-bye to liberty and freedom for the consumer. The only difference between the above approaches is whether to force people by governmental edict or push them with government-built-in incentives. So far from the freedom formula encoded in our Constitution, which sets up an even-playing-field for all businesses, this is government-sponsored doctrine enforced by the ruling elite.

Citizens do not believe the so-called “environmental crisis” that makes this mandatory—otherwise they would be buying the electric vehicles on their own. This is why the ruling class cannot allow the free market, or freedom under God, to continue. The “environmental crisis” gives the government an excuse to curtail freedom.

As Yakima Republican Sen. Curtis King, the ranking member of the Senate Transportation Committee, stated, “They want to force everybody into an electric vehicle for whatever reason they deem fit. They want to take the choice away from the people because they think government knows more than anybody else.”

Second, this is good-bye to liberty and freedom for the producer. If the electric car was a desirable product in the free market, automobile manufacturers would already be producing them. Not only would consumers prefer them, but the economics of it would incentivize the auto industry. There would be no need for government subsidies to manufacture an electric car, nor a need for tax benefits for purchasing one.

But this is not what is occurring. Freedom for consumer and manufacturer does not terminate the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. Therefore, government is in essence saying to the auto industry: “come up with an electric vehicle or else we will close your doors.”

So, while government schools add anti-bullying curricula to the classrooms across America, the government itself practices bullying for its own Green agenda.

 

 

Bill Lockwood: Pickled Minds in Seattle 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Pickling is the process by which foods are soaked in various solutions to increase the acidity of the food so that microorganisms that cause illness and food spoilage cannot grow. Socialism, and liberalism in general, takes on the form of a similar “fermenting process” by which logic, reasoning, and simple common sense cannot any longer grow in one’s mind. A case study—a Seattle City Councilwoman named Lisa Herbold.

It is not enough that our unconstitutional socialistic systems such as found in Seattle champion taking money from the “rich” to give to the poor in a multiplicity of government programs including: unemployment benefits, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, government grants, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Federal Student Financial Aid (FAFSA), Free School Meals for Children, Disaster relief programs, WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) subsidies, Senior Citizens’ Aid programs, government assistance with home energy, prescription drug aid, assistance in telephone services, Social Security, disability money, public housing vouchers, and the list goes on.

This is not to mention the fact that there is plenty of voluntary assistance to the poor by a multitude of churches and charitable organizations.

Enough is never enough with the lawless such as Councilwoman Lisa Herbold. She has proposed legislation whereby misdemeanor suspects can escape charges if they can show “symptoms of mental illness or addiction or if they can prove the crime provided for a need to survive.” This is the infamous “poverty defense.”

Herbold says that these defendants need to have an “opportunity to tell their stories” and allow the judges and juries “to hear their stories and make a decision based on the values of our city.” Sounds like spoiled children who cannot handle a teachers’ authority and have to “tell their side of things” when told simple commands in the schoolhouse, such as “sit down.”

The explanation for the “poverty defense” is explained by another on a Seattle television station. “In a situation where you took that sandwich because you were hungry and you were trying to meet your basic need of satisfying your hunger; we as the community will know that we should not punish that. That conduct is excused.”

Yet Lisa Herbold, being a government official, does not wish to live by the “values of her city.” When a man threw a rock through her house window, the councilwoman … yes … called the police. My Northwest reported that Herbold “was on the west side of the living room near the kitchen when she heard a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot and dove into the kitchen for cover.”

Not only is Lisa Herbold unable to see that no one wishes to live by Seattle’s valueless values—for a value does not respect persons rich or poor—but she herself refuses to abide by her own proposals. As a matter of fact, the entire city is seeing a huge spike in crime since the city of Seattle has approved an 18% cut to the Seattle Police Department. Consequently, murders have sky-rocketed. So much for Seattle’s take on values.

This is what occurs when you empty values of any meaningful content by excusing crime because of “poverty,” or organize to cut law enforcement.

Perhaps when Lisa Herbold phoned the police, she should have been told that the police that would have been sent was a part of the 18% cut and that she was on her own. And why call the police to begin with, Ms. Herbold? As Scott Lindsay, former mayoral Public Safety Advisor stated,” If you are engaged in 100 misdemeanors that are in our criminal justice system code, you are not going to be held liable. You are not going to be held accountable.”  So why call against a man committing a misdemeanor?

What do you wish the police to do, Lisa? Arrest the man so that you can gather your friends on the streets and harangue in front of the cameras about “police brutality” and moan about law enforcement harassing people over misdemeanors?

Pickled minds in Seattle.

Ron Hosko: Ignorance Posing as Art: Fanning Flames of Police-Citizen Divide 0 (0)

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Ignorance Posing as Art: Fanning Flames of Police-Citizen Divide

by Ron Hosko

In January of this year a painting by David Pulphus hangs in a hallway displaying paintings by high school students selected by their member of congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Zach Gibson)
Last week, we learned of separate imbroglios in our Nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., both involving what was depicted as “works of art.”
In one case, American University played host to a 9-foot wooden carving by a person using the moniker Rigo 23 which purported to mimic a self-portrait of American Indian “activist” Leonard Peltier. While few would disagree that the history of the American Indian has been replete with sadness and tragedy, the subject matter, Leonard Peltier, was a disgraceful, appalling representative of that struggle.
Simply stated, Peltier is a convicted killer of two FBI Agents, Ron Williams and Jack Coler on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975. The killings of agents Williams and Coler were anything but accidental – their car had over 125 bullet holes and their bodies showed evidence of having been killed at close range by a .223 type bullets. The carnage of that day still stands as one of the FBI’s bloodiest.
Rigo 23’s celebrated subject matter has appealed his conviction on multiple grounds, on multiple occasions, each time, including to the U.S. Supreme Court, failing. So he sits, rightfully convicted, in federal prison, currently desperate for an Obama clemency order that will never come.
While starving-artist Rigo 23 and others who blindly believe in the stream of falsities propounded by Peltier and his allies now complain that their freedom of expression is being muted, American University’s eyes have, albeit belatedly, been opened and the wooden disgrace has been removed from its prominent location.  Law enforcement, particularly the FBI, are deaf to the complaints, knowing that mere removal of a patently offensive idol is far gentler treatment than Peltier gave two FBI agents, which was point-blank execution.
Meanwhile, U.S. Congressman Lacy Clay from Missouri, tried to one-up Rigo 23 in a battle for the Most Ignorant award of 2017, when he hung in the Congressional Annex a painting depicting police as pigs. Reportedly painted by a Cardinal Ritter College Prep graduate, the painting was offered heavy praise in the annual Congressional Art competition.
This is the state of affairs in the “conversation” on American criminal justice today – a prominent university displaying a statue of the cold blooded killer of two FBI agents and a U.S. Congressman anointing as a painting competition winner the depiction of police as farm animals and displaying the winning “art” in the halls of Congress. These are the institutions we presumably look to for knowledge, for righteousness, for wisdom.

Kudos to American University for listening to the rest of the story, as provided by the FBI Agents Association, and kudos to Congressman Duncan Hunter for personally removing the Clay painting, over which law enforcement was outraged. These pieces aren’t art, they are ignorance. They ignore the truth. They ignore the true heart of law enforcement. They ignore the challenging state of law enforcement and citizen relations today that need more ways to come together than divide.

Read Rob Hosko’s Biography