The Squeaky Wheel

The 2011 Budget 'Deal'

2011-04-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

Democrats knew they couldn't defend their budget spending while they controlled Congress, so they simply didn't try to adopt a 2011 Budget. No, they left that as a trap for the Republicans to fall into, and it worked. It wreaked of Chicago style politics, via Rahm Emanuel.

It may already be too late, but until 2013, Republicans will never have more support than they had to turn this Titanic around than they did before this deal. We currently live in a nation being governed by an administration through regulations. The GOP only has so many options to bring Obama to the table and share governing with Congress until 2013. This 2011 budget battle was the first and best opportunity for the GOP to be 'significant'.

This was not a GOP victory. It was perhaps a small political victory, but in the fight to derail the Marxist/Progressive train, it was a huge defeat. $38.8 Billion in cuts while facing a $1.5 trillion deficit is nothing. In fact, far worse than nothing, because it blesses the abuses of the taxpayers that Democrats perpetrated to get us to this point in our history. Do people already forget the Democrats' $787 Billion pork-laden, pro-government Stimulus Bill? These cuts don't even equal 5% of that outrage.

No, the GOP had their best opportunity to stop this madness last night, until they started looking at media polls and started worrying about their next campaigns.

The risks this nation faces are as large as those faced in our greatest wars. Yet wars are lost if a nation cannot find the heroes to put it all on the line to be victorious. We needed heroes to not just win a small battle, but to turn the war around against the Progressive left. We now see there are still no heroes we can count on.

Fighting the increases in the Debt Ceiling? Not a chance there. Cutting trillions over 10 years in the 2012 budget? Why should we think the GOP will be any more courageous than what we've just witnessed?

Really stopping taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, NPR, and hundreds of other wasteful programs? No, last night's deal is not a win. And it certainly is NOT a good sign of future courage by GOP leaders.

We are worried about 'the cow' when it is all about the 'Ice Cream'

2011-03-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

From a teacher in the Nashville area - or maybe not. Regardless, a valid analysis of voters who put Obama into the White House.

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The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year...

The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president.

We would choose our nominees.. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.

We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.

We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.

I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.

I had never seen Olivia's mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches.

Jamie went first.

He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now it was Olivia's turn to speak.

Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down.

The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream."

She surely would say more. She did not have to.

A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it... She didn't know.

The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream...

Jamie was forgotten.. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream.

The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess."

This is the ice cream Obama promised us!

Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone -- that they have not first taken away from someone else.

Did you vote for the ice cream?

America's Last Chance

2010-10-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

In a sense I'm thankful for Obama. The drip-drip of Progressivism has taken its toll on America for a hundred years, changing education, history, values and beliefs in such a way that the very foundation of America has nearly crumbled. Even with McCain, that movement to the left was going to continue, and millions of Americans would have remained asleep to the 'fundamental transformation' of America long underway.

Obama has opened the floodgates on radical Socialism based on Marxism. His administration has taken corporate influence to new levels, and ethical behavior is unwelcome now anywhere in government. People are awake. Those who don't see that dangers of Progressivism today will likely never see it, or they've become so dependent on the system that they feel no choice but to continue to support it. But I'm warning you, that's a choice that will lead to the eventual ruin for every American and our progeny for decades and decades.

The question is whether enough people have been awakened to end this nightmare? Or should I say, end the nightmare of certain economic collapse? Returning sanity to Govt - and I will be the first to say that putting Republicans back into power is certainly not a guarantee - is but the first step in what's going to be a very painful series of steps if we are going to save America. Are we up to the sacrifices that we must accept if we're to preserve a nation for our children and grandchildren? Are we prepared to abandon unsustainable bribes we call public pensions, social security, Medicare & Medicaid that are operating in the RED today? We won't have that answer after election day in November. That answer will come months and years later, when Americans will prove whether we're capable of saving ourselves, or whether we're destined to starve the nation to death with our self-interest. Can we put the futures of our children and grandchildren ahead of what we believe will be comfortable retirements?

WILL WE SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO EXTEND THE FANTASY THAT WE CAN BE CARED FOR AFTER WE RETIRE FOR DECADES?

When I watched Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally I regained some hope. But what did I see but people arguing for cuts to spending and taxes. I didn't see people who necessarily understood the consequences in a society where government has addicted EVERYONE to some level of government largess.

Then I watched coverage of the One Nation Rally, with its Communists, unions and assorted leftists demanding 'well-paying jobs' despite the reality that poorly-educated Americans have either earned well-paying jobs, or are even capable of competing in the Global Economy against people who are better educated, aren't unionized, and work for a fraction of less-educated Americans.

November is not the end of this awakening. It's barely the beginning. If the GOP takes either House of Congress, or even both, they will not be in a position to implement or repeal anything Obama refuses to sign. They won't have the votes to override Obama vetoes. That means that Obama can govern by Executive Order and Congress won't even have the ability to stop him without enough Dems supporting efforts to override presidential vetoes.

The only tool the GOP will have is to refuse to appropriate funds. With that will come accusations from the Democrats and their tools in the mainstream media that the GOP 'wants to shut down the government and starve Americans'. And with that will come the calls for the GOP to protect all those Americans dependent on a check from the government. Will the GOP be able to sustain such an effort to reduce spending and reform bankrupt federal programs? With Dems and MSM attacking them, it's unlikely. So where will Americans stand?

The real awakening will come when Americans fully understand the cost of saving America from a century of unsustainable redistribution of wealth and empty promises. If Americans are prepared to return to self-reliance once those costs are made clear, America may have a chance. If self-interest and refusal to drastically cut the size and scope of government is the response, then November will be little more than a blip on the path to fiscal collapse and something much, much darker to follow.

I hope we're still a people up to the greatness our Founders demonstrated when they invented America. Because if we're not, we have no more chances.

Chickens come home to roost

2010-10-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Quadrant homeowners headed to Supreme Court in 'toxic soup' case

Quadrant builds them fast and builds them to maximize profit. They grease the skids of local governments with allies in both parties, and the strategy made them the biggest home builder in the state. You buy one of their homes, you get what you pay for. Ok, maybe a lot less than what you paid for.

Crime Inc.

2010-05-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

Unless you watch Glenn Beck or read this article from Investors Business Daily, there's another incredible scandal brewing involving all the regular players. It starts with an unknown organization called the Joyce Foundation that funds the George Soros Tides Foundation, that has provided cover for leftists to contribute to leftist causes with anonymity.

Beck has uncovered a massive conspiracy involving Obama, Jarrett, the Joyce Foundation, Goldman Sachs and several of its executives independently, Al Gore, and a myriad of radicals that are behind the Chicago Carbon Exchange. This $10 Trillion a year redistribution scheme trading an invisible gas involves Franklin Raines who made $90 million at Fannie Mae over just 5 years as its president, and who was found to have corrupted Fannie's books to even further expose the taxpayer to risk in purchasing trillions in bad mortgage loans that could have been halted in 2002 if regulation hadn't been blocked by the Dems in the Senate.

While at Fannie Mae, Raines purchased software for managing the trading of CO2 in the Carbon Exchange (CCX). The exchange would basically require American industry, and ultimately the consumer, to buy CO2 credits from nations with little or no industry. Effectively a massive wealth redistribution scheme with the players involved cyphoning off billions for themselves.

No one apparently asked why Fannie Mae needed such software and why the taxpayer ultimately purchased it for this Government Sponsored Enterprise, but with sponsorship from the WH's Obama and Valerie Jarrett, Al Gore owns 1/5th of the CCX along with two Goldman Sachs executives. Goldman bought 10% of the CCX later for just $21 million.

The mastermind behind the entire scheme, or the 'wizard' behind the curtain as Beck says, is a guy by the name of Joel Rogers. This radical Wisconsin college professor has tried to stay out of the limelight, but is one of the true leaders of the radical socialist/marxist progressive movement in America. He's a founder of the New Party, and involved everywhere in the leftist Progressive Movement. His bio here on KeyWiki shows his involvement with socialist initiatives for decades. He's even tied to Richard Cloward, of the Cloward-Piven strategy, and is linked to the most well-known leftists radicals in America.

http://keywiki.org/index.php/Joel_Rogers

This massive ripoff of the American taxpayer/consumer could explain EVERYTHING that is going on. The MSM could be involved for a piece of the action, and the only thing this scheme needs is the Cap & Trade bill to be adopted by the Senate.

With the money that this assault on America would generate, based on the lie of man-made Global Warming, the Dems could buy their way into control for decades.

Of note is the fact that NONE of this came up during the Senate Hearings on Goldman Sachs. I wouldn't doubt that the entire Federal Government has been corrupted by this scheme, that Beck has labelled, "Crime Inc."

Self-Interest is undoing America

2010-03-22T13:35:00.001-07:00

I can’t imagine that self-interest has ever driven policy in America as it does today. I’m only 50, so I don’t have those Depression-era experiences or those during World Wars, but could this nation have survived this long if it was always like this?

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I’m learning the history now that was kept out of the classrooms of my youth. I’m seeing the Progressive Movement throughout the last 100 years of American history, with people from within both parties who’ve led this nation into electing a radically Progressive president in Barack Obama. But Obama could not be “fundamentally transforming America” if not for the House and Senate that decades of pandering to self-interest has established in Washington DC.

There were times in this nation when even accepting charity was repugnant to Americans. People would sacrifice for their neighbor, or even for a total stranger. What has happened to that American charity? Well, it’s still here, but is being constantly attacked by a growing segment of this nation that has been trained by decades of Progressive education that it is “entitled” to what other’s earn. These people feel empowered at the ballot booth by carpet-baggers from both political parties to demand rights from government at the expense of their fellow citizens, along with “free stuff” that will be paid for with magical pixie dust, but keep them on the Progressive’s leash.

This nation cannot survive this self-interest that ignores the consequences of government largess. Facing bankrupted entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, federal government mandates on the states that cannot be possibly met, and in excess of $100 trillion in unfunded federal government obligations, the question is not when the coming financial collapse will occur, but how devastating it will be.

It does not have to be this way. But it will happen unless Americans can rid this society of the radicals, Marxists, and corrupt who are driving America to this one and only outcome. It begins with all Americans measuring their self-interest against the needs of this nation, and abandoning this Progressive theology that suggests that people can be given everything they need in life for free, and that no one is responsible for the decisions they’ve made in their lives, or the consequences of what they perceive as their own bad luck.

Self-interest should end at the walls of your home, and not in the pockets of your neighbors.

Final chapter closed on this King County corruption - too bad it was never blown open and investigated

2009-04-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

Two King County DOT whistle blowers have won their Federal Lawsuit this week against several of King County Executive Ron Sims' managers in DOT. They were accused of retaliating against them, because they attempted to expose corruption and wrongdoing in DOT 7 years ago.

In 2002, King County DOT was requested to grant a Transportation Concurrency Certificate to Quadrant Homes for a development named Redmond Ridge East. This came after years of investigation into wrongdoing by DOT under Ron Sims for other development projects named Redmond Ridge and Trilogy. With no vehicle capacity left on area roads, primarily Novelty Hill Road, that certificate was initially denied. But just weeks later, without any explanation or justification, KCDOT reversed their decision and invented road capacity out of thin air for Quadrant.

After that decision, five King County DOT employees, including the supervisor of the TFDM group, which was responsible for building the county's road traffic model, said no way. They went through their management, then through the Ombudsman, and even to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office alleging wrongdoing, including illegal acts being committed in KCDOT's Concurrency Group to assist Quadrant in obtaining a certificate wrongfully.

Not long afterward the alleged retaliation began by DOT Director Linda Dougherty and manager Jennifer Lindwall. First poor performance reviews, then threats of layoff, and finally, demotion for the supervisor and significant reduction in pay.

The development would eventually receive a recommendation to deny from King County Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith, and a recommendation to rescind the ill-gotten Transportation Concurrency Certificate. Remarkably, the King County Council approved Redmond Ridge East in 2005 anyway.

Now 4 years later and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the plaintiff's legal fees, a jury has determined that the defendants Linda Dougherty and Jennifer Lindwall did retaliate against Ho-Chuan Chen and Hossein Barahimi.

The awards in the case are trivial. Perhaps because US District Court Judge Marcia Pechman ruled against allowing any issues related to the Redmond Ridge East corruption to be heard by the jury. Remarkably, Pechman, then a King County Superior Court judge, ruled on the very first challenge to Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, ruling with the county and developer in a case that would eventually take years to be overturned by the State Supreme Court, only to have the Supreme Court unanimously rule in 2005 to allow an ancient illegal act by the county in 1989, that the courts refused to address, finally excuse a decade of county wrongdoing under Executive Gary Locke and Executive Ron Sims.

Will Douherty, Lindwall and Sue Osterhoubt (also sued by Barahimi in 2007 and found guilty of retaliation) be fired for misusing their office and punishing employees for attempting to expose corruption and wrongdoing in DOT? Not likely. This is the way King County has operated under Ron Sims, and I'm sure their guilt will be ignored by Sims for what turned out to be "his" greater good.

Will Ho-Chuan Chen be restored to the position he previously held so that he can return to the road modeling group to be a much-needed watchdog of the shenanigans that go on regularly in KCDOT, since NO ONE has been there to stop the county's endless efforts to assist developers in avoiding road impact fees and other mitigation?

Will anyone now demand that these individuals, along with their boss Executive Ron Sims, be required to reimburse King County the millions of dollars spent on their defense funded by King County taxpayers, as well as the damages to be paid to Chen and Barahimi, including all of the plaintiff's legal costs?

This lawsuit closes the chapter on this sickening corruption that has left taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded infrastructure. And with a media that has all but ignored it, and citizen opponents who have surrendered to the corruption in this county, Ron Sims can now be congratulated on his promotion to the Obama administration where he can take this stench with him.

Finally, I'd like to personally thank Ho-Chuan Chen and Hossein Barahimi for doing the right thing. Their integrity and honesty will never be rewarded as it should, but they can stand up with pride and know that while they may be surrounded by corrupt individuals in their employment, that they have the respect of the few of us out here that understand the courage it took for them to stand up to Ron Sims and his puppets in King County leadership.

Here's more background from the PI:
Redmond Ridge East hits roadblock over 'tainted' traffic study

And here is Dori Monson's interview on 4/13 with Chen and Barahimi (Starts at 5 minutes):
Monson Show

Tyranny of the Majority

2009-03-04T14:59:00.001-08:00

Alexis de Tocqueville was a famous political and cultural writer about American democracy in the 1830s. Among his writings about Democracy in 1835, were the warnings of the "tyranny of the majority" leading to a despotic government. De Tocqueville wrote, "A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority." As such, when a majority is given the power to control the entire government apparatus, the ability of the minority to participate in the government, or even to influence the majority, can be easily ignored by the majority, at the doom of the nation.

I believe that the prophecy of the tyranny of the majority that de Tocqueville described over a century and a half ago has begun, with only members of the Democrat Party, yes, the party in power, now able to defend America from the outcome de Tocqueville warned of.

De Tocqueville wrote:

"If republican principles are to perish in America, they can yield only after a laborious social process, often interrupted and as often resumed, they will have many apparent revivals and will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people have succeeded to those who now exist. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them."

"It is my opinion, however, that by changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the stability of their government. It may be apprehended that men perpetually thwarted in their designs by the mutability of legislation will learn to look on the republic as an inconvenient form of society, the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and indirectly bring about a revolution; but this epoch is still very remote."

"It may be foreseen even now that when the Americans lose their republican institutions they will speedily arrive at a despotic government."

Progressive social changes that would alter our basic American principles and values of liberty, freedom and individual pursuit of success? Only a remote possibility of our republic succumbing to those who would ignore or destroy the Constitution? America falling into the grips of a despotic government, where we fall under a despotic majority acting in unison against the principles this nation was founded upon?

174 years after de Tocqueville wrote the words, we're here folks.

Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville

Housing collapse nowhere near done yet!

2009-02-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

There's a great graph that the New York Times had done reflecting home values adjusted for inflation going back 100 years. It shows the booms and the busts, such as the 35% loss of home values in the Great Depression, as well as the booms in 1970s and 1980s. The one constant is that home prices always return to about 110% of historical norm.

Home Values thru 2006

The current credit bubble and housing boom started with a steep increase in home values in 1997, not long after government loosening of credit and the fed pressures to lower interest rates. Starting in 1997, homes increased from 110% of historical value to about 205% of value in 2006. Then the bubble started to burst. Since 2006, values have dropped 40% (value loss plus inflation loss) to about 155% of the historical norm. See the curve now:

Home Values thru Today

The downward slope of the curve is very steep right now and could do one of three things. It could start to level out, continue to plummet to the norm, or in the case of entering a depression, values drop well below the historical norm before it bottoms out. Home values across America are losing about 1% of value a month, on top of the value being lost due to inflation that is beginning to increase rapidly.

If you are hoping things will turn around soon and are making financial decisions based on that hope, this is information you need to be aware of.

Obama deficit to equal 2000 federal budget

2009-02-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

From the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Briefing Book

Obama budget to increase spending up from $2.983 Trillion under Bush to $3.938 Trillion this fiscal year. Will decline to $3.552 Trillion next fiscal year, down $714 Billion, but stimulus new spending remains! Obama budget forecast to increase to $3.856 Trillion by end of first term. That is a 29% increase in size of government, assuming no additional spending.

TOTAL federal spending in 2000 was $1.79 trillion.

Total estimated 2009 DEFICIT according to Obama’s budget blueprint will be $1.75 trillion.

How much trouble are Social Security and Medicare really in?

2009-02-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

You won't believe it, but it's all here at
OASDI and HI Annual Income Excluding Interest, Cost, and Balance in Current Dollars

According to the Government, they look at three different scenarios based on cost trends. "OASDI" is Social Security, and "HI" in Medicare Part A. Medicare Part D, Prescription drugs, isn't even included here.

So here are some hard facts that you're not being told. You could call this the real crisis behind the crisis.

Under the estimates from the Social Security Administration done last year, Medicare is today already spending more than it is taking in. Social Security, under the "intermediate" estimate of costs, will be in the red in 2017, and the combined programs will be underfunded as early as 2015.

Under the worst-case scenario of high costs (and I have to wonder whether recession or depression will hasten us in this direction), these programs will be underfunded as soon as 2011. In fact, under this scenario, less than $50 billion in surpluses are left before SSI, that surplus-maker that has provided more than $2 trillion to the Treasury to fund other government programs and reduce deficits, will itself be in the red.

What happens when Social Security and Medicare require additional funds to make payments? Do we just fire up more printing presses? Does China continue to lend us the money to grow our debt?

But here is the real frightening point, if it can be scarier. The government appears to use the Low Cost scenario when they estimate our unfunded obligations out the next 75 years. As if $54 trillion doesn't sound bad enough out through 2085, how does $414 trillion sound in the Intermediate Cost scenario?

Oh, you're not worried enough yet? The high cost scenario shows a shortfall in unfunded obligations of.... wait for it.... $1.1 QUADRILLION (thousands of trillions) out to 2085.

Now every time reform of Social Security and Medicare have come up, which political party has absolutely refused to address it? But if reforming Social Security or Medicare is the 3rd rail of politics, then is it already too late to save ourselves from ourselves?

The United States is Bankrupt!

2009-02-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

Jerome R. Corsi of WorldnetDaily did an article entitled, "Federal obligations exceed world GDP - Does $65.5 trillion terrify anyone yet?. This article describes the absolute reality of collapse of the American government. I can't say anymore about it, but you can read the article, and then review the 2008 Financial Report of the United States provided by the US Treasury.

The table below is extracted directly from the US Treasury Report looking out the infinite horizon. Look down at the lower-right total obligation for Social Security, Medicare, and Disability Insurance. Yes, that reads $101.9 TRILLION more in outlays than projected revenues.

The table below shows where we stand right now, looking out only 75 years, but including all federal government obligations, including social program entitlements from the table above. Yes, you're seeing $65.5 TRILLION dollars (the amount of money we're going to need in current dollars, added to the expected revenues for the next 75 years, to cover the federal obligation for all the promises our government has made for the next 75 years.)

Below is the link to the report from ShadowStats.com, as referenced in the Corsi article. You can read the US Government's dirty little secret for yourself.
December 2008 - GAAP-Based 2008 Federal Deficit

Perhaps this explains why the Democrats appear to have lost all sense of responsibility? I mean, after all, why bother to be fiscally responsible when the fuse is lit and it can't be extinguished? Republicans have engaged - again - and are fighting to stop the waste and the acceleration to our collapse, but are they doing it because they think they can stop it, or simply so they will have some power before things come crashing down around us all?

Have the Chinese and other foreign investors in America's debt figured out what is happening? What can they do? If they stop throwing good money after bad it will only hasten the destruction of the world economy and civilization as we know it. But if they keep throwing money into our spending insanity, don't they only prolong the agony and worsen the collapse?

China announced last week its intention to continue to buy US Treasury bonds even though it knows the dollar will depreciate because such investments remain its "only option" in a perilous world. But is this "only option" a decision based on confidence in the dollar, or a decision driven by desperation to keep the global economy from collapsing?

Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, speaking at the Global Association of Risk Management’s 10th Annual Risk Management Convention, said: "We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion - $2 trillion . . . we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do."

God help us all.

Stimulus? The rape is complete

2009-02-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

Too late to fight it. Not enough time to read it. Every single senate Democrat and all but 7 Democrats in the House voted for it. 90 minutes of debate and the taxpayer is now on the hook for $787 Billion to grow government and give government more control. Boy, we're glad they pushed it through with less than a day for anyone to see it, so Pelosi could head off to the Vatican. Without a single member of Congress physically capable of reading the final bill, and even with the help of three Republicans who couldn't possibly of read the bill, it is now law.

Susan Collins (Republican - Maine)
Olympia Snowe (Republican - Maine)
Arlen Specter (Republican - Pennsylvania)

I hope that when the history of this crossroads is written about, and hopefully by historians living in an America that still exists, that the part these three played in this betrayal of all Americans is noted with all the disdain and disgust that every other Democrat will have earned who blindly supported this railroading of the American people.

What is a political party that allows those within its ranks to so willfully spit on the principles and responsibilities of the people they are elected to represent?

At least we know what to expect from the 21st century Democrat. But what these three have helped to orchestrate is beyond forgiveness.

Obama's Universal Voluntary Public Service

2009-02-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

Al Gore spoke recently to the National Youth Scholars in Washington DC during the inauguration festivities for Barack Obama. The audience included 3,000 children - our best and the brightest - including 12 year old fourth graders from across America. His message was frightening. Please tell me this doesn't send a chill up your spine?

Gore: "Parents try to tell their kids the right thing, you know, usually. I do."

Gore: "There are some things about our world that you know that older people don't know."

What do you think Al Gore was talking about? Yes, this was out of context in a lesson he was giving on the Civil Rights movement and his suggestion that while children were being taught to understand how prejudice was wrong, many parents didn't get it until the laws were changed. I could put the whole context here, but those two quotes above accurately express that underlying message he was making to the audience.

Was Gore telling these children to ignore their parents and believe others? Maybe to believe their teachers over their parents? Or perhaps government? Was he saying that their parents can be, and are often wrong? Is he saying that a 12 year old fourth grader, properly taught by our public schools, and correctly informed of crises like Climate Change or the need for redistribution and collectivism principles should stand up to the beliefs, knowledge, reason, and experience of their parents?

Here is how Glenn Beck reacted to it this morning:

Beck: "I'm trying to think where else this has been done. Soviet Russia, Nazi, Germany, Mussolini's Italy. In fact, the Nazis took an extra step. Not only did they indoctrinate the kids and tell them you're probably right, you know but your parents don't; in fact, here's the next step: Why don't you tell us what your parents are telling you. Are we having the new Hitler youth? Is that what this is? The new Hitler youth? I'm sorry, that's so politically incorrect. The new green guard. Man your station, 12-year-olds, your parents just don't know."

Now consider President Obama's calls for a civilian security force in America funded equally to that of the military, and how Gore's urging of children to ignore the reason of their parents would play into that agenda. Is Beck onto something?

At Wesleyan University not too long ago, Obama urged graduates not to pursue the American dream of success, but to serve others. But to serve who?

"You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should. But I hope you don't. Fulfilling your immediate wants and needs betrays a poverty of ambition."

Obama then brought it all together. "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

And what would this Obama "security force" do exactly? Something like an ACORN for youth? Promoting the ideals of the left using any methods available?

Last July at the University of Colorado Obama said, "We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges."

Yes, he said, "we will direct"! That will be direction on the priorities of government - Obama government.

Obama's stated plan is to "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

And what if they refuse to serve? Will this "voluntary" service be a condition for graduation? How many of your children now are already required to perform community service to graduate Junior High or High School? Your kids get to choose today what that service is, but not whether they have to perform it or not, right? What will you do when the type of service is directed by government? What would you do if your government demanded your children to serve in such a way that you objected, but your kids were taught to ignore your objections for some greater good?

First test of Obama voters

2009-01-28T15:36:00.001-08:00

So here we are, on the verge of the largest spending bill in the history of the United States. A 647-page list of Democrat pet-projects and handouts that will add a $1.2 trillion directly to the national debt ($825 billion plus life-time interest payments on it) at a time when there will be no increases in revenue to pay of any of it.

It is being called a Stimulus Bill, focused on jump-starting our economy. It has been written by Democrat leaders and the Obama White House, with nothing but an opportunity for Republicans to sit in a room with the president and criticize its myriad of pork-laden social-engineering and hand-outs. Many of you voted for Obama because of hope and change. And while I know your desire for change and hope for improvement of the economy is genuine, I now ask that you consider what is in this bill, and if you conclude that this is not the appropriate use of money intended to stimulate the economy, that you will immediately call on the president, this agent of change away from the earmarks, pork, and wasteful spending of the past, to veto this disaster full of liberal social spending and engineering.

Here is a summary of some of what we know is in this "Stimulus" bill.

* $335 million to prevent Sexually Transmitted Desease
* $4.19 billion for vote fraud organizations like ACORN, the Dems private "turn out the Democrat vote" machine
* $1 billion for the failing Amtrak system that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years
* $2 billion for child-care subsidies
* $50 million for "job creation"??
* $400 million for the National Endowment of the Arts
* $400 million for Global Warming research (I thought this was settled?)
* $2.4 billion for technologies to capture Carbon from the environment
* $650 million for digital TV converter boxes
* $8 billion for renewable energy
* $20 billion in business tax cuts that will likely not be used
* $6 billion for more mass transit
* $600 million for the government to buy new cars
* $7 billion to modernize federal buildings
* $150 for the Smithsonian
* $83 billion to people who don't pay any income taxes - those 40% of taxpayers who pay no income tax
* $81 billion for Medicaid - covert expansion of government health care
* $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
* $20 billion for food stamps
* $54 billion to government programs that the GAO and Congressional Budget Office classify as "ineffective" or unable to pass financial audits
* $66 billion for education, but earmarked to prohibit its use on private elementary or secondary schools
* Just $30 billion for fixing bridges and other highway projects
* Just $40 billion for worthwhile projects, such as broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects

According to the Wall Street Journal, just $90 billion of the $825 billion bill can actually be considered as stimulus for the economy. But we all know now, don't we, that any stimulus is just coincidental to the real intend of this bill, which is to spend a grotesque amount of money on pet Democrat programs?

Consider this. With $825 billion, every taxpayer in America could get a check for $6,500 to spend however they wish. How would that stimulate the economy? With interest, this bill will cost every American family $10,520 according to the Heritage Foundation.

But seriously, are any of you Obama voters outraged at the "politics as usual" that has returned to pork-laden spending bills in DC? Does anyone believe this is a economic stimulus bill, or is it really a government growth stimulus bill? Shocked at the lie of change that isn't change at all? Will any of you hold Obama accountable when he fails to veto this bill once Democrats ram it through the House and Senate?

The House just passed this right down party lines, with virtually no review or debate on its myriad of pork spending, 244 - 188.

NOT A SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR THIS DEBACLE. Welcome to "change".

Policies of "change" of the Messiah

2009-01-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

Three days into the new administration and the first actual actions by the Messiah are now more than simply words of hope and change.

His first action was to sign an Executive Order to close Guantanamo within 12 months. This decision was made despite a Pentagon briefing that 61 enemy combatants held and released from Guantanamo have reentered the War on Terror against the civilized world, and just as information was made public that Said Ali al-Shihri, suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch. Al-Shihri was once held and released from Guantanamo into the custody of the Saudi government, under pressure from Democrats and their liberal base to prevent this government from holding enemy combatants. This first action also was made with no plan whatsoever to where the prisoners currently held in Guantanamo will go once this high-security facility outside the United States is closed. Consider the false, but repeated charges against Bush of no exit strategy in Iraq? Bush has won that war, if Obama doesn't screw it up, and exit from Iraq is being calculated in months now, and not the decades that Democrats falsely charged in the campaign. So where is Obama's exit strategy once Guantanamo is closed? Does an exit strategy matter now to his supporters, or is that a standard only applied to Bush?

The next priority of Obama has been apparently to respond to the pro-abortion forces that were among his greatest election allies. Today Obama is to sign another Executive Order that will authorize use of taxpayer money, with our without our consent, to fund training and execution of abortions overseas. In simpler terms, without congressional action, the Messiah has approved the use of my tax dollars and yours to terminate the lives of unborn human beings. No vote. No debate. Just the signature of the new agent of change and hope. I would argue that the killing of unborn children offers those children little hope, unless of course an unborn child can hope to be killed?

So just three days into a new administration we have some real actions that will result in real change. The first real actions anyone can probably cite from Obama? A prison to hold the worst of America's enemies in the War on Terror will be closed with no plan to deal with these terrorists, and pro-abortion advocates are being handed taxpayer money to promote their destruction of life worldwide.

Have pro-life, pro-national security citizens of the United States given Obama sufficient time to "make the change we can believe in"? For this American, these acts alone have ended the honeymoon.

Does your income double every 10 years?

2009-01-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

Washington State Government spending is out of control. But that is nothing new for a government that's been dominated by Democrats for decades. I decided I wanted to understand just how quickly Democrats are exploding this government, and while you'd think that this data would be easily found on the web, it wasn't.

So for your consideration is the growth, or bloat, of this state's spending habits back to 1983. In advance I'll tell you it works out to an average biennial increase of 14.3%, or roughly 7.2% growth every year. That means a doubling of government spending every 10 years.

In Washington, the 2008 budget was 5.3 times the size of the budget in 1983. The numbers below reflect total Washington State Spending. The includes operating and capital funds both within the General Fund (unrestricted) and restricted funds the Legislature can't touch.

Biennium	Spending	Increase
	(Billions)
1983-1985	$12.96
1985-1987	15.02	15.90%
1987-1989	17.18	14.38%
1989-1991	21.41	24.62%
1991-1993	23.99	12.05%
1993-1995	29.55	23.18%
1995-1997	34.1	15.40%
1997-1999	39.4	15.54%
1999-2001	44.54	13.05%
2001-2003	49.53	11.20%
2003-2005	53.46	7.93%
2005-2007	60.52	13.21%
2007-2009	69.18	14.31%

Now if spending is doubling every 10 years, what do you think your taxes are doing every 10 years? Is your income keeping pace? Mine isn't.

How does it feel watching your nation implode?

2009-01-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry for another rant, but these are remarkable times.

Liberals destroyed the credit markets and the banking system by undermining them with Fannie and Freddie. Their unions have destroyed Detroit and the auto industry by forcing uncompetitive salaries, benefits and pensions. Uncompetitive CAFE standards from Democrats in Congress have forced Detroit to build inferior cars that people don't want to buy, while Democrats continue to prevent America from pursuing energy independence with domestic drilling bans and pursuit of currently unattainable alternatives, all the while promoting fear and doom with their Climate Change con, even as temperatures cool and normal cyclical patterns are evident, and science dismisses the CO2 scare with known science and historical realities.

Every industry under the sun, and every Democrat government is now lining up at the trough for a handout, including even the porn industry (not to be confused with sick governments that profit selling death-sticks, alcoholic beverages, and from destroying people addicted to gambling schemes reserved for government lotteries and native American casinos).

Bush put moderating the misery of our economic troubles ahead of letting the economy crash and burn completely, by starting up the printing presses and throwing fiscal constraint and free market capitalism to the winds. But not before he was blamed for the liberals' mess and a socialist was elected to the presidency.

Now the printing presses are being geared up to be put into "trillion here and trillion there" mode so Obama, the socialists and the liberals throughout government can buy the votes to hold onto power until our economy does literally crash and burn. And it's becoming increasingly likely that Obama's new foreign policy strategy of isolation and appeasement to Iran, North Korea, China and Venezuela will get us into a good old-fashioned World War in time to hide the real cause of our total economic collapse that is coming as the direct result of liberal fiscal and foreign policy insanity.

And all the while the Pravda media gushes over the Messiah, ignores and spins the corruption and policy dangers throughout the Democrat Party, and acts as the Democrats' PR machine.

Yeah, it's an interesting time, eerily paralleling the 1930s on the eve of a decade back then of unparalleled loss of life throughout the world.

I hope I'm wrong. But one thing about being conservative is the tendency to put reality, reason, and logic above irrational belief, ignorance and unjustified optimism.

Even in crisis Gregoire can't cut a budget

2009-01-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

For the last 4 years, Chris Gregoire and her Democrat allies in Washington have been on a spending spree. Such a spree that the biennial budget for 2007-2008 was $15 billion higher than the biennial budget of 2003-2004 that Gregoire built her first budget on. Yes, $15 billion of growth in 4 years! That is a 29.39% increase in state spending.

Now facing a $5-$7 billion deficit, Gregoire has sharpened her pencil to cut the budget, and she's holding - for now - to her "no tax" election pledge. She's already getting sued by state unions for her "drastic" cuts, and Democrats in the Legislature are already screaming. The curious thing is that Gregoire's proposed budget isn't a dime smaller than the 2007-2008 budget. It actually increases the biennial budget by over $200 million a year.

No doubt most Democrats couldn't care less about fiscal sanity, as long as they get their share of other people's money. But at some point the folks who pay the taxes that Democrats spend are going to say "no more". Then what will Democrats do?

REALITY CHECK: GREED

2008-10-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Liberals like to call the Bush years the Decade of Greed. By their thinking, people getting educated and working to achieve the American Dream makes them greedy if they choose to use their wealth to improve their lives and the lives of their children and family. Generally the result of education, hard work, and taking risks, the opportunity to earn more is the incentive that grows business, creates jobs, generates more taxes, and helps our economy grow. But let's talk about real greed. That would be the greed of the Obama years should he win on November 4.

The definition of the word, "greed" is simply; "the excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves." Consider all the arguments that could be spawned by this definition of greed?

Let's start with the first part; "the excessive desire for more than one needs." Who decides what is more than one needs? Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are going to decide. Yes, Obama and the socialists in Congress will define what is appropriate or acceptable. And as they do, so they will suppress the incentive that has made the American economy the most productive economy in the world, and America the leader of the world. Barack Obama will know what is too much, and if you dare to pursue something that one of Obama's constituency can't afford, watch out, because Obama will see to it that you can't afford it either, or he'll punish you for the right to spend your money where you wish.

But how about the second part of the definition of greed; "the excessive desire for more than one deserves." Who is going to decide what someone deserves? Yes, Obama and the socialists in Congress again. Barack and the Democrats in Congress will decide whether you deserve the fruits of your own labor, or whether the fruits of your labor should be taken from you and given to that unemployed high school dropout who refuses to seek out additional education or training.

Not to leave all the blame with the socialists in the Democrat Party; who will have given them the power to take from some to give to others? Yes, the people who vote for Obama will be the ultimate cause of the coming age of American socialism. And what is motivating a huge percentage of them? Yes, it is pure greed.

They are the portion of America that already pays little or nothing to make government work. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay less then 3% of all the income taxes. Their retirement payroll deductions, often cited by the left as taxes they do pay, doesn't begin to cover the costs of their Social Security or Medicare either. They are the ones buying into Obama's class warfare argument and the socialist promise of sharing the wealth. They are just fine with the idea of being given other people's money. Therefore, it is many of the Obama supporters, that in general, demand more than they need, and certainly more than they deserve.

The left can call the Bush years the decade of greed, but if you really want to label a decade, or a group of Americans as greedy, there can be no more obvious group of Americans than supporters of Obama, or Democrats in general, who couldn't care less about any of Obama's or the Democrat's advertised policies, except one. They are waiting for their check from the government. Yes, that check paid for with other people's money.

For those paying attention, the real Decade of Greed has just begun, coinciding with the Age of Obama Socialism that could be ushered in on November 4. But it doesn't have to happen. Joe Biden tried to tie patriotism to paying more taxes, even though the targeted top 5% of taxpayers already pay more than 60% of all the income taxes. But for those that pay little or no income taxes, wouldn't it be a truly patriotic act to say no to class warfare and income redistribution? Wouldn't the real patriotic act be for those with less to take responsibility for themselves and refuse to bought with other people's money?

Saying a loud "NO" to socialism would be the most patriotic thing any American could do on November 4.

Election day will be the real defining moment for America. On November 4 we will all know whether we are a nation of patriots, or a nation driven by the greed of those at the bottom of our society's income scale.

New video on challenge to Obama's eligibility to be president

2008-10-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Why is Berg trying to obtain the vaulted long-form birth certificate for Barack Obama?

The original images posted on the Internet released by the Obama campaign were highly suspicious, pulled, and discredited. Recently, FactCheck.org, which is funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $160 million school reform effort funded by and approved by, among others, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, from 1995 until the end of 2001, posted an article claiming that they had been given access to the "short-form" birth certificate created, issued, and stamped in June 2007 by the Department of Health in Hawaii and held on file with the Obama campaign. That report is here:

It does seem like quite a coincidence that of all the investigative sources across the country, that this website, funded directly by Obama's actions with the Annenberg Foundation, is the one that has obtained, examined, and posted the conclusions related to their investigation. It is also less than comforting that the certificate was physically produced just over a year ago, albeit stamped by a government employee working within a Democrat-run administration. If the certificate is genuine, then it attests to the fact that in June 2007, when it was produced, that the Hawaii database listed Obama as born in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is this glaring shortcoming of the short-form, though, that appears to have led Berg in his lawsuit to request a certified copy of the original "vaulted" "long-form" birth certificate that the state is required by law to have on file. That form would be the original paper form produced immediately after Obama's birth in 1961, and not a newly printed certificate based on data that could easily have been manipulated within the DOH's records database.

This from the FactCheck article:

"The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response."

Note that FactCheck doesn't describe the real difference between the short and long-form documents, other than the info in them. But the long-form document is the paper form filled out at the time of birth. It is not created by printing information out of a modern database. FactCheck didn't think its readers needed to really understand the difference.

So why doesn't the Hawaii DOH offer a copy of the long-form birth certificate? Because all the data in the long-form is not included in the database? No. You can't print out a copy of the original long-form from a database unless it was scanned into it and stored in an image document type, like a PDF of JPG. But once you've scanned it, you've opened the door to manipulation of that document. And if there is no long-form document, then you have nothing to scan in the first place. Regardless, you can't store a piece of paper in a digital database. Paper is stored in a physical location. Locked up hopefully where it can exist for decades. Like in a vault.

Anyone who works with databases also knows that data is easily manipulated in a database, and that without the proper protections, Mickey Mouse could be entered into the Hawaii DOH database and given a birth date, and when a short-form certificate is requested, a certified and stamped printout could be obtained without much issue. How and from what source was Obama's birth information entered into that modern digital database? But if someone asked for a copy of the original stored paper copy of the long-form for Mickey from 1961, it would be much more difficult to come up with one if one never existed. Creating a forgery would be a real challenge, in fact.

For an office as important as President of the United States, all Berg seems to be asking is for proof beyond data entered into a modern database that this candidate, was in fact, born in the USA. And given the contradiction between family members when asked the simple question of where Obama was born, Berg's request is not unreasonable. This could all be settled if a copy of that 47 year old long-form document would be provided.

In contrast, John McCain's eligibility to be president was also challenged. Born overseas to two US citizens, McCain immediately released all the relevant information and the issue of his eligibility was put to rest. If Obama was born in Hawaii, why is he seemingly doing everything he can to avoid satisfying this basic Constitutional requirement?

If it exists, would not Barack Obama be able to request such a copy with a simple phone call or signed request if required? If it exists, why is he fighting the request? No one can doubt that the Obama campaign does not understand the difference between the short and long forms. And yet, they are content to leave these questions unanswered and rely on a document printed from a modern database one year ago.

Can a socialist fix an economy with more tax and spend?

2008-10-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

The National Debt is today is $10,187,754,347,408.87. Yes, that's $10 trillion dollars.
On September 11, 2001 the National Debt was $5,773,172,068,291.89.

Reality Check: The US economy was in recession in 2000 after the Tech Bubble exploded on Wall Street. We were attacked on 9/11/2001 by terrorists that not only killed 3,000 Americans, but wreaked devastation on the US economic system. In 2002 we went to war in Afghanistan, and in 2003 we went to war in 2003. Military spending has nearly doubled since 9/11, and an American people adequately informed by the national media of this nation's many financial problems knows that the growth in Bush's Military spending is the cause of the huge increase in the debt, and that Bush's failed economic policies have resulted in the rich not paying enough. Right?

Consider this. To receive the necessary 60 votes in the US Senate to bring any spending bill to the floor for a vote (The Cloture Rule), even with Republicans in the majority, Bush had to buy liberal Democrats and Republicans to get his funding for the Military. That means the Bush was forced to sign onto tons and tons of earmarks, pork and other bribes to get the votes to even bring Defense spending bills to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

So I want to make the following charge. Bush did not fail the American people. He did not invite the 9/11 attack and he had no choice to respond in defense of the American people. But I'd like to drive a stake through the heart of the left's lie that Bush created the huge National Debt, just as they pinned the growth of the Debt under Reagan in the 1980's.

Below is a graph derived directly from US Government Historical Budget data. Here is the source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

This data is adjusted for inflation. It is dead-on accurate and the real story of federal spending going back 28 years, from Jimmy Carter's last 2 budgets in 1980 and 1981, through last year 2007.

I ask you to look at 2 things. First, spending on National Defense, even now fighting two wars, is barely more than we were spending near the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. Second, look at Social Spending. After adjusting for inflation, Social Spending has more than doubled in the same period, and if you look at the slope of the curve, is no where near slowing down.

Conclusion. If you think the most liberal member of the United States Senate, along with a liberal majority of both the House and the Senate chomping at the bit to adopt his tax and spend policies is going to fix this economy, I've got some Default Credit Swaps to sell you at a bargain.

Is Obama eligible to be president?

2008-10-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

Is Barack Obama a US Citizen? Is he a "natural born" citizen, which is required under Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, before a person is eligible to run for the highest elected office on the planet? Seems this would be an easy question for Obama to lay to rest. But given that he's fighting a challenge for basic citizenship documents in the US District Court in Pennsylvania, what should we think?

Less than 2 weeks ago a motion was filed by Obama and the DNC in the case, Berg v. Obame et al, to dismiss the case. Why argue to dismiss a challenge if simple documentation would end the case? Even more curious, did Obama and the DNC argue for dismissal on the merits of the case? No. They argued that an American citizen, who is also a member of the Democrat Party, did not have legal standing to ask Obama for proof of his presidential eligibility.

Many critical questions have been asked by Mr. Berg in his challenge. Was Obama born in Hawaii, or in Kenya? His birth has been "registered" in both countries, and Obama has refused to provide a certified birth certificate. His family is all over the map on the place of his birth, with some family members stating one hospital in Hawaii, with others alleging a different hospital. In Kenya, Obama's family, including his grandmother, are alleged to have stated that he was born in Kenya.

But place of birth isn't enough to lay this issue to rest. Even if Obama was a natural born American at birth, he was taken to Indonesia at age 5 by his mother, and in Indonesia, appears to have taken Indonesian citizen to get into Indonesian schools. His mother would have been required to renounce her citizenship before marrying an Indonesian national, and young Barry appears to have been declared an Indonesian citizen, and Muslim, to attend Indonesian school. Obama has denied ever being a Muslim.

If Obama became an Indonesian citizen, and documents in Indonesia are alleged to affirm this, then in a country that does not allow dual citizenship, Obama was no longer a US citizen. And upon his return to the United States years later, if no efforts were made on his behalf to apply to become a naturalized citizen, then Obama would, legally speaking, not even be a US citizen today.

To throw more gasoline on the fire, Obama visited Pakistan in 1981 at the age of 20. At the time, Pakistan was on the US State Department's travel ban list. Non-Muslims were not even welcomed into Pakistan without the person's embassy's support on official business. Obama certainly was not traveling on government official business for the US, Indonesia, or Kenya. So how did Obama get into Pakistan? Was he using an Indonesian passport? Did it identify him has a "non-US" Indonesian citizen and did it declare his religion to be Muslim?

To a growing number of left-leaning Americans, the US Constitution seems little more than an old document to be rewritten to satisfy the "progressive" view of the world. But today it is a document that, I hope, the majority of Americans still hold as the foundation of this nation, and one of its most basic provisions is the requirement of citizenship and natural born status before any candidate is eligible to hold the office of president.

Mr. Obama, it is not an unreasonable request, and in fact, an absolutely essential duty of any candidate for president to provide whatever documentation is necessary to verify the candidate's right to hold the office of president. Why are you fighting it? What do you have to hide? The longer you refuse to prove your eligibility to be president, the more citizens of this nation will wonder whether we're about to elect an illegal alien to the highest office of president.

Here is the legal brief filed by Mr. Berg in the case just a week ago. The case is now pending a ruling by the judge in the case. The unsigned order is not the ruling, but the plaintiff's request for relief in this case. I know that Obama supporters will think this crazy, and frankly, not important. But if this is not important, then what is?

And how ironic would this be for a candidate who has used technicalities in the past to force opponents off the ballot? But if this nation is still a constitutional republic, isn't it vital that the US Constitution be respected?

S. 190 - “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005”

2008-09-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

The history of S. 190 - “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005” is at the heart of our current crisis. If you're reading this you found it by searching any of the keywords within it. I can tell you that filtering through all the bull to get to this was a challenge, but if we don't learn from this situation, we'll certainly be destined to repeat it again, and again, and again.

Proposed during the 109th Congress, the bill could have reigned in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government sponsored lending institutions for the poor, before they had led the entire lending industry to ruin. And while Senator Barack Obama is benefiting in the polls from a public perception that Republicans are the villains, facts show the real actions that led to this debacle are almost exclusively owned by Democrats, who are now leading efforts to repair what they helped to ruin.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at the heart of this crisis. As government-sponsored lending institutions, the Clinton administration turned a Carter program in 1995 into a program to buy votes by giving homes to Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford them. With these loans pouring into the competitive private lending market, other private lenders fought to compete with the giveaways, with the more greedy and unscrupulous leaders of these lenders even eclipsing Fannie and Freddie in risky loans. And while the government used Fannie and Freddie to buy up this risky debt to keep the “vote buying” dollars flowing to more and more Americans who could never repay it, the time bomb was ticking to a lending meltdown.

In 2003, 5 years ago, Republicans took control of the Senate. On July 31, 2003, in the 108th Congress, recognizing the dangers in Fannie and Freddie, and after hearings where Fannie and Freddie were taken to the carpet for improper practices, Senators John Sununu (R-NH), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) introduced legislation to strengthen and improve the oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Trent Lott and John McCain were co-sponsors. This bill (S. 1508) passed the Senate Banking Committee, with Democrats opposing. With the opposition by Democrats, traditionally seen as evidence that a bill will never pass the 60-vote cloture rule for a floor vote, the bill died in the 108th Congress.

On January 26, 2005, hoping for a different result in the new congress, Sununu, Hagel, and Dole re-introduced legislation (S. 190) to improve oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill incorporated many provisions of the Sununu, Hagel, Dole legislation from the prior congress. It passed out of the Committee on another party-line vote of 11 – 9 on July 28, 2005. But again, without a single Democrat vote, the bill was doomed if brought to the floor for the critical 60-vote cloture. Only 41 Democrat votes would doom it. In a growing negative atmosphere created by the left based on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a fight over an unreported crisis brewing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was likely considered futile. Again the bill was not scheduled to go to the floor where Democrats would certainly have defeated it by voting against cloture and prevented an up or down vote.

In May 2006, John McCain signed on as a co-sponsor of the stalled bill, in the hopes of gathering more co-sponsors and getting a vote in the 109th Congress before the bill would die. McCain would state, “I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190,to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.” The bill did not obtain any of the necessary support from the Democrats, and once again, the bill died when the 109th Congress ended.

On March 14, 2006, Sununu and Hagel (R-NE) introduced an amendment to the Lobbying Reform Bill that would review the lobbying activities of GSE’s such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were becoming powerful lobbyists, funneling huge amounts of campaign money to Senate leaders, including Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Of the top 25 recipients, 18 were Democrats with top Democrats exceeded 6-figure contributions from these federally-backed and controlled institutions. The amendment would have directed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the lobbying activities of GSEs to determine whether these activities further their statutory housing mission. The amendment would also require the Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) to conduct annual audits of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Foundations. The Amendment was defeated along party lines.

On April 12, 2007, Sununu, Hagel, Dole, and Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) re-introduced legislation (S. 1100) to improve oversight of GSE’s. The major reforms in their bill were included in final legislation passed the Senate on July 26, 2008 and was signed into law on July 30, 2008. But it was too late, with the lending industry already beginning to fall, led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

McCain's specific comments, on May 25, 2006:

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were "illusions deliberately and systematically created" by the company's senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae's former chief executive officer, OFHEO's report shows that over half of Mr. Raines' compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator's examination of the company's accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

Let's here Democrats refute the words and actions of Democrats here:

Imagine a nation where the media reports the facts

2008-09-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Be ready with the pause button, and look at who got America into this mess. Also note who tried to get us out, and then ask yourself, how in the hell can we rely on congressmen who made this mess to fix it? Oh, and ask yourself how Obama and his campaign can have such gall to blame everyone except Democrats for this crisis?

If you're like me, it should make you furious!

UPDATE
Well, YouTube has killed the first video again, but here are a couple more videos.

Campaign of lies

2008-09-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

And I'm not referring to Obama's campaign, even though it is growing daily in desperate falsehoods. The campaign of lies I'm referring to is the campaign being run by the old media in this nation to help Obama con his way to victory. Only in America could the media portray a socialist as a savior and make it even close.

But today's New York Times hit-piece on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is just the latest. Not the worst. Not the first. But just the latest. Oh, and a complete and total lie.

Liberal propaganda rags like the New York Times, or the Seattle Times and Seattle PI, simply hope that the majority of Americans will hear the lies, but never read the truth. Whether through manipulation of polls, or outright fraud in journalism, the old media in America is the real villain. More so than the liberal Democrats who thwart reforms and blame other for crises, or root for defeat and surrender in Iraq. No, the national media is what forms perception within the majority of the electorate, and it is the force that is leading Americans to support and vote for the vary people who would destroy America for a little bit of power.

Democrats love disasters they can exploit

2008-08-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore: Hurricane Coming During GOP Convention 'Proof There Is a God in Heaven'

Controversial filmmaker admits he's delighted to see a natural disaster potentially interfere with the Republican event.

Moore's statement and glee over the hardship about to befall thousands of Americans giving Demcorats another crisis to exploit speaks for itself and requires no further comment.

Then just recently I heard Congresswoman Rosa DeLora (D-CT) on Fox highlighting Democrats' prayers and efforts to help the region where Gustav is about to hit. If only I and others believed it. The sorry reality is that the translation of her statement more likely reads, we're here and ready to exploit another natural disaster for political gain. In fact, it was during the Democrat Convention that many Democrats and liberals in the media started laying the groundwork for the suspension of the Republican Convention, because of the pending hurricane.

Then she started in on the old, tired attacks on Bush and Cheney for their efforts during and after Katrina. And again, this Democrat distorted the fact that Bush and Cheney were powerless until the governor of Louisiana, a Demcorat, asked for help. She didn't ask. New Orleans mayor Nagin, a Democrat, also didn't ask for help until late into the disaster. And as defined by law, Bush had to wait until the governor and mayor had made a debacle out of the disaster. But the Democrats and media didn't hesitate to start the blame of the federal government for their slow response, while ignoring the dereliction of duty by their governor and mayor.

There may be a higher being helping the Democrats, but it sure the heck isn't God. I tend to believe their ally comes from a considerably warmer climate to the south.

If Obama's words mean nothing, what's left?

2008-08-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Since the only thing Obama supporters appear to hear are the words of their candidate Barrack Obama, here are his words on the incredibly important issue of last year's Iraq surge. How Obama followers will react to the clear contradictions in his words is predictable. But with nothing but words to justify their loyalty to him, it's not surprising that even Obama's words are ignored when they become inconvenient.

Obama on January 7th, 2007 defending his opposition to the surge:
"We can send 15 thousand more troops, 20 thousand more troops, 30 thousand more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately who believes that is going to make a substantial difference in the situation on the ground."

Obama to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Jan. 10, 2007: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal."

Obama on March 19th, 2007 to Larry King that the surge won't work:
"But here's the thing Larry, even those who support the escalation have acknowledged that 20 thousand, 30 thousand, or 40 thousand more troops placed temporarily in places like Baghdad are (not) going to make a long term difference."

Obama on Meet the Press on November 11th, 2007 following the party spin that the surge is failing:
"…not only had we not seen improvements, but we are actually witnessing a worsening of the situation there."

Obama on January 5th, 2008 beginning to rewrite history:
"Now I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform that we would see an improvement in the situation and we would see a reduction in the violence."

The following statement is a particularly troubling statement, given that Obama appears to admit that political posturing is more important than success in Iraq, or even the lives of thousands of people, both American and Iraqi.

Obama on Nightline on July 20th, 2008 asked, "if you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?" Obama's response:
"No, because, keep in mind… These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I’m absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with."

Obama to Brian Williams on July 24th 2008 stating that the surge was destined to have a positive impact:
"What I said at the time, even at the time of the debate in the surge was that when you put 30,000 American troops in of course its going to have an impact, there's no doubt about that."

Obama after his recent visit to Iraq:
"You see the activity taking place, the people in the shops, the traffic on the streets, clearly there’s been an enormous improvement."

If Barrack Obama was president in 2007, and his response to the deaths and mayhem in Iraq was to pull American forces out, what would be the situation today in Iraq? How many tens of thousands of Iraqis would be dead today? How much higher would the price of gasoline be? Would he now be preparing to send troops back to Iraq under greater threats as he promised last year.

Change we can believe in? This evolution and attempt to rewrite his own position is exactly why record, experience, and honesty is so vitally important for a Commander in Chief. And it also demonstrates a clear example of his inexperience and arrogance related to a critical foreign policy issue with several nations and millions of people at risk. In this instance, he was clearly on the wrong side of an otherwise very successful outcome. An outcome that his party has worked to undermine since 2003.

Gravity and Global Climate

2008-08-26T11:53:00.001-07:00

This guy's either full of bull, or he may be on to something. If his correlation is as he claims, wouldn't it be funny if climate change was driven by the moon?

Climate similar to the 1800s within the next 15 years

More Oil Facts

2008-08-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

US "Domestic" Oil Production today is roughly 5.7 million barrels a day. The US uses roughly 20.7 million barrels a day. World consumption is roughly 82.2 million barrels per day. We import the difference between that 20.7 million needed and 5.7 million domestically produced. Why? Because the cost of domestic production on lands currently available to the oil industry is too high when compared to the costs to import cheaper oil from foreign sources.

To increase the US Domestic Oil Production, we need to develop fields where the volume and rate of production will justify the costs. Fields like those in Anwar or on the Continental Shelf will support those rates and volumes.

For example, the Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico, built and owned by BP, cost $1 billion to construct. That one single platform could reach 250,000 barrels of oils a day and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas at peak production. One platform like that built by the US would increase our domestic production by 4.5%. And that is just one such platform.

Barrack Obama wants to spend $150 billion over 10 years on his plan to subsidize alternatives and subsidize the purchase of gas by Americans. With $15 billion a year, and Nancy Pelosi's support in lifting the ban imposed by Congress, we could fund up to 15 of these platforms a year for a decade, with the potential to more than eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. But honestly, we'd probably only have to build a couple before world markets and speculation would recognize that supply is not being threatened by leftist supply side barriers.

So why aren't we drilling more on the OCS? Why is there not a single proposal from the left for a lifting of the offshore drilling ban? The answer is simple. Democrats do not want to give up the energy issue. They do not want to upset their environmental base. And most importantly, they want to drive Americans into government-operated mass transit systems and out of their private automobiles.

Just one more bit of info. The US Strategic Oil Reserve is not some big tank that can last us for years. The reserve currently holds 700 million barrels of oil. That's roughly 35 days at our current rate of consumption. So Democrat proposals to tap the reserve is not a solution, but only a dangerous ploy to deceive Americans into the belief that the oil companies and the Bush Administration are sitting some vast reservoir that could be tapped to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. The reserve is there to help our economy in a real emergency, not a crisis created by Democrats who are refusing to let America contribute to the supply side of the global energy equation.

Tire Inflation and Tune-Ups to save America

2008-08-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

McCain stated recently, referring to Obama's suggestion that off-shore drilling for oil could be offset with proper tire inflation and tune-ups:

"I totally agree that tire inflation will help the higher gas prices"

Some are calling McCain's statement a flip-flop, but this look at the issue a little more closely.

Here is Obama's words, “We could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups.”

So let's put some facts to this statement. One oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico can produce 200,000 barrels of oil per day. That equates to nearly 75 million barrels a year from just one platform.

At 20 million barrels per day, the US uses nearly 7.5 billion barrels of oil a year. That means that for each new off-shore drilling platform, 1% of US domestic oil use would be satisfied. If we built 70 such platforms, we could be energy independent. Obama calls that a "gimmick"?? How about 20? Would 10 new platforms, or 2 million new barrels a day, be a gimmick?

So how much oil does Obama assume from drilling to be offset by tire inflation and tune-ups? Drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf today is roughly 1.25 million barrels a day, or just over 6% of US domestic oil use.

But here is the flaw in Obama's numbers. His claim only is valid if every car in America is out of tune, using the wrong oil, in need of a new air filter, and on the road with 4 under-inflated tires. That simply is not correct. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics do not back up these assumptions. If only 25% of cars have under-inflated, and less than half the cars out there need tune-ups, oil changes or air filters, the savings from 100% US car efficiency doesn't come close to the 1.25 million barrels currently being produced from the OCS. More importantly, it doesn't begin to solve the supply side problems we face with growing world demand, or argue against new production on the OCS as McCain is now proposing.

Remember, 70 new offshore platforms and we could halt all foreign importing of oil.

But taking Obama's words at face value, what would be Obama's plan to enforce tire inflation and tune-ups? Would we spend billions on law enforcement to pull people over for tire inflation checks? Would they write tickets for out-of-tune vehicles? Would he build a national network of free tune-up centers, at taxpayer expense, to require regular tune-ups, or require quarterly tune-ups, paid for by the car owner, to guarantee that cars are always working at optimum efficiency?

The point is that as solutions go, this one is nonsense. Cars will always have under-inflated or over-inflated tires. There will always be cars in need of tune-ups. If you want more stupid solutions, mandate that no vehicles out there can get less than 50 MPH. Make SUVs illegal. Require people to live no further than 5 miles from their job. Reduce road congestion that wastes significant amounts of fuel. Or maybe ban vacations. In other words, say goodbye to America.

A plan is something that addresses demand and supply. Democrats are focused solely on demand, and only on demand in the US. But in a world where energy use is growing due to foreign growth in demand, we can either do something on the supply side, or we can let world demand drive the price up and let it destroy our economy and productivity. At a minimum, it is way too important an issue to let it be used for politicians' personal political gains.

As for the claim that McCain flip-flopped, what he stated was simply that proper tire inflation and tune-ups would save gasoline. He did not endorse Obama's claim of the amount of savings, and he has not endorsed it as a viable strategy to solve our energy problem.

Another one of the left's energy frauds

2008-08-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

I saw an interesting story on the local news last night. Not anything really new, but it highlighted for me the media's continuing efforts to promote the anti-fossil fuel agenda. Full of optimism and hope, the story was aimed at making anything appear possible. But in reality, it was just another anti-fossil fuels story based on false assumptions and ignorance of basic science.

Arnold Schwartzneger signed a bill sometime back to build hydrogen stations across California to support Hydrogen fuel cells for cars that would run electric motors. Great idea, huh? Good for the environment and will help our energy problems. Right? Wrong!

Only briefly did the story point out that the refueling stations, including proposed refueling stations that could be built at private homes, required Natural Gas to create the electricity to power the electrolysis to separate the Hydrogen from water. Laws of physics demand "at least" as much energy to produce the Hydrogen as will be returned from the Hydrogen when used in electric cars or to provide electricity to the home. So this added step doesn't help our energy problem at all, and in fact, this extra step and losses due to inefficiency actually would make our energy problems worse. Oh, and as for pollution, how does burning fossil fuels to power the electrolysis change anything for the environment, except of course having to burn more for the extra electrolysis step? Nuclear Power? Would take decades to build the plants sufficient to be effective.

I thought, why is this nation doing this? If we have to burn more Natural Gas, Diesel, Coal, or build nuclear power plants to provide the electricity to support the electrolysis to create the hydrogen, and the process of going from fossil fuels/nuclear to electricity to hydrogen and then back to electricity is nowhere near 100% efficient, how crazy is this plan? The only conclusion is that it is all being driven by politics.

In a perfect universe, the availability of cheap and clean energy would be wonderful. But this universe isn't perfect. The miracle of fossil fuels is about as close as humanity could hope for, at least until science and technology progress to the point where we can harness some form of energy at lower cost and better for the environment. But contrary to what environmentalists would admit, advancements in environmental technologies are cleaning up the environment from industrialization's early years across this nation. For example, anyone who visits Southern California knows that the air is far better now than 10-20 years ago. The environmental problems in the US are not getting worse, but getting better. The goal should be to get newer industrialized countries to implement those technologies so they can grow and improve life there with minimal impacts on the environment, instead of providing this distraction, driven by the lie of man-made Global Warming, that some miracle energy source is just around the corner that will save the planet, while they continue their grotesquely polluting ways until that happens. We'll soon see how well China covers up its huge pollution problems during the Olympics that began today.

But that is what exposes the real drive by the environmentalists and their political allies on the left, in that they show little concern with countries around the world that are polluting the planet, but focus all their attention on driving Americans out of their cars and into government transportation systems that give those same politicians even more power and control over our lives. I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that this nation can abandon fossil fuels in our lifetimes needs to stop getting their science from the evening news or politicians, and check into reality.

Here is a great column describing some of the hurdles in Barrack Obama's plans for energy independence:

The Green Hornet

Change we can believe in

2008-07-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Definition: Barrack Obama’s ability to change his positions

Obama has insisted that he wants a phased withdrawal from Iraq, with all soldiers home in 16 months.

Now Obama has changed his mind. Before going to Iraq he said, “I am going to do a thorough assessment when I’m there. When I go to Iraq and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.” Obama has changed is position again, hasn’t he? Pullout within 16 months is now “will continue to refine my policies.”

Less than a year ago, Obama was winning praises from the left for opposing legal immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the US Government in terrorist surveillance. He promised to filibuster any bill that included immunity.

Today Obama will support legislation that includes immunity for companies helping in terrorist surveillance.

Barrack Obama was a huge supporter of Campaign Finance Reform. It was a point of many speeches on TV and in interviews.

Once he started raising big bucks, though, he found that he would be able to raise as much as three times the money without public financing and the associated spending limits. Obama has abandoned the limits defined under that campaign finance reform, and is the first presidential nominee since Watergate, of either party, to reject those campaign spending limits.

Sen. Obama was a strong supporter of gun control. He strongly supported the handgun ban in Washington DC. Then last month the Supreme Court struck down the Washington DC ban, stating that Americans have a right to own a firearm.

Obama suddenly claimed that his position was basically the same as the Supreme Court’s.

Obama has stated that while he supports civil unions for same-sex couples, he believed that legal marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Just last week, in a letter to a gay rights organization, Obama stated that he opposed the California ballot measure that would overturn that state’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage. Obama called the initiative “discriminatory and divisive.”

Despite out of control gas and fuel prices, Obama has opposed new drilling, new refining, new mining, and construction of nuclear power plants.

With the shifting this week of more and more Democrat’s to favoring more oil drilling, perhaps we’ve been misunderstanding the Obama campaign’s promise of “change we can believe in”? Perhaps it is only a matter of time before Obama will change his mind on oil drilling too.

CO2 driven by Temp, not the other way around

2008-03-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

The real inconvenient truth Al Gore doesn't want you to know is that historical CO2 has lagged behind temperature, and not the other way around. When temperatures increase, so does CO2 levels. When temperatures drop, CO2 levels decrease.

Note the CO2 curves are generally to the left of the temperature curves. This shows that temperature trends, driven by the sun and its solar cycle, drive atmospheric CO2. Yes, man has increased the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, but there is zero evidence that the increase in CO2 by man has caused any form or global temperature changes. This relatively insignificant greenhouse gas appears able to increase and decrease with little to no effect on global temperatures.

Can fear, defeatism, and negativity save America?

2007-06-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

After watching this, ask yourself if Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton are the solution to America's problems?

And if you answer, "yes", then God help America.

Global Warming driven by the Sun? Say it can't be so!

2007-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

For all those followers of the man-made Global Warming religion, the sun's output is NOT static, and has not been static.

Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming

Global Warming in a single image:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-05-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

See the side of the Global Warming debate that the media doesn't want Americans to see.

Go to Google Video to watch the rest of "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

Update:

Per NOAA: The average temperature in April 2007 for the United States was 51.7 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 47th coolest (66th warmest) April in 113 years.

So... Is CO2 down this year? Or just maybe is CO2 irrelevant and other factors, like solar activity and its variation, the real cause of warming and cooling?

Here is the crisis the left is defending. Minuscule levels of atmospheric CO2 continue to rise (160 parts per million) as a result of industrialization, with the bulk in the last 60 years, but where is that steady increase in temperatures that "grant-driven" science and its political backers allege? More than a century of measurements that vary themselves as a result of technology, but where is this crisis?

Don't simply accept that rantings of Al Gore, liberal Democrats, radical environmentalists desperate for a crisis, or the mainstream media that was alleging Global Cooling in the 1970's! Understand that man-made Global Warming is nothing but a man-made crisis for a political benefit, that will have dire consequences on developing nations and both foreign and domestic economies.

Why must we go to Baghdad for optimism?

2007-04-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

Compare the optimism and perspective from this column with the perception promoted by the Democrats and the old media.

The young men of little education--earnest displaced villagers with the ways of the countryside showing through their features and dialect and shiny suits--who guarded me through Baghdad, spoke of old terrors, and of the joy and dignity of this new order. Children and nephews and younger brothers of men lost to the terror of the Baath, they are done with the old servitude. They behold the Americans keeping the peace of their troubled land with undisguised gratitude. It hasn't been always brilliant, this campaign waged in Iraq. But its mistakes can never smother its honor, and no apology for it is due the Arab autocrats who had averted their gaze from Iraq's long night of terror under the Baath.

If only those who hated America would rely on the truth, for a change, and put the politics and hatred aside. Absent the chronic lies, deceit, and distortion of reality coming from the left, we might all be enjoying good news from Iraq.

History does seem to repeat itself. Only the names of those Americans working to defeat America have changed.

WSJ - Iraq in the Balance

Huge increases in CO2 with little increase in temperature - is it really CO2 or just Solar cycles?

2007-03-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, not a climatologist here. But maybe someone can tackle a question on the effect of CO2 on temperature.

Science argues that the temperature of the Earth without the Greenhouse effect would be 0 degrees F. The result of CO2 in our atmosphere adds 59 degrees F for an average planetary temperature of 59 degrees F.

Science is claiming that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased from 280 PPM (parts per million) to 380 PPM. Alarmists argue that these levels have never been higher in the last half-million years and that CO2 levels of this level, and increasing, spell doom.

So again, not being a climatologist, I have to wonder where the complete effect is of a 36% increase in CO2? In simple terms, if 280 PPM has resulted in a 59 degree F increase in the Earth's temperature, why wouldn't another 36% increase in CO2 result in a further increase of 21 degrees F? But the alleged planetary increase is just ~1 degree F.

Alleged evidence of increasing CO2 levels above the magic 280 PPM go back nearly 200 years. But why have planetary temperatures not been in a steady increase since the beginning of that increase in CO2? Why has science argued in just the last 100 years of global cooling and colder temperatures while CO2 has been consistently increasing with growing worldwide industrialization?

What if historical CO2 levels have been the cart behind the temperature horse, and current CO2 increases are simply the result of industrialization, but with little real effect on global temperatures? In other words, two separate causes for CO2, with one being a natural link between temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere, with a second component being man-influenced increases in CO2 without any "real" effect on temperature?

I too believe that global warming - and global cooling - is the result of fluctuations in solar output. Recent articles point out that Mars has seen a planetary temperature increase that compares to Earth's, but there is no identified reason why Mars would see an increase in CO2 or other cause, if not simply attributing that planet's increase to increased solar input.

The sun is the most influential source of energy in the Solar System and is an inconvenient source of energy for the Global Warming advocates. An even more inconvenient reality is that the sun's output varies over time, and not measured in just years, but centuries, or even millenniums.

But while measured CO2 in the atmosphere may be the result of increased industrialization and burning of fossil fuels, measured temperatures, themselves coming under assault as impossible in our dynamic and variable atmosphere, don't reflect much of a change when considered in an atmosphere with an alleged 36% increase in CO2.

In the end, I can't help but consider the messenger when looking at alleged crises like Global Warming. The political benefits of this issue for Democrats and leftists aligning to this crisis are monumental. The willingness of the left to grasp this crisis with so little real certainty also attacks the credibility of their arguments and the alleged crisis.

I just heard Al Gore refuse to commit his own lifestyle to the changes he calls on others to make. I heard him talking about Carbon offsets and his being a carbon-neutral household. He uses more than others, and buys unused credits to justify his excessive use. He's a hypocrite, but the champion of the Global Warming cause.

So in summary, if CO2 is accountable for 59 degrees F of Earth's temperature, why hasn't a 36% increase in that gas caused a commensurate increase in global temperature? If it had, this whole argument would have been moot for a hundred years by now, and Democrats wouldn't be using it to create the climate of fear they accuse everyone else of doing.

Oh, and please don't fire back with the easy rebuttal that the effect of the CO2 is delayed for decades, or even centuries. That I won't buy.

Democrat hypocrisy - So what if Bush fires some US attorneys?

2007-03-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

It was March of 1993, when Bill Clinton's new Attorney General, Janet Reno, announced the firing of all 93 US Attorneys across the United States. All were Republican carryovers, but Republican disgust and outrage at the firings, and especially with two of them involved in the middle of corruption investigations in Arkansas and Washington DC, was all but ignored by the Democrats in control of Congress and the mainstream media. There were no hearings, no threats to call administration officials before Congress to testify, and no daily media headlines on the alleged outrage.

So what is the difference today? President Bush has decided to unload 8 US attorneys that he feels are not cutting the mustard. He appointed them, and he's not satisfied with their record. Several have either dragged their feet, or completely ignored voter fraud charges levied against Democrats, like our own John McKay here in Washington. But listen to hypocrites like Charles Schumer (D-NY) and you'd think the Democrats had found their first genuine Bush scandal.

Message to Democrats and their allies in the media; this is no scandal, and you know it! These appointees work at the pleasure of the POTUS. They can be hired and dismissed at his discretion, and certainly at any time they fail to follow the administration's goals and concerns.

And while you're reading the daily rehashing of this trivial event by papers like our Seattle Times, take note that they completely neglect to place these dismissals into perspective. No mention of how Clinton fired all 93 and the investigations he squelched. Bush's 8 are likely out because they refused to take on corruption in government, and that's just the opposite reason Clinton fired all 93 just after taking office.

So now another Bush administration official, AG Alberto Gonzalez, has to respond to trumped up charges and calls for resignation. Maybe the purveyors of these false charges should themselves resign, such as Charles Schumer and John Conyers, (D-Mich)? At some point shouldn't those making the false charges be held accountable? I know, when are Democrats ever held accountable for their actions? They certainly never take responsibility for their actions, and feel perfectly comfortable living by a different standard than Republicans.

But it sure would be nice, some day, if the voters of this country would hold them to the same standard as Republicans. I suppose that will start the day the old media starts to act fair and balanced.

Why do Democrats appear to so hate fair, honest, and uncoersed elections? Are they simply working for their real masters?

2007-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

First it was the minimum wage bill, aimed at elevating union wage scales. Now it's helping unions to coerce employees to approve union representation by forcing their votes to be public. Today's Wall Street Journal discusses this latest action, not "for the people", but for the unions that spend union dues to help Democrats. Democrats vote to bar secret union ballots

Also check out this video prepared by Republican Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA).

If people really understood what the Democrats were really doing, would they vote for them?

UPDATE

Here's a great piece from the Wall Street Journal this Friday on who really pulls the Democrat Party's strings and the first real disaster Pelosi faces as a result of her dependence on the party's radical liberal base.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110009737

Democrats placing power above Victory, power above our soldiers, and power above the security of the American people

2007-02-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

What has happened to the Democrat Party? What has happened to the people that would support their efforts to defeat America for the sake of their own demands for power?

God help this nation.

Global Warming - young minds full of mush - and propaganda

2007-02-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

I was saddened to get my latest Cal Poly Alumni email and read of the Global Warming proponents polluting the minds of young college students at my alma mater. I'm forced to admit that whenever I read of a New York Times reporter doing or writing anything these days, I shutter at what fiction and spin has been included, not unlike my reaction to Seattle Times or PI stories when I'm bored enough to even read one. But to hear of these reporters making the rounds at college campuses to make their claims, and certainly without balance or rebuttal, that makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

Environmental crises ahead, journalist says

This reporter refers to the "Tyranny of Balance," the charge that "for every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D." He blames opposition to the man-made Global Warming claims on the oil industry; another convenient villain, and that any suggestion or attempt to dismiss the left's theories of this contrived crisis should be ignored. The reality is that this whole Global Warming scare is just one more effort by the left and their allies in the old media to advance another environmental crisis through sheer media forcefulness with little science to back it up.

In the same sentence where he attacks the oil industry, he laughably promotes "journalists' inherent desire to be balanced" as the credibility supporting his wild and irresponsible fear-mongering and unsupported charges of doom. We've all come to understand that if such a "desire" truly exists, it is very often overwhelmed by reporters' greater desire to promote their beliefs and agenda.

The frightening thing is that a reporter can equate to an unbiased scientist on a college campus because he took a trip to the North Pole or has been an environmental writer for 7 whole years. But does he have any scientific background at all? And while there are certainly many unbiased scientists out there, even science is easily corrupted by grant dollars and personal career advancement.

I just wonder where the balance is at Cal Poly on the issue of Global Warming. After all, balance should not only apply when the left wishes to counter or silence the right, but equally applied when mouthpieces from the most biased paper in America talk on college campuses.

Fed Chair calls on Democrats to join Bush to fix Social Security - What problem?

2007-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress Thursday that the economy could be gravely hurt if Social Security and Medicare aren't revamped."

"If early and meaningful action is not taken, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened."

"Without policy changes by Congress and the White House, rising budget deficits are likely in the years ahead to increase the amount of federal debt outstanding to unprecedented levels."

"A vicious cycle may develop in which large deficits lead to rapid growth in debt and interest payments, which in turn adds to subsequent deficits,"

"Ultimately, a big expansion of the nation's debt "would spark a fiscal crisis."

Bernanke: Congress needs to fix deficits, Social Security

Sounds like a big problem, huh? But the bigger problem is that the Democrats are in control now and they care more about their power than admitting that they've been lying about the problems with Social Security and Medicare for years.

Can Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid put aside the politics surrounding this issue and actually do something that helps this nation avoid this crisis, or are the Democrats only good for helping their friends in the unions (minimum wage), trying to buy votes (forgiving college loans), or simply adopting window dressing to make it look like they're doing something?

I am certain they won't even try to address this, but I'd love to be proven wrong on this one. As Bernanke warns when he suggests, "that the economy could be gravely hurt" and "spark a fiscal crisis" if these entitlements aren't reformed, not even the largest economy in the world can handle $50-$100 trillion in debt. And if this economy collapses, we'll take the world economy with us.

Democrats have attacked Bush and Republicans every time they've tried to offer solutions to this problem. Now they're in power, so what in the hell are they going to propose? They going to drastically reduce benefits? They going to significantly raise taxes? We know they refuse to invest surpluses outside government securities, but those surpluses are quickly coming to an end anyway.

So Democrats, what are you going to do to save the world? Any ideas? Any ideas at all?

Don't overlook continuing bias at the Seattle Times

2006-11-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

See update at the bottom.
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Sent this morning to Seattle Times Editor at large Michael Fancher:

Good morning Mr. Fancher,

I wanted to just say "Hi" and say I'm still here and still troubled with the Times coverage, even in this post-election world. I don't read many Seattle Times stories, but it's so interesting that when I do I see such questionable journalistic integrity.

First let me say I've had my share of experience with local papers and trying to get fair coverage. I and others opposed a totally corrupt series of land use decisions in King County and learned the frustration in trying to get balanced reporting from the Times and other local papers, and one thing that was made abundantly clear was the effort by the press to quote all sides, if only all sides within the governmental structure. And this is what leads me to question, again, the coverage of another political story out of Washington DC.

Today's criticism is related to the coverage of Nancy Pelosi's failure yesterday to get Jack Murtha elected as House Majority Leader:

Pelosi loses first big fight: Democrats shun Murtha

So when looking at the quotes in this story about the first real failure of the Demcorat Pelosi to get her handpicked guy, who did the Times quote?

Anonymous House Democrat
Barney Frank, Democrat
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat
Jack Murtha, Democrat
Rep. Stephen Lynch, Democrat
Rep. Allen Boyd, Democrat
Rep. Maxine Waters, Democrat
Rep. Kendrick Meek, Democrat

And that is it. In a story about the failure of the newly elected Democrat Speaker of the United States House of Representatives to get her handpicked guy elected, not a single Republican is quoted on this failure. Not one, while no fewer than 8 Democrats are quoted.

Now we both know that if parties were reveresed, the Times would have gone out of its way to highlight quotes from Democrats blasting a Republican speaker who had failed in her first act of leadership, but not here. There is no doubt that such quotes from Democrats would have brutally ripped a Republican speaker and even gone so far as to misrepresent the significance of this defeat for political gain. But the Times has effectively kept the coverage of this Pelosi defeat between Democrat colleagues of the Speaker.

There is no balance in this story, and it certainly appears that the Times is trying to minimize the damage of this defeat by keeping the conversation only between Democrats. I'm not arguing that that failure is being covered up or excused, but I am arguing that the damage is being controlled by keeping Republicans out of it. That certainly appears to be unfair, lazy, slanted, or all of the above.

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UPDATE
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So how pervasive is the bias problem in the old media? If you read the bottom of this Times story you see the sources Times reporters pulled from in crafting this masterpeice, including The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and McClatchy Newspapers (that owns a bunch of other papers). Well I took a quick look at the Sun, Post and LA Times curious whether the Seattle Times had employed one of it tactics where they simply cut out from other stories what they don't want their readers to see.

It was the Washington Post that was the principal source for the quotes.

Apparently the Seattle Times was not alone in its decision not to quote any Republicans, because neither the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, or LA Times bothered to talk to a single Republican in their stories either.

So how pervasive does the bias appear in the old media looking at this one story?

But then again maybe I am missing the point. I never studied journalism. Maybe it is a taught journalistic practice to apply a different standard of reporting based on political affiliation and not "bias" at all? That would certainly explain why liberal reporters and editors so easily deny being biased.

Or maybe it's exactly what it looks like!

Silver Linings

2006-11-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

From a 2008 presidential perspective the blowout on election night may not all be bad news. Now the Democrats will have to fight their natures to tax, spend and focus on anti-Bush policies that would really push this nation in the wrong direction. More importantly, seeing Democrats back in a position where they actually have to propose legislation and adopt it is going to lift the veil they have been hiding under in their anti-Bush obstruction agenda since 2000.

If conservatives really want the American people to see who these Democrats are, and in such a way that not even a biased liberal media can cover it up, we are about to get the real contrast between the parties coming into the 2008 presidential election. All of those Americans that voted against Republicans without caring who they were replacing them with are about to get a clear view of the liberal agenda from the Congress from both barrels!

The Seattle Times at it again, this time excusing and giving cover to John Kerry

2006-11-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

UPDATE - 10:45 AM

Okay, the original slanted story is now gone from the Seattle Times website. Both the original link and the archive link have been pointed to different stories. The search engine cannot locate the original.

Good thing I saved it myself, or I'd be wondering whether it ever really existed.

It's also too bad that the Times can't delete it from the 200,000 printed papers circulated today, but then they don't bias their coverage by accident.

UPDATE - 9:15 AM

The Times has apparently moved the article off its webpage and replaced it already. What is very interesting, though, is that the new story has the same link as the old story did, and the old story is now an archived story found here:
GOP rips Kerry over Iraq quote; he comes firing back

Did the Times get slammed already this morning for such a biased and apologetic report on Kerry's remarks?

But why would the times give the new story the URL for the original story? That is a very interesting decision.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Leave it to the Seattle Times to spin, distort and excuse a grotesque statement by John Kerry into something far different than what was actually said. For those that continue to insist that there is no bias in the media, look at the first paragraph in this story printed in and authored by the Seattle Times:
GOP rips Kerry over Iraq quote; he comes firing back

John Kerry’s remarks, suggesting that those that don’t take advantage of education will “get stuck in Iraq, was an assault on the intelligence of the men and women who volunteer to serve in the United States military. They were also the statements made by a person who returned his own medals more than three decades ago after alleging that all servicemen in Vietnam engaged in war crimes.

But instead on focusing on the remark, the Times jumps immediately into spin mode to help out Kerry and place his comments into a more excusable context:

“Frustration over the prolonged Iraq conflict exploded Tuesday as Republicans pounced on a remark by Sen. John Kerry a night earlier, and the Democrat slammed back at President Bush's "broken policy."

In the first sentence the Times places Kerry’s repugnant comments into a context of the “frustration” over the “prolonged” Iraq conflict. The Times then finishes up that first sentence quoting Kerry’s charge of Bush’s “broken policy” in Iraq before even printing what Kerry said that has ignited the firestorm.

Here is a message for the editors at the Times. Kerry was not attacking Bush with his comment. He was attacking the men and women serving in the military. He didn’t correct his statement and only alleged that it was a botched joke hours after he had come under fire. He even refused to apologize for the statement and tried to blame it all on some right-wing conspiracy. It is no stretch that he meant every word when you consider the disdain for the military that he has displayed since he wounded himself after 4 months in Vietnam, and started his own efforts to undermine that war and the men and women who were serving in it.

Imagine an article beginning like this when the Foley scandal broke:

“Frustration over the loneliness of being a gay politician exploded Tuesday as Democrats pounced on flirtatious emails from Mark Foley from 3 years ago, and Foley slammed back at the Democrat’s “total hypocrisy” in matters of child molestation.”

How many laughs would such a start to the Foley scandal have garnered?

MSM strategy for last weeks according to ABCNews political director

2006-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

"If I were a conservative, I understand why I would feel suspicious that I was not going to get a fair break at the end of an election."

"The mindset at ABC, where you and I used to be colleagues at, at the other big news organizations, it's just too focused on being more favorable to Nancy Pelosi, say, than Newt Gingrich, being more down on the Republicans' chances than perhaps is warranted..."

- ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin speaking to Bill O'Reilly

Check out Halperin's predictions for MSM "fair and balanced" coverage in the weeks before the election:

The Note: Pending: Six Days of November Surprises

Here is the full exchange between Halperin and O'Reilly:

Bill O'Reilly: "'Factor Followup' segment: Tonight a somewhat surprising ABC News Internet posting. It's entitled 'How the Liberal Old Media Plans to Cover the Last Two Weeks of the Election.' Article was written by Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News, and also the co-author of a brand new book called The Way to win: Taking the White House in 2008. Mr. Halperin joins us now from New York. This is a very tough piece of analysis that you wrote. I'm surprised; I'm not stunned because you are a gutsy guy. You have done this before. But let's walk through it. Who is the liberal old media?"

Mark Halperin: "Well, Bill, as you know, in this country, we've got these old news organizations, the major networks, ABC, where you used to work, the New York Times, the Washington Post. These organizations have been around a long time, and for 40 years conservatives have looked with suspicion at them. I think we've got a chance in these last two weeks to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances, we're going to try to do better, but these organizations still have incredible sway, and conservatives are certain that we're going to be out to get them. We've got to fix that."

O'Reilly: "All right, so you're actually admitting, you, the political director of ABC News, that CBS News, maybe your own network, tilts left?"

Halperin: "We write in The Way to Win, John Harris and I, that over the years there are a lot of examples, what CBS News did in the 2004 election with the President's National Guard record, lot's of examples. If I were a conservative, I understand why I would feel suspicious that I was not going to get a fair break at the end of an election. We've got to make sure we do better so conservatives don't have to be concerned about that. It's just, it's not fair."

O'Reilly: "So you're the fairness police at ABC News? You're the fair police now?"

Halperin: "No, we should be impartial. We should use this last two weeks as an opportunity to help rebuild our reputation with half the country so conservatives can-"

O'Reilly: "Okay, I'm liking it. Now, what is the strategy of the old liberal networks, and you've defined them as CBS, maybe ABC, NBC, CNN, the major urban newspapers. What's the strategy?"

Halperin: "You know how this works, one of the things we wrote in 'The Note' is there are no strategy calls. We're not on the phone with Howard Dean and George Soros in the morning getting our marching orders, but the mindset at ABC, where you and I used to be colleagues at, at the other big news organizations, it's just too focused on being more favorable to Nancy Pelosi, say, than Newt Gingrich, being more down on the Republicans' chances than perhaps is warranted, singling out, you're seeing here a 60 Minutes piece about Nancy Pelosi. I don't remember Newt Gingrich getting a piece that favorable in 1994."

O'Reilly: "Do you think CBS is in the tank for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats?"

Halperin: "I think everybody in the old media better be watching pieces like that, reading profiles of Nancy Pelosi, and saying, 'Are we being fair to everybody involved in the American political process?' Even if you don't believe the argument, Bill, that we make, in The Way to Win, that there are some examples over the years that are pretty significant, of showing why conservatives are aggrieved, even if you're a liberal and you don't believe that, believe that half the country feels that way. And as an economic model, if you want to thrive like Fox News Channel, you want to have a future, you better make sure conservatives find your product appealing if you're going to do the right thing. You got to do it."

O'Reilly: "I think you're absolutely correct. I mean, all I want is fairness in the media. Now, your book is fascinating because it basically lays out a road map for success to whoever wants to be President. Give me the headline of the book."

Halperin: "The headline of the book is we interviewed Bill Clinton and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. But Clinton and Rove, the chief strategists in American politics, what do they know about the way to win? They have a lot of theories in common. They admire each other and their skills, but they look at things differently in terms of policy. We also say, 'What does Hillary Clinton know? Why is she such a strong candidate?' Dick Cheney said today people better believe she can win. We explain what Hillary Clinton's political operation is like. It's more like Bush and Rove than it is like her husband's."

O'Reilly: "Yeah, I mean, she's more fluid and she's got tons of money."

Halperin: "It's more than that, Bill."

O'Reilly: "Yeah, what else?"

Halperin: "She just knows that Karl Rove and George Bush had five years of success by being organized, by coming to the new media, by giving the stiff arm to the old media, to some extent, and also by having a disciplined staff that works to try to improve her chances rather than fighting with each other. She's more Bush and Rove in many ways than she is Clinton. That's what makes her formidable."

Go to the Media Research Center for this and more analysis of bias in the TV media.

Bias at the Seattle Times - Another example?

2006-10-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

I don't normally read the Seattle Times, but when SoundPolitics highlighted a PI story in the post, "Dotzauer (Cantwell) divorce file to remained sealed until after the election", I wondered if that same AP story had appeared in the Times, and if it had, did the Times print it in its entirety as the PI did, or did the Times cut anything out that might be perceived to hurt Democrat Maria Cantwell. The article in the PI was titled, "Ex-wife: Lobbyist trying to hide 'possible illegal actions'".

Well, the story was in the Seattle Times, "Cantwell adviser fights to keep divorce documents sealed", and yes, the paper appears to again have taken the scissors to an especially critical paragraph about our Democrat senator up for reelection. This time it's Maria Cantwell and her relationship with a lobbiest, and the possible conflicts of interests that are involved in her sending millions in taxpayer dollars to a man she's had a personal relationship with and made a personal loan to.

The Times printed almost the antire AP story attributed to Gene Johnson, so it is hard to imagine that the very few cuts they made were for space. But look at what the Times decided to cut out of the article, and you decide whether you think this was bias, or just a necessary cut for space?

"The money, which had not been repaid as of Cantwell's most recent filing, was the subject of an Associated Press article noting that Cantwell, a first-term Democrat who is up for reelection, had helped direct $11 million in federal contracts to clients of Dotzauer's firm. There is no evidence that Cantwell's efforts to obtain the funding for projects in her state were based on her connection to Dotzauer, but ethics rules generally require senators to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest."

I think this paragraph was the most damning paragraph in the story, and I believe the Times cut it because they are struggling to help Democrats like Cantwell and they hoped no one would notice.

I think we need a whole lot of people to start dismantling these decisions at the Times that are quietly removing critical and important points out of stories. It sure stinks of bias to me, but I don't suffer from a 4-year degree in journalism.

There are many forms of bias, including the slanting of the story outright, to filtering the information provided to the reader and even total omission of stories. If the Times is cutting AP stories regularly to soften criticism of Democrats, how big a difference can that make in the long-term? If all newspapers do it, how big an impact would that have on the public perception?

At some point these little snips here and there add up. Combine them with the full-blown omissions and stories totally slanted to favor Democrats, and we have a very serious problem.

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UPDATE

I just received this explanation from Richard Wagoner, Politics editor, The Seattle Times.

"Mr. Costello,

Mike Fancher asked me to respond to your concern about the editing of an AP story about Ron Dotzauer's efforts to keep his divorce records sealed.

I asked that the paragraph in question be cut out last night because the information is incorrect. The AP has reported several times that Maria Cantwell directed $11 million in federal contracts to clients of Dotzauer's firm. Alex Fryer, the reporter covering the race for us, has spoken with all the parties involved in this, including the water districts who were Dotzauer's clients, and reviewed the records. The dollar amount, as near as we can tell, isn't anywhere near $11 million. It's closer to $3 million. The $11 million figure includes money for projects that weren't requested by Dotzauer's clients. Also, Cantwell was not the only lawmaker involved in this appropriation. Rep. Dave Reichert and former Rep. Jennifer Dunn, both Republicans, also advocated for the money.

By way of background, we investigated the relationship between Dotzauer and Cantwell and wrote the lengthy story about it on Sept. 4. We didn't use the water district example in that story, because we found one that we thought was better at showing how their relationship could raise questions when she votes on issues affecting his clients. In that instance, Cantwell changed her vote on a controversial tort reform bill that Dotzauer's firm worked on.

After that story ran, the AP followed up and reported on the water district appropriations. We then decided to do our own story about the appropriations and wrote this on Sept. 9 about the matter: "Much of the money, about $3 million, was directed to the Army Corps of Engineers to build a new barrier dam to help salmon near Lake Tapps. The Cascade Water Alliance, a group of eight Eastside cities and water districts, sought the funding along with Puget Sound Energy, which owns dikes and other infrastructure along the lake. The Cascade Water Alliance hired Dotzauer's firm in 2002 to lobby Congress on water issues."

Should we have rewritten the paragraph in Tuesday's AP story rather than simply cut it? Perhaps. But this change was made last night over the phone and I was concerned that we might get the details wrong. So I chose to take it out.

Thanks for reading The Seattle Times and your e-mail. I appreciate it when readers care enough to ask what happened with a particular story.

Sincerely,

Richard Wagoner
Politics editor
The Seattle Times

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Do you think the Times expends this much effort to discredit the AP when they make allegations that hurt Republicans? I wonder why the Times didn't just change the "11" in $11 million to a "3" for $3 million? I don't think it would have made any difference in the point being made. Do you?

I think the paragraph could have been left in the article by simply changing it to read, "Cantwell, a first-term Democrat who is up for reelection, had helped direct millions in federal contracts to clients of Dotzauer's firm." "Millions" instead of "$11 million". Seems like the most responsible edit to me, and it would have taken about 5 seconds to make. But then the questioning of Cantwell's ethics and the perceived conflict of interest would have had to stay too.

Hillary Clinton - who cares if she's had plastic surgery?

2006-10-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

What matters is whether she's still a social liberal pretending to be moderate. Does she still support nationalized health care? Did she look the other way at allegations of sexual assault by her husband? Does she really place the security of Americans above her rise to power, or are her regular attacks on the Bush administration just another example of her selfish desire to sit in the White House someday?

Has she accomplished anything in her 6 years in the United States Senate except provide the MSM with false-gravitas that it will use to justify her candidacy for president in 2008?

But does it matter that, like her positions on virtually any issue, that she has crafted a physical image as well as a facade on those policies?

I believe that what Hillary would offer America is ugly and a fraud. I believe that she is working every day to create a facade to cover the real ugliness in her personality and the real direction she'd take America. As for physical apperance, I suppose my understanding of her history and actions during her husband's administration has left me seeing her ugliness regardless of how she may or may not manage her physical appearance.

Remember those days when Bill would dye his hair to be attractive to an audience versus another? You know what I mean. Like the day his hair was white when he appeared on Phil Donahue, or brown with gray over the ears when speaking at a college.

People should remember that some of the most wonderful people in the world are very unattractive in appearance, while some of history's biggest losers were physically beautiful. Too bad so many let appearance get in the way of rational thought and critical analysis before they cast that vote, huh? I suppose if so many weren't swayed by a pleasant smile, a politician's fake sincerity, or general attractiveness, we could have avoided the Clinton years where sex was redefined, a real presidential liar was impeached, and Americans learned first-hand that there are consequences to ignoring the terrorist threats against America.

Consider the source - Do you trust Clinton & Kerry supporters to tell you the truth about Bush?

2006-10-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

"They honestly believe what they are saying. And that's the biggest problem of all. They don't see their own bias."

If you've ever dealt with anyone in the media who just refuses to acknowledge their bias, then the quote above is nothing new. The series recently reprinted in the Investor's Business Daily linked below is a great article citing tons of examples and evidence to back up the claim that the national media is biased.

Take the national media bias and bias it even further towards extremist liberals and Democrats, then I think you're getting close to the Seattle Times and Seattle PI.

It's worth reading and saving for future reference.

Can You Trust The National Media? - Part 1
Can You Trust The National Media? - Part 2
Can You Trust The National Media? - Part 3
Can You Trust The National Media? - Part 4
Can You Trust The National Media? - Part 5

Bias at the Seattle Times - Even worse than first thought

2006-10-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I first challenged Seattle Times editor David Birdwell over the coverage of Gerry Studds' (Democrat-Ill) death and the omission of Studds' party affiliation, even I believed that the Times had simply reprinted an Associated Press story that had made the omission. I took issue with both the Times' decision to not insert Studds' party affiliation into the obituary, as well as Birdwell's decision not to highlight Studds' party affiliation in the headline, as he had done in July when disgraced Republican Spokane Mayor Jim West died. Birdwell's double-standard was glaring after changing the headline as reported on July 22 so that the Sunday addition of the obituary would highlight the corrupt homosexual West, who had been kicked out of office for offering jobs for sex, as a Republican.

I felt that Birdwell was displaying a blatant example of bias and application of a double standard aimed at associating one homosexual engaging in sleazy acts with the Republican Party, while shielding the Democrat Party from the hypocrisy surrounding one of their own gay child molesters, Gerry Studds.

Former Spokane Mayor Jim West dies
Jim West, Republican politician, dead at 55

First openly gay congressman dies at age 69

But now it appears that the Times did more than simply reprint a poorly written AP story that neglected to identify Studds' party. In fact, it appears that Birdwell or someone at the Times changed the AP story to remove parts of the original story that would have been damaging to the Democrats. I'm sure Birdwell would argue that they were cut to reduce the size of the obituary, but you decide on the impact of the changes.

Here is what appears to be the full story as written by Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press reported:

Obituary: Gerry Studds / First openly gay person in Congress, re-elected six times

So what did Birdwell and the Seattle Times not want their readers to see from the original AP story? Here is some of what the Times cut:

"... said Mr. Hara, who married Mr. Studds shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004.

...Mr. Studds called the relationship with the teenage page, which included a trip to Europe, "a very serious error in judgment." But he did not apologize and defended the relationship as a consensual relationship with a young adult.

...Republicans accused Democrats of hypocrisy for savaging Mr. Foley while saying little about Mr. Studds at that time.

... Mr. Studds was never ashamed of the relationship with the page."

So the Seattle Times didn't just reprint a biased story, but they made the story even more slanted by removing the comparisons between Foley and Studds, and removing the charge of Democrat hypocrisy that would have made Studds' party affiliation obvious.

And apparently David Birdwell didn't have any problem keeping this editing job a secret from me in our half-dozen email exchanges. Obviously he assumed that the Times edits to further slant a slanted story would be their little secret.

Birdwell challenged the fact that I don't regularly read the Times. But if you can't trust a newspaper to report the whole story, then why bother?

I told Birdwell that I don't read the Times or the PI, but that doesn't mean I don't read newspapers. I simply choose to read papers that haven't lost their credibility.

Oh, and while I'm no expert on Copyright laws, I find it interesting that the Times can take a copyrighted story from the Associated Press, cut some stuff out of it, and then copyright it to the Seattle Times. In school they'd call that plagiarism, wouldn't they?

More Bias at the Seattle Times

2006-10-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE FOLLOWS AT THE END
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Last July when disgraced Spokane Mayor Jim West died, the Seattle Times felt compelled to take the obituary they reported on a Saturday and change the headline to identify West as a Republican.

Former Spokane Mayor Jim West dies Jim West, Republican politician, dead at 55

The obituary article itself, used both days under both headlines, also identified West as a Republican twice. And while I'm certaianly not arguing that it shouldn't, the move by the Times to identify West in the headline appeared to me to be a little too much, considering another article at the time that I used to challenge the Times with bias. In that article, the Times had neglected to identify the party affiliation of another mayor, this time in San Jose, California who was booked on fraud, bribery and conspiracy charges.

I wrote Seattle Times editor David Birdwell and I called him on the West headline. His response was:

Please understand that we don't sit at our desks and try to think of ways to make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad. I know what went into that headline because I was the editor who handled page one this morning. West was a former majority leader at the state level. His party affiliation was important to note.

I've already written Birdwell again for a comment on the following story, but I'm not holding my breath for an admission of bias in this story: Like our last exchange, I expect the same lame excuse and then he'll be too busy to back it up. Oh well, I'll let you all decide for yourself.

First openly gay congressman dies at age 69

This story is about the death Saturday of another disgraced politician. This time Democrat Gerry Studds. Studds' name has resurfaced recently in calls of hypocrisy made against Democrats by Republicans because he had his own sexual relationship with a teenage page in 1983. But unlike the rabid attacks by Democrats and the MSM in the Foley matter, Studds was welcomed back to Congress after his censureship by his Democrat colleagues with standing ovations. Back then Democrats clearly didn't have too much a problem with molestation of a "child" by a homosexual congressman, but suddenly it's a big problem for the party of Studds and Mel Reynolds, who in 1994 was indicted and later convicted of sex with minors himself. In 1994, unlike the Foley scandal, the MSM could hardly get excited about Reynolds indictement and conviction, with only a couple evening news reports on ABC, NBC and CBS.

Note the headline of this story? See any sign of Studd's party affiliation? I guess Birdwell and the Times didn't think it "important". Certainly not as important as a former state legislator who became mayor of spokane, huh?

Don't even bother reading the story, because despite this being an obituary with Studd's life described, the Associated Press didn't feel the need to identify his party, nor did the Times editors in reusing this article to report the death in the fair and balanced Seattle Times.

I wonder if Birdwell understands that when an editor feels it is important to identify the party of a Republican pervert, but then doesn't feel it is important to identify the party of a Democrat pervert, that he is displaying personal bias? Personal bias then becomes media bias when it impacts what and how a story is reported, or whether it is reported at all. Biased reporters and editors can make all the excuses they want, but every once in a while two very similar and equitable situations come along that make all their excuses empty and laughable.

Bias at the Times? They can deny it until hell freezes over, but unequal treatment in the media is here, it's obvious, and the Foley coverage during this pre-election pahse is just the icing on any allegation of MSM bias.

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UPDATES

I heard back from Birdwell. Here are some of his comments:

The cutline identified him as a Democrat. That's more visible than the story. If I wanted to hide it, I wouldn't have published a story in the SUNDAY newspaper, by far our biggest of the week.

One other thing: I might put more credibility in your claims of bias if you weren't the ONLY one among our 450,000 readers to make such a claim.

I'm tired of people on the extremes of the political spectrum claiming that people don't read newspapers because of some alleged bias. More people than ever are reading newspapers. You have no idea how many read our Web site, and the number increases significantly every single month. If newspapers are hurting, it's because too many people are too cheap to buy newspapers. They don't have to, so they don't. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, newspapers are the medium most inclined to make an effort to present both sides. And don't link the editorial pages or letters to the editor to me. I have nothing to do with those. Excuse me for not giving your opinion more credence. I'm tired of being criticized by people who are BIASED against newspapers. Have a nice day.

Comforting to know that we have such open-minded progressives deciding what is important and what isn't in the print media, huh?
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No bias in the Media? Yeah, right. And George W. Bush forced Clinton to give North Korea a nuke

2006-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a letter I sent to my local papers yesterday, including the Seattle Times and PI.

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Media bias – how to impact an election

In 1994, United States Representative Mel Reynolds (D) was indicted for having sex with a young girl starting when she was 16. When the victim allegedly arranged for a 3-way with another 15-year-old, Reynolds was recorded as stating, “Did I win the Lotto?”

So how was the 1994 indictment of Reynolds covered by the TV networks? ABC didn’t cover it at all. CBS and NBC each gave it one evening report, while CBS threw in one morning story.

When Reynolds was convicted a year later, there were 16 total stories. ABC did just a single story on the entire scandal. CBS did five, with only one evening news story, and NBC did 10 stories, but again, just one evening report. A total of 19 reports covered the indictment and conviction of a Democrat child rapist.

Now we’re on the verge of an election and the media has lost all semblance of neutrality with the Foley scandal. This media-proclaimed “Republican” scandal has exploded, despite the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that anyone in Republican leadership knew about Foley’s explicit messages. But how have the networks covered this story compared to the Reynolds outrages of a decade ago?

ABC, CBS and NBC have covered this scandal with no less than 55 evening news reports, with another 97 morning news reports. No bias in the media? A Democrat child rapist gets 19 news stories, while a Republican author of sexually explicit messages gets 152+. Is this journalism or Democrat
campaigning?

Source: Media Research Center, http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2006/fax20061011.asp

Only the King County "Developers" Journal would give a "Thumbs up for approval of Redmond Ridge"

2006-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Never mind that "Redmond Ridge" was approved in 1997 and the paper's grovelling to Quadrant couldn't even get the name of the development, "Redmond Ridge East", correct. What do you expect from a newspaper that simply reprints county and developer press releases, but has no interest in the facts, investigation, or even quotes from outsiders who might counter the government/developer spin on all of this? I've got to wonder what motivates a paper to work so hard to help condone what every informed person knew was anything but worthy of praise. But this is nothing new for this Horvitz-owned newspaper.

The paper's lead editorial today, "Thumbs up for approval of Redmond Ridge" is just the finishing touch by a paper that long-ago won the title as the King County "Developers" Journal. It's bad enough that the paper's coverage of Redmond Ridge East was little more than cheerleading for Quadrant Homes, but leave it to this paper to work the PR a week after the County Council ignored the law and efforts by the opposition that proved that DOT had cheated - again - for this developer and improperly issued them a concurrency certificate that was the basis of its approval by the county's development machine.

You'll probably never see the following letter printed in the paper, so here it is for readers of my blog:

Re: Thumbs up for approval of Redmond Ridge?

In 2002, King County DOT granted Quadrant Homes a transportation concurrency certificate for Redmond Ridge East (RRE) even though Novelty Hill Road was already operating over capacity with thousands of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy homes yet to be constructed,. The infamous 10-year old CIP project for Novelty Hill Road had again been emptied of funding, and still had no plan, EIS or approval. CIP #100992 still has no EIS, plan, approval, or full funding today.

Fivc county DOT employees went public in 2003 with a laundry list of allegations, including both improper and illegal acts committed by the DOT concurrency group for RRE. They alleged that they were retaliated against for their charges by their management, including DOT director Linda Dougherty, after their names were linked to decisions they did not make and they were demoted.

Then in 2005, in an unprecedented ruling, the King County hearing examiner agreed that DOT had cheated and recommended denial of RRE and the rescinding of its wrongfully issued concurrency certificate.

None of this mattered last week when a decade of DOT corruption concluded and the County Council, with the exception of Kathy Lambert, voted to ignore the wrongdoing, concurrency laws, and approved RRE anyway.

Yeah, this is certainly something for a newspaper to condone. But as usual, the King County "Developers" Journal has always made its allegiance to the growth industries very clear. If only it focused as much attention on investigative journalism and not reprinting county and Quadrant press releases?

"Land use process in King County." There's a laugh! "Unbiased coverage of land use decisions by the King County Journal." That's even funnier!

The utter futility of opposing land use decisions in King County

2006-08-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make one more comment about land use decisions in King County.

In 1994, virtually every citizen in the Bear Creek area knew that King County was full of it when they claimed that Novelty Hill Road could handle cars from 3,650 homes and a 1.7 million square foot business park, commercial and retail area. But in 1994, no one probably imagined the extent to which their government would cheat for a developer.

It wasn't until after Redmond Ridge and Trilogy had been approved in 1997 that one citizen decided to investigate whether the county had done an honest analysis of concurrency or not. And when this person discovered that the county hadn't even included the study in the record for Redmond Ridge or Trilogy, he knew something was going on that smelled really bad.

Only through Public Disclosure Requests and his willingness to go down to KCDOT and sort through boxes of unsorted materials related to the traffic study, the analysis - as best it could be put together - was revealed. That review of the analysis revealed nothing but distortions, unreasonable assumptions, and bogus data at every turn. If you want to call them "mistakes", every single mistake benefitted the development and the developer. Not a single mistake could be found that benefitted the communities that these projects have forever altered.

They were not mistakes!

It was too late to use this information to halt Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, because Ron Sims and KCDOT had no interest in reopening hearings or even correcting the data. Sims refused a Supplemental EIS and helped DOT cover-up its fatally flawed analysis by allowing them an eqaully flawed "do over" that the public was not allowed to even comment on. Those two projects exist today despite the only official traffic study being totally discredited by Sims himself in 1998, but never replaced with an honest one.

So this knowledge of how DOT "cooked the books" for developers was shared with other opponents of other irresponsible development, primarily on the Sammamish Plateau. In one instance, the data actually helped guide a paid consultant into convincing the hearing examiner that KCDOT had cheated for that developer. A settlement was reached in that instance, but ultimately the Sammamish Plateau incorporated itself; freeing itself from the county's regular "bait and switch" dollar flipping techniques used in the county's CIP projects.

Thousands of permits, many of them alleged to have been granted by King County using similar "arbitrary and capricious" means, were protected by the newly elected city council. Their elections occurred in a very ugly election where the builders on the Plateau worked to keep their county-approved permits in place. With the defeat of every one of the candidates interested in responsible growth, including review of the county's previous actions, the new city of Sammamish imposed a moritorium on new development. But no one can claim to recognize the existence of that moritorium given the non-stop construction in Sammamish since incorporation, based primarily on those thousands of county-approved permits. The roads are slowly being improved in Sammamish as the city's elected leaders focus on Sammamish and are held accountable by its voters.

King County learned a long time ago that by funding a critical road project in the 6-year CIP, they could approve a development despite the lack of capacity in the road network to support it. As soon as that development was approved, they could then yank those dollars out of the related road project and apply them to the next road project needed to justify the next development. The technique is one of most significant reasons growth has outpaced roads in King County, and it is a tactic that is still being used today.

That strategy was used with Redmond Ridge and Trilogy. CIP #100992 entered the books in 1992 to widen Novelty Hill Road and provide the capacity needed to support these two developments. But that project never happened. It still hasn't happened yet in 2006, but the same old game was played again in 2002 when Quadrant applied for a new 800-home development called Redmond Ridge East. The same CIP was used to justify Redmond Ridge East, and even though it still doesn't have a plan, EIS, full funding or approval, it is capacity on the books that DOT has given Quadrant.

The difference with Redmond Ridge East was that the opposition was onto both the tricks used by KCDOT, and the department's willingness to invent, distort, corrupt and cheat wherever needed to help Quadrant again. This time there were also DOT employees within the TFDM group that also stood up and objected to what the DOT concurrency group was doing. Through a series of alleged actions by DOT supervisors against these "whistleblowers", including DOT director Linda Dougherty as described in a Seattle Times, July 2005 article below, the objectors were removed from any involvement in the matter so Redmond Ridge East could get its concurrency certificate.

"Dougherty and Lindwall say that under a law that protects public employees, they should be given immunity in this case because they did not know they were violating anyone's civil rights by excluding Barahimi and Chen from meetings, putting their names to decisions they did not make, hiring an outside consultant to redo their work or by demoting them."

But in the public hearings for Redmond Ridge East in 2005, something truly miraculous occurred. With the knowledge of the Redmond Ridge and Trilogy manipulation, and with the help of the whistleblowers, the KCDOT concurrency group's analysis was ripped to shreds. So much so that the King County Hearing Examiner recommended denial of the application and rescinding of its ill-gotten concurrency certificate.

Last week the King County Council completely ignored that long fought battle and the examiner's findings. The recommendations were both ignored and the King County Council gave Quadrant its approval for Redmond Ridge East. The county called it phased, but with hundreds of homes approved before Quadrant has to do much of anything, it was just another wholesale sellout by the County Council.

A fight like this will likely never happen again in King County. Why would anyone attempt it? It started over a decade ago here, and if one lesson has been learned it is that in this county the entire land use process is only for show. Republicans and Democrats in leadership, with the possible exception of Kathy Lambert today, couldn't care less about concurrency, fairness, retaliation against employees, or certainly the communities they've sworn an oath to protect.

So with this said, I'll probably not talk about concurrency or land use in King County again (at least for a while). The reality I've come to accept is that there has never been a concurrency policy in King County, except perhaps for DOT to find ways to subvert it. The land use process in King County is nothing but a facade to suggest to the people that a process exists and big developers like Quadrant don't run the county's development machine. The truth is that for certain developers, the process works to simply drive out opposition so King County can give their friends in the industries of growth everything they wanted from the start.

A fantastic example of the collusion between the county and developers like Quadrant occurred last month, when Quadrant's lawyer Richard Wilson, was authroized to speak on behalf of King County's DOT and DDES in the Redmond Ridge East appeal hearing. The visual was so very appropriate, as Wilson argued the unfairness to Quadrant should Redmond Ridge East be denied, while speaking for Quadrant and for two King County agencies that are supposed to represent the interests of county citizens and the communities being overwhelmed by growth.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

King County Council ignores CONcurrency again

2006-08-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

If anyone still believes that King County cares about supporting growth with roads, yesterday's approval of Redmond Ridge East should drive the last nail in that thinking. If anyone still thinks that this county council cares about hearing examiner recommendations to deny development, or that they might be concerned with the ongoing wrongdoing by KCDOT to cheat for developers, the decision should quickly erase that too.

Yesterday's approval of Redmond Ridge East, on an 8-1 vote, is the clearest evidence to date that King County's land use machine is controlled by big developers like Quadrant, and that anything is okay when it comes to actions to help developers like Quadrant get projects approved; even if it means millions in unfunded road impacts and gridlock for citizens.

With more than 1500 homes yet to be constructed within the long-approved Trilogy, road congestion has blossomed into miles of AM and PM commute traffic along Novelty Hill Road. But with the county's traditional "bait and switch" approach to its Capital Improvment Program, this 14 year-old CIP item is still unplanned, unfunded, and unapproved. But that doesn't matter to a county that would and has literally been alleged to have broken laws to help this developer get 800 more homes approved.

With DOT whistleblowers suing the county over wrongdoing and retaliation, and hundreds of millions of dollars in road impacts buried and passed onto future taxpayers to address, the Council's approval of Redmond Ridge East, in the face of hearing examiner Stafford Smith's recommendation to deny the project and rescind it concurrency certificate, is the final proof that there is nothing this government will not do for Quadrant.

The King County Council clearly felt more than comfortable ignoring the examiner's finding once there were no appellents left with standing to sue. Never mind what was the right thing to do, huh?

And with its allies in the Seattle Times and King County Journal giving this outrageous violation of the public trust cover, most people will continue to ask, "why aren't our roads being improved to support growth?" For those watching this fiasco, the answer is obvious.

Audit of King County Concurrency System backs critics' allegations

2006-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

On July 10, the King County Committee of the Whole was presented the results of the 2-year audit of the King County Department of Transportation Road Services Division, and specifically its concurrency program designed to support new development with the necessary road infrastructure. The conclusions align with more than a decade of allegations and charges made by critics of King County DOT and its actions on behalf of certain developers.

Among the findings made by Tom Noguchi of Mirai Transportation and Planning were the following, based on two of the questions asked by the King County Council in 2004 to be answered by the audit:

Is the concurrency model documented and consistent with best practices?

Answer: "No, we found many problems.
- Concurrency models overly complex
- Quality control is poor
- Many technical assumptions have not been documented and presented to Council
- Modeling techniques are not consistent with standard practices and do not reflect driver behaviors
- Traffic congestion as measured by the model was significantly reduced in 2004 - not true based on our experience
- Road Services staff could not explain the reason for this change"

Does King County's base transportation model used for transportation planning employ best practices for transportation modeling?

Answer: "Yes, it is generally sound"

The "base transportation model" is created by the Transportation Forecast Data Management group (TFDM). The Concurrency Group then takes this base model and modifies it to reflect current and future development and road projects before determining whether a new development application meets concurrency or not. A development application cannot even be considered unless it has obtained a concurrency certificate issued by the concurrency group, so the importance of the concurrency group's modeling methods and integrity, in support of county standards, is of paramount importance.

As a result of a concurrency certificate issued to Weyerhaeuser in 2002 for Redmond Ridge East, and after all their efforts had failed to have their concerns addressed within KCDOT, five (5) employees within the KCDOT TFDM group, including its supervisor, filed a whistleblower complaint in 2003 alleging improper and possible illegal acts committed by the Concurrency Group to help Weyerhaeuser improperly obtain that Redmond Ridge East traffic concurrency certificate. They have since filed, and the case is currently pending, a lawsuit in Federal Court alleging, among other things, retaliation by their management and DOT Director Linda Doherty, because they would not go along with what they believed were indefensible actions and decisions being made in support of Redmond Ridge East.

The TFDM's allegations were affirmed in 2005 when King County Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith ruled that the concurrency group had engaged in at least 3 instances of "arbitrary and capricious" actions that helped Redmond Ridge East, but that could not be adequately explained or justified. Smith's recommendation to the County Council as a result of the Redmond Ridge East hearings was to deny Redmond Ridge East and to rescind the traffic concurrency certificate issued in 2002.

The table below shows the current status of Novelty Hill Road with hundreds of homes yet to be constructed in Trilogy and before approval of Redmond Ridge East. With an average westbound speed of just 12 mph and a LOS F score (for Failing), what this shows is King County's determination to not let anything deter it from helping Quadrant/Weyerhaeuser. With Novelty Hill Road RED and failing both east and west of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, can anyone defend KCDOT's claims that 800 more homes can be supported?

Redmond Ridge East is an 800-home development under Council consideration today adjacent to the eastern boundary of Redmond Ridge. With the only citizen opposition group, Friends of the Law, settling with Quadrant after the appeal window had closed, the King County Council appears ready to forgive all the wrongdoing and allow Redmond Ridge East to move forward in phases, again awarding Quadrant the ability to construct hundreds of additional homes before critical road infrastructure is planned, studied, funded or approved.

The auditor's findings support allegations made by citizens opposing Redmond Ridge, Trilogy, and now Redmond Ridge East going back a decade. Those charges have consistently alleged that the DOT concurrency group has been "cooking the books" to assist Quadrant Homes win approval of massive developments, without the concurrency group identifying the adverse impacts, or Quadrant funding the necessary road improvements within King County, surrounding cities, or to state-funded highways.

As usual, King County is interested in only looking forward. The Council's plan for Redmond Ridge East, presented by Dow Constantine in the appeal hearing last month, again makes empty promises to fix the traffic mess along Novelty Hill and Avondale roads. It awards Quadrant with hundreds of additional permits for doing virtually nothing and before any of the needed improvements to Novelty Hill Road have even been approved. It also ignores the "arbitrary and capricious" actions committed by county planners and their management whose acts have allowed an application to be considered that should never have received a concurrency certificate in the first place.

The presentation can be viewed at about 1 hour 11 minutes into the following archived video:
rtsp://media01.metrokc.gov:554/CouncilArchive/cow/COW20060710.rm

Or at http://www.metrokc.gov/CTV/Archive/index.htm
Scroll down to "Committee of the Whole" on the main page and click the link for July 10, 2006. Again, the audit preseentation starts at about 1 hour 11 minutes into the video

If you're intereseted in the Audit Presentation Click Here

If you're interested in the Detailed Audit Report Click Here

King County CONcurrency - How much development can it support with one unbuilt road project?

2006-08-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

In 1992, King County added CIP#100992 to its Capital Improvement Program to widen Novelty Hill Road. As the years passed, mega-developments like Redmond Ridge and Trilogy were approved, constructed, and traffic congestion grew into miles of backups in the morning commute. But CIP#100992 still hasn't been built. Why? Dollars have flowed into this CIP over the years, and the dollars have flowed out of it, as millions were spent on design, ROW acquistion, and little else, other than maintaining this project as justification for thousands of trips in capacity on a roadway that is still primarily 2 lanes between Redmond Ridge and Redmond.

We're not talking about small change either. The CIP peaked in 2001 at nearly $90 million. That was up from $17.5 million the year before, and $46 million a year after. Today, after spending more than $9 million to date, King County still doesn't have a plan, an EIS, funding, or contracts signed for construction. That $9 million has fallen down a whole never to be seen again, while the County now uses this CIP project to justify another development, Redmond Ridge East.

In fact, the construction years for this "poster child" for delayed CIP projects was once in the last decade. It slid a decade ago from the last century into this century. Construction was set for 2005 in 2000, 2006 in the 2001 CIP, and today it alleges to "fully fund" construction for 2009. In all likelihood, though, if we see anything before 2011 it will probably shock even the DOT planners.

Amazingly, today CIP#100992 has shrunk to a $20 million construction project in the CIP, on top of dollars already spent and future design and ROW acquisition, despite past studies that estimated it at 3 to 4 times that amount. But none of this really matters, because King County never needs to widen Novelty Hill Road. The dirty little secret, and the strategy that drove Sammamish to incorporate, is that King County doesn't needs roads to approve development for its friends with Weyerhaeuser, but all it needs is a line-item in the CIP with some imaginary dollars attached.

The not-so secret technique that King County has used for decades to approve development without building roads is well known to victims of King County's growth agenda. We've all seen it, but recently I received a letter from Assistant Cheif Civil Deputy Kevin Wright in the Prosecuting Attorney's Office that spells it right out as clear as can be. How can King County use unbuilt road projects to defend its decisions to approve development?

Here's the answer in Kevin Wright's own words:

By Code, the status of any construction contracts and any environmental review associated with a road improvement included in the County's CIP is not relevant to whether the road improvement will be considered to be completed "concurrent with development." The Code provides that road projects that are fully funded in the County's six-year CIP are included in the road network (referred to as the "committed network") used to measure concurrency. KCC.14.70.210(E)

So here is the mystery solved. King County puts money into the CIP for a road project and the law allows them to use the unbuilt capacity from the project to justify more growth. King County just calls the project "complete" when some funding appears in the CIP and they've satisfied the Growth Management Act's concurrency regulations. Whether the county has a design for the project is irrelevant. Whehter the project has a completed EIS is irrelevant. Whether the project is really fully funded is irrelevent. And whether any contracts have been issued for construction is completely irrelevant.

In reality, nothing is relevant in King County except keeping developers like Quadrant satisfied. If that means using the same unbuilt CIP project for 14 years to allow 5,000 homes, a business park, commercial and retail construction, so what?

That's why it's called CONcurrency. And as long as the citizens of King County continue to fall for it, our road network will not improve, growth will not be supported with infrastructure, and demands on the people to raise their taxes to subsidize the growth industry's profits will only increase.

Redmond Ridge East Appearl Hearing - King County still full of surpirses

2006-07-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Where to begin?

King County DOT did a bogus traffic study in 1994 to allow Redmond Ridge and Trilogy to be approved. Sims admitted in 1998 that the study was worthless and that it should be ignored. He then allowed DOT to do an equally flawed analysis, but Sims refused to allow public hearings or review.

Quadrant applied for a concurrency certificate in 2002 to build 800 more homes adjacent to Redmond Ridge for a new development called Redmond Ridge East. DOT planners said no, like they had to others since the critical roadway was already operating over capacity. Then 2 weeks later they reversed themselves and said yes. 5 DOT employers refused to go along with they believed was improper, and even illegal acts by their colleagues. The whistleblowers' allegations were dismissed throughout King County's management, the whistleblowers lost their positions, got punished, and are now suing the county in Federal court for retaliation.

So the Redmond Ridge East public hearing happened last year. KCDOT alleged everything was peachy, opponents blew holes in their claims, and then the Hearing Examiner, agreeing with the project's opponents, recommended denial of Redmond Ridge East and the rescinding of that ill-gotten concurrency certificate from 2002. He based his finding on several instances of "arbitrary and capricious" acts committed by DOT to help Quadrant that were improper.

Quadrant sued the hearing examiner. DOT and DDES sued the hearing examiner. In fact, King County's DOT and DDES spent more than a million taxpayer dollars to fight for Quadrant, as well as defend against the allegations and findings by the examiner and the whistleblowers.

Quadrant bought off the only citizen organization still fighting for $75,000, most of which went to repaying their attorney. The settlement occurred after the appeal window had closed, so no one else could step up to appeal. The City of Redmond, faced with the reality that King County and Quadrant ultimately get whatever they want, filed an appeal and then settled for an additional million dollars to improve an intersection critical to Redmond, but 10 miles from Redmond Ridge.

So now you're caught up, sort of.

Last Monday the Redmond Ridge East Appeal Hearing occurred at the weekly Committee of the Whole. It was pushed to the very last item on the agenda and it didn't start until around 5:00 PM.

The hearing examiner spoke first defending his findings and recommendations for denial. He stated that the critical county road, Novelty Hill Road in this instance, was already over capacity, and that the history of that Capital Improvement was the "poster child" for delayed CIP projects. This one is over 10 years old now. Then curiously, he went into a list of options to the Council that would allow Quadrant to get their way despite everything that had happened.

Next up was Quadrant's lawyer Richard Wilson. In perhaps the most remarkable statement of the hearing, Wilson immediately prefaced his remarks by declaring that he wasn't only representing Quadrant in the hearing, but, get this, King County DOT and DDES. Yup, King County's principal land use agencies were being represented by the lawyer for the developer trying to further overwhelm area roads and build 800 more homes.

As if that wasn't bad enough, once Redmond's attorney had explained the city's cautious willingness to settle in the "fantasy" that all the planning, funding, and other decisions related to fixing Novelty Hill Road could be sorted out, the council recessed for about 10 minutes. When they returned, as if it wasn't bad enough already, Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine proposed what they called a "compromise" agreement that would allow Quadrant to build several hundred more homes before that CIP project was planned, approved, funded, or even contracted out for construction. The project's completion wasn't even a concern.

Never mind that the proposal violates state law, concurrency, and rewards the wrongdoing that has occurred.

Never mind that it's a deal that would only be made available to Quadrant and no one else, which violates the State's Constitution.

And certainly never mind that had Redmond Ridge East failed that concurrency analysis in 2002 as it should have, Redmond Ridge East wouldn't even be under consideration today.

You've got to just love this bunch. If there was an award for governments demonstrating big brass balls in their willingness to abuse the people, break laws, and give preferential treatment to their special friends, I'd challenge anyone to give an example of a government more deserving than King County? The Elections fiasco notwithstanding, of course.

Absolutely nothing should be considered or approved on Union Hill until the road crisis here is fixed. That means a plan. There is no plan. That means an EIS. There is no EIS. That means funding. There is no funding. And finally, once all these things have occured, signed contracts that are required under state law to get it done.

If anyone wants to understand why our transportation situation is what it is, here is your poster child for the abuse of power and the law to overwhelm our roads with growth, while not acting responsibly to support that growth with the necessary infrastructure. That is the last couple decades of King County's development machine in a nutshell. They'll let their friends build anything they want, but we get to pay if we want to move anywhere as a result.

Cover-up? Worse Fears - Brightwater Trenching Reveals Potential Disaster - Say USGS Officials

2006-07-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Who do you believe? If you accept Ron Sim's assurances, there was no evidence of active faults found in a recent Brightwater seismic investigation.

King County's Press Release

But to the Woodinville residents that were there and who are fighting to prevent a disaster that could kill thousands of people, this King County release is pure fiction.

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UNINFORMED CONSENT, Woodinville, WA - As grading began this week under a shower of public outcry at the King County Executive's pet $1.62 billion biosolid treatment plant known as Brightwater, some USGS officials were allowed for a short time Thursday to examine King County's light trenching.

A small team of USGS officials were given one day's notice that Thursday would be the only day the trenches would be available. The trenches would be filled in the next day. The team included Brian Sherrod, Craig Weaver, and several others. Sherrod is a USGS paleoseismologist and researcher at the University of Washington's Earth and Space Sciences Department. Weaver is a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist and director. Some others at the USGS had planned to come to Seattle to participate but were not given enough notice.

Tim Walsh, a state geologist, was notified by the USGS so he could join them at the site but was refused access by King County officials. By law, King County has no right to refuse entry to the trenches by a State representative. Walsh is Chief Geologist of the Division of Geology and Earth Resources for the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

USGS officials described their 5 hour observations of geological evidence in the trench as tectonic or resulting from structural deformation of the earth crust, including seismic events such as massive earthquakes. In particular, they observed clear seismic evidence of high angle surface faults, liquefaction and folding.

However, King County's hired expert, Dr. Jeff Keaton, interpreted the observed features as periglacial or related to glaciation (glacier activity) and not active faulting. Keaton is a California based geotechnical engineer recently hired to support King County's public defense that the site is safe.

In scientific geological circles, when there is disagreement in opinions, both interpretations are considered and then weighed against each other. This is a geological standard called a logic-tree analysis. However though Keaton was in the presence of some of the most respected seismic experts in the world, he would not consider any other view but his own.

In just one day, many of Keaton's own peers say his interpretations are incapable of being defended. It appears that the normally quiet scientific geological community is swirling with outrage as Keaton breaks rank. Keaton, a formally respected engineer, is quickly being surrounded by those who hold the integrity of the science dear. Some are outright distraught at his participation in what appears to be a cover-up.

The King County project boasts of a 15-mile tunnel delivery system recently admitted at a King County presentation in Woodinville as representing $1 billion dollars of the $1.62 billion project current estimates.

According to King County's website, Kenny/Shea/Traylor, A Joint Venture of Wheeling, Ill, in a joint venture with Jacobs Civil (who contributed $1,350 to Executive Sim's 2005 campaign) was awarded this lucrative contract in December 29, 2005.

Critics say the tunnel route also crosses numerous identified faults outside the HWY 9 treatment plant site.

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Media and for more in-depth information on this developing story contact:

UnInformed Consent - 425 487 2358 - information@thewellingtontimes.org or visit: www.uninformedconsent.org

State's youngest city understands link between growth and infrastructure funding; why doesn't anyone else?

2006-06-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

The City of Sammamish broke away from King County and incorporated to free itself from the county's corrupt land use departments that were approving any application and allowing growth to overwhelm the Plateau's rural infrastructure. Thousands of permits were pending that likely were the result of grotesque manipulation of traffic analyses similar to the county's "arbitrary and capricious" actions for Redmond Ridge East on Union Hill.

After bitter and nasty elections, tainted by developer tactics and influence, the new city council refused to reopen those thousands of approved permits for serious analysis, but did impose a moratorium on "new permits" that has allowed the city to partially catch up with needed infrastructure. But with the decision from a Locke-appointed pro-growth Growth Management Hearings Board, the city has now discovered that it has no choice but to allow 20 years of growth in the next 6 years. In response, they has decided that the least they can do is make that growth pay its way.

Maple Valley closes development loophole
By Chris Winters
Journal Reporter

Going from no growth to paid-for growth Sammamish, frustrated in its attempts to halt and slow growth, is now moving on to the next step: making growth pay for itself.

The city is presenting its case to jack up impact fees by several hundred percent on development to fund badly needed road projects and parks.

Two impact fees are being studied.

One would pay for road projects with a fee on new development based on a complex formula using the likely number of afternoon commuter trips it would generate. The other would fund park and recreation projects through a fee on new residential development only, based on the average number of people per unit.

Under the proposals, the transportation impact fee will increase 271 percent to $25,754 per trip from $6,937. For example, a six-lot subdivision's impact fee would increase to $156,070 from $45,852.

Now imagine if King County and the other cities within it cut their puppet-master's strings and required growth to pay for itself? Would we need multi-billion dollar tax increases to fund the tens of billions of dollars in unfunded road projects?

It's time we stop subsidizing the profits of the growth industry with dollars that future generations will have to pay to build the infrastructure that isn't getting built. If the state's Development Machine can't be stopped through moratoriums and local decisions to slow growth, then perhaps making the profiteers from growth pay for their impacts will do it.

For the full King County Journal article see:

Maple Valley closes development loophole

So who's fighting for the American citizen in the illegal immigration debate?

2006-05-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

Here are two organizations fighting for real immigration reform. You should check them out to counter the overwhelming flood of bull coming out of the left through every media orifice they control. These organizations support reforming present laws to protect our borders and not dismantle them. They're fighting the depression of wages for citizens as a result of illegal workers, and fighting to reduce the costs to the taxpayers to support illegals through government programs, education, and health care:

Wasthingtonians for Immigration Reform
http://wfir.org/

Federation for Immigration Reform
http://www.fairus.org/

Also check out, Costs of Illegal Immigration to Floridians: Executive Summary for a detailed look at the costs of illegal immigration in Florida. Florida is probably not all that different than Washington in the costs supporting illegal immigration.

Finally, read FAIR's 7 Principles of True Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Democrats, get out of the way of lower gas prices!

2006-04-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Gasoline prices are not just an American problem. Gas prices are set by the price of oil in world markets, the cost and availability of refinement, and the taxes that governments tack on to the top.

Oil Company profits are not part of some evil plan, although $400 million retirement packages are pretty absurd. The profit comes from a supply and demand problem worldwide where supply is not growing as fast as demand.

The problem with the price of gasoline in America is most affected by the efforts of the left to restrict supply. America buys oil from foreign sources because it is cheaper to extract there. But with that comes a problem in our inability to control production levels that satisfy our needs, as well as the world's needs.

We use more oil than any other nation, which is not a bad thing, because we also are the most productive nation and have a very high standard of living. But when OPEC wants to increase their profit margin by causing supply shortages that boost the cost of oil in world markets, we either live with it or find alternatives.

Now I'm all for alternatives to oil, but I'm not going to spend a penny myself on them until it saves me money to do so. Oil and gasoline is still the cheapest and most economical option today, but if Democrats and liberals get their way, they will price America out of gasoline dependency and into some much more expensive alternative. The affect that will have on our economy will be devastating.

The world supply of oil needs to increase. With increased supply the cost per barrel will drop and we will be less dependent on OPEC and other oil producing nations. We need to drill in Anwar now! Maria Cantwell and her bunch should be voted out of office for what THEY are doing to the price of gasoline in America.

We need more refinement capability. Democrats and environmentalists who have halted the increase in refinement capacity need to be ignored and we need to increase our ability to refine.

Finally, taxes on gasoline should be eliminated and replaced with more "progressive" alternatives. Taxes on gasoline and fuel hurt everyone, including the poorest Americans and add to the cost of goods.

Gasoline is actually a miracle of nature, and the advancements in technology to reduce vehicle emissions have made it a true bonanza to the industrialized world. Until an alternative presents itself that is cheaper, I fully support increasing oil production. I prefer domestic drilling because we can control production, and I support increasing refinement.

Anyone who alleges that our high gas prices are the fault of Bush or the oil companies needs to be rebutted. Regardless of what America does to reduce our demand; we live in a world where demand continues to increase. The problem cannot be fixed on the demand side, but only by increasing supply. We're competing with the world when buying crude, so the only way to contol prices is going to be to increase - not decrease - production. And then once we have it, we need to be able to economically refine it, and that means expanding - not reducing - our nation's refinement capability.

Is the price of gas higher than ever?

2006-03-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

No. Adjusting for inflation, the price of gas is nowhere close to it's all-time high in 1980.

In 1980, gasoline prices reached $1.35 per gallon. Now while that seems like nervana compared to the national gasoline price per gallon of $2.55 in the United States today, if adjusted for inflation since 1980, the current price of gas is just $0.95 a gallon in 1980 dollars.

If the price of gas reaches $3.64 a gallon anytime soon, then Americans will really have something to complain about. That is the price per gallon in 2006 that will equate to $1.35 in 1980.

The importance of adjusting for inflation in comparing today to yesterday

2006-03-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

Since the value of the dollar is the measurement of everything from GDP to revenues and outlays, adjusting for inflation is the only way to understand the real growth of government. In simplest terms, if you adjust for inflation and then for population growth, the result should reflect the actual growth or reduction in growth of government. Given the US population in 1980 of ~230 million and today's ~300 million, one could justify a growth of government to support additional Americans, albiet some of this growth can be attributed to illegal immigration. So after inflation, growth of government of 30% for population growth would be reasonable, but what is the actual growth of the federal government?

First something about the numbers provided by the government. If they are not adjusted for inflation, they cannot be compared to other years. The affect of inflation on us is not trivial. For example, $100 dollars today buys only what $37 would have purchased in 1980. So if it takes nearly $3 to buy what $1 did in 1980, then to compare anything today to 1980, the numbers must be adjusted for inflation so they can be compared. In another example, my entry-level job in 1984 would have to offer double that salary today to be equal to what I earned 22 years ago.

First let's look at the GDP growth rates for the last 4 administrations (adjusted for inflation):

(1982-1989*)
GDP increased under Ronald Reagan at a 3.4% annual growth rate.
(1990-1993*)
GDP increased under George H. W. Bush 41 at a pathetic 0.6% annual growth rate.
(1994-2001*)
GDP increased under Bill Clinton at a 2.7% annual growth rate.
(2002-2005*)
GDP increased under George W. Bush at a 2.95% annual growth rate.
*Dates reflect periods impacted by economic policies.

So now let's consider what the government is spending today versus the growth rate of the US GDP.

After adjusting for inflation, the Gross Domestic Product in the US has increased 77% since 1980. In unadjusted dollars it looks far more impressive at around 360%, but that's not a realistic comparison. Today's dollar is only worth 37% of what the 1980 dollar was worth.

So in 25 years GDP is up 77%, well outpacing population growth by 47%. Thats great news about our economy.

In the same 25 years Social Spending is up 102%, and its growth rate is increasing. Social Spending growth has also outpaced population growth by 72%. That's bad news and getting worse every year.

National Defense has increased only 49%, or well below the rate of GDP growth, while it has outpaced population growth by 19% during the same period. But given that we are at war against terrorism and trying to make up for decades of ignoring our security, I have no complaints that Bush is spending now to protect us and our children.

Physical investment in transportation, Energy, natural resources and the environment, as well as community and regional development is down compared to 1980. Here is one of the consequences of social spending growth; no money to build anything like we once did. The crisis in transportation in Western Washington can be directly linked to the federal government's shifting of dollars away from physical investment to social investment.

And then, just when you might say, "this isn't so bad", here is the future Democrats are fighting to preserve with no trust funds available to make up even a portion of the gap when outlays exceed revenues in 2015:

If you can't read those numbers in the chart? They show a $26 TRILLION shortfall for Social Security and a whopping $41.3 TRILLION deficit for Medicare Part A between now and 2080. Also note that while both programs go into the Red in around 2015, those empty trust funds will be exposed for the empty buckets of nothing that they are. But by then the trillions stolen and spent on other government spending will be gone with nothing else to make up the shortfall.

So I'll raise the question posed in an earlier post again. Are the Democrats refusing to reform social spending for purely political reasons, or along with many Republicans do both parties acknowledge in secret that nothing can be done to avoid this train wreck?

Federal trust funds being stolen and spent by government - Is government avoiding problem because it's too late to fix?

2006-03-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

If people knew a catastophe was about to occur, I think it's assumed that most people would fight to avoid it. Like a crack appearing in a major dam, or a missing section of railroad track, people would rush to fix the problem and avoid the disaster. So is the case, I would hope, for governmental programs that are destined to end in crisis, even if only an economic crisis. Once the flaw is exposed, legislators would rush to repair the flaw and avoid the crisis. But what should people think when such an obvious flaw is apparent in a massive government program, and government won't fix it? What should we think when the flaw was put their by design?

For decades social spending in America has been on the rise. The bulk of that spending is in what are called entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Welfare. Through adjustments in taxation and outlays, government has funded these programs even though fewer Americans support what is a growing number of Americans who are recipients. Since the 1980s, through the use of taxation that produces revenues that exceed outlays, these surpluses have been placed into what the government calls trust funds. These funds are advertised by the government as ready to be used to make up the difference when population demographics increase the percentage of Americans on the receiving end of these benefits to levels unsupportable by working Americans pay into the plans. In simpler terms, pay the benefits to the baby boomers when taxes can't support benefit payments.

The graph above depicts United States government spending since 1980. It is adjusted for inflation and shown in 1980 dollars, so it represents the real growth of the major parts of the government:

National Defense
Social Spending
Physical Spending
Interest on the Debt
And other spending

The pink curve represents the growth of social spending. Since 1980 social spending in Ameirca has doubled in inflation-adjusted dollars. Defense and the rest have had their ups and downs, but social spending is out of control. Social spending will account for 63 cents of every federal dollar spent this year, and nearly 70 cents per dollar in 5 years. And it gets worse from there.

The National Debt currently stands at around $8.27 trilllion dollars, or about $27,500 for every man, woman and child in America. $3.47 trillion of that debt is currently held by the government in the form or Treasury securities. Of that, roughly $2 trillion is what the government alleges makes up the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Those trust funds represent the security net for America when the boomers begin retiring and government revenues are inadequate to fund their benefits.

What would we do without those trust funds? Well, we're going to find out because they don't exist. And if we don't do something right away, another $3 trillion is going to be stolen and spent by this government only making things worse.

So what is the trust fund? Simply, it's the jar under the bed filled with the IOUs the government has put in it after it has borrowed and spent the money. Yup, the surpluses are gone. They've been spent. The government has borrowed $3.47 trillion dollars from overtaxed Americans and spent it to artificially lower annual deficits and fund unfunded spending.

Imagine that you plan to buy a car in 5 years, but you don't trust banks. You decide to put $100 a week into a jar under the bed, assuming that in 5 years you'll have $26,000 for that new car. After the first couple of months you look at that jar and see those hundred dollar bills and you have this great idea. What if you borrow the money from the jar and replace it with a $100 IOU each week. You can party, eat out, do whatever you want with the money because that jar will still have the savings for your new car in 5 years.

At the end of that 5 years, what do you have in that jar? Because you borrowed the money from yourself, you are liable to repay the jar. Basically, the money is gone! And there is the government trust fund program in a nutshell. The government has borrowed $3.47 trillion from itself and spent it. That's $2 trillion from Social Security and Medicare that is now gone.

So what will the government have in the trust fund in 2015 when entitlement outlays exceed revenues? What will the government do when there are no other surpluses to steal to fund the entitlements?

So why won't the government fix this? President Bush has proposed privatizing portions of Social Security as a start. Do people not understand what is being proposed? Bush's proposal is to invest the surpluses outside the government. By investing them somewhere outside the Treasury, whether the stock market, gold bullion, real estate, whatever, they will be invested in something that will return some, all, or more than what was invested in the future. Even if invested at a loss, there were still be something, compared to nothing as long as we continue to borrow and spend those funds as soon as collected.

So why are Democrats opposing such a basic fix to an obvious flaw in trust fund investments? The law requiring investments in Treasuries probably happened while they were in control of Congress, but can this be purely politics? Kind of a destroy our economy as long as Democrats can stay in power thing? Or maybe they just like having the surpluses to spend?

Why aren't Republicans fighting harder to reform this system before it bankrupts America? Is the thought of real cuts to adjust for the loss of the stolen trust funds too much for them too?

So back to my analogy that started this off about cracks in dams or missing sections of railroad track. If a problem can be fixed, people will almost always jump to fix it. But should we be worried that our federal government won't even try to fix this problem?

What would people do if they found that crack in the dam and it was clear that a break was iminent? What if the passenger on the train sees the missing segment of track and knows that there is no way the train can stop before derailing? In both instances those people would probably run like hell. Is that what our government is doing on the issue of entitlements today? It can't be fixed so let's just enjoy the time we have until the whole system collapses?

Whatever the reason for inaction, or downright opposition to saving America, this is not some small problem that is going to fix itself. And every day that the government does nothing, more of our trust funds are being stolen and spent.

================================================
Update: Want some ammunition to rebut liberal arguments that we spend too much on defense and not enough on children? Check this out:

Since 1980, which was the last year of Carter's decimation of America's defense, and adjusting for inflation, defense spending in 2006 is 48.5% larger than in 1980. In 2006 we are in a war against terrorism and fighting to bring democracies to Iraq and Afghanistan.

$134 billion in 1980 compared to $199 billion in 2006 (1980 dollars)

The growth of social spending, again adjusted for inflation and relative to 1980, which was near the end Carter's increases in social spending, has not only outpaced the growth of defense spending, but is more than twice the growth rate. Between 1980 and 2006, social spending in America has grown by no less than 102%.

$313 billion in 1980 compared to $634 billion in 2006 (1980 dollars)
================================================

A neighborhood's worst nightmare - Guess who's moved in next door?

2006-03-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Imagine that one day a nice looking guy moves into the house next door. Both intelligent and well-dressed, he invites you over for dinner and invites your two young daughters. He takes your kids upstairs to show them his daughter's room, and you leave thinking, "what a nice guy".

The next day a community meeting notice arrives, announcing the town hall to discuss the new Level 2 Sex Offender that has just moved into the neighborhood. You look at the picture, and ...

it's your new neighbor?

Sound far-fetched? It's not. It's just happened on the Eastside and the community is up in arms. Like the Lake Stevens community asking how a serial rapist could be allowed into their neighborhood, this other Eastside community is asking, "why us?" And just like that Lake Steven's community, the residents of this cul-de-sac neighborhood are discovering that the laws are not on their side either.

And to add to the strangeness of this story, this entire case has never found its way into local papers. I wonder why?

So how did it happen? How does a sex offender purchase a home without anyone knowing? Given his official trial date, it looks like the purchase was made just before he was sentenced and required to register. There's nothing in state law that required him to disclose his soon-to-be sex offender status to the real estate agent representing him, so he was in the house before anyone knew - let alone with any time to react to a pending sale. Law enforcement couldn't even react fast enough, responding only after he had moved in and registered at his new address.

But now let's get back to the neighbor with the young daughters. What could they do in a system that provides all the protections of the sex offender's rights, but not theirs? How could they guarantee the safety of their children living next door to a man that the state has classified as "likely to reoffend"?

They moved. They put their house up for sale and left. Even the local real estate companies, in desperation, offered to sell the offender's house for him at no charge to preserve housing values in the community, but he wasn't interested. He had exactly what he wanted.

And what of the future buyer of that neighbor's home? Will that buyer be protected any more than the neighborhood was? Washington State law doesn't even require the seller or the real estate agent representing the seller to disclose that their is a registered sex offender living next door. Washington State RCWs only require that the following statement be on the seller's disclosure:

RCW 64.06.020
Seller's duty -- Format of disclosure statement -- Minimum information.

NOTICE TO THE BUYER INFORMATION REGARDING REGISTERED SEX OFFENDERS MAY BE OBTAINED FROM LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES. THIS NOTICE IS INTENDED ONLY TO INFORM YOU OF WHERE TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION AND IS NOT AN INDICATION OF THE PRESENCE OF REGISTERED SEX OFFENDERS.

So one of the lessons here is don't assume that the laws or government are looking out for you. Be vigilant, because no one else is going to be. Use the resources that are available to identify the risks to your community, including sex offender websites like www.familywatchdog.us .

And here is the political comment that having my own blog allows me to make. if you really want to make a difference, vote for people to represent you that are tough on crime, and particularly tough on criminals that would destory the lives of women and children using rape and molestation. I think it's long overdue to get tough on the criminals and not on the victims of crime in Washington. And if that means changing party control of Washington, I think that this issue by itself would be sufficient to convince me - if I still needed convincing that Democrats were corrupting Washington.

Social Spending on path to Bankrupt America - Democrats answer? Don't let Bush do anything that might fix it

2006-03-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday thes Federal Budget debt ceiling was raised to $9 Trillion. We've seen the National Debt grow by $2.3 Trillion since Bush took office. Democrats are foaming at the mouth at the ammunition the ceiling increase gives them against Bush, and they are continuing their unrelenting criticism of the administration's efforts to reign in out of control spending of this Republican-controlled Congress.

So how about some facts? Here is some history on Federal Spending.

Now take a look at the Pink curve in the graph above. That curve represents the growth of Social Spending in America since 1988. Socail spending includes Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, Disability Insurance, Veterans benefits, Education and other social services.

In 1998, this social spending accounted for 50 cents of every dollar of federal spending in a $1.06 tillion dollar budget. National Defense accounted for 27 cents of every dollar. In 2001, social spending had already ballooned to 64 cents of every dollar in a $1.86 trillion dollar budget, while national defense had dropped to just 16 cents out of each dollar.

After 5 years under George W. Bush, social spending has continued on its pre-Bush pace in a $2.7 trillion dollar budget, and is forecasted to reach nearly 70 cents of every federal dollar spent by 2011. Interestingly, though, for every dollar increase in defense under Bush, there has been a $2.15 increase in socail spending. And if you look at the graph, the rate of growth of that social spending was already established before Bush even took office.

While social spending is forecasted to continue its growth rate into the next decade, national defense spending has plateaued and should actually drop from this point forward.

So with these facts in hand, what has the administration done to address this domestic crisis? First, a relatively small tax cut helped get out out of the Clinton recession that started in early 2000. Unemployment is down, and the growth rate in America is healthy. But what about the out of control social spending? The data above represents actual outlays, so what happens when revenues no longer can sustain those outlays? Democrats argue that federal trust funds, now holding in excess of $3.4 trillion in Treasury securities, will come to the rescue to provide the difference between revenues and outlays. But there is the problem, and the lie. Those trust funds don't have any actual money in them. Since they were not invested in the private sector, the Treasury simply borrowed the money and it was spent on other government outlays.

In fact, all the surplus revenues to the government for decades have been spent to artificially reduce defecits and create a huge lie that there is savings to keep the social spending funded. The truth is that there is no savings, and in less than 10 years the government will not have the revenue to make its payments.

Recognizing this looming crisis, the Bush administration has attempted to reform programs like Social Security to invest its surpluses outside the Treasury so the money will be there when it needs it. As usual, though, Democrats have put politics above Americans and continue to push the lie that investing surpluses in the private sector is dangerous.

Understand that every penny of every surplus to date has been spent and is gone. When Social Security or any other trust fund program starts to cash in their Treasury securities, where is the Treasury going to get the money to repay them? The government has borrowed the surpluses from itself and spent them. There's nothing in the trust funds but a number that represents how much money the government has stolen and spent.

It's the largest financial scandal in the history of the planet, and it is continuing to be perpetrated today. $2 trillion dollars worth of Social Security and Medicare surpluses have already been stolen and spent, with trillions of dollars in surpluses yet to be collected before outlays exceed revenues. Every day that the government spends those surpluses makes things worse.

Now maybe Democrats are so selfish that they don't care what happens 10-20 years from now? Maybe retaining power today is all that matters to them, so they fignt reforms that might reduce or put off the crisis a couple more decades. Regardless of their motivations, though, what they are doing is despicable. I want my children to live in a better world than the world I live in today, but for some incredible reason, Democrats seem hell-bent on preventing any of our problems from getting solved for pure political reasons. I fear for the future.

Quadrant buyers beware! Being the state's largest builder doesn't mean they build quality homes

2006-03-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

I received this link today from someone involved in the litigation against Quadrant Homes for defects in their Quadrant-built homes. Check out www.quadrantdefects.com and consider what little surprises Weyerhaeuser may have left for you in your new home.

If you ask yourself how Quadrant Homes became the largest residential developer in Washington, you may find examples of government wrongdoing and bias in my blog that will help you understand the growth machine and what really makes some companies successful, and others not.

King County and Weyerhaeuser working together to subvert transportation concurrency - Only the Hearing Examiner's findings standing in their way

2006-02-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

King County's development machine is now talking with Weyerhaeuser on how to resolve the mess that's been made by allowing the Hearing Examiner to actually review the facts and come to the conclusion that DOT cheated to help this developer win approval of a project that area roads cannot support. King County Journal Article here.

Pay close attention to this "settlement". Any Redmond Ridge East settlement short of denying Weyerhaeuser will be undeniable evidence of what is actually causing our roads to be overwhelmed and why the GMA cannot be blamed.

Redmond Ridge East will add an additional 800 homes to Redmond Ridge and Trilogy. Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, the new Master Planned Community with ~10,000 residents when complete, has already slowed Novelty Hill Road to a crawl during the commute and the roadway is already operating well over design capacity.

The history of this project is a crystal clear example that demonstrates that it is up to people to enforce the transportation concurrency requirements of the GMA, or the law means nothing. And right now, the only government agency attempting to uphold the law in King County is the Hearing Examiners Office, but they are up against KCDOT, DDES, Ron Sims, and even the Prosecuting Attorneys Office.

Today I sent the following letter to area papers.

---

Redmond Ridge East in 200 words:

• KCDOT cheated to help Quadrant/Weyerhaeuser get a traffic concurrency certificate in 2002 for Redmond Ridge East; after denying others and despite miles of traffic congestion during the commute.

• KCDOT whistleblowers are suing their DOT bosses in federal court for alleged retaliation against them, because they refused to go along with what they believed involved improper and illegal acts by their colleagues.

• DDES, KCDOT and Sims have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to do “anything” to help Weyerhaeuser.

• The hearing examiner cited multiple examples of “arbitrary and capricious” actions by KCDOT that helped Quadrant get their concurrency certificate and has recommended denial of that certificate and permit.

• Quadrant is suing the hearing examiner.

• KCDOT has spent more than a million taxpayer dollars on private lawyers to sue the examiner and defend Quadrant’s interests.

• The city of Redmond is finally fighting to keep things from getting any worse.

• The principal citizen opposition group gave up last year leaving it to Weyerhaeuser and several government agencies to sort out.

My message is simple to those government agencies. Just tell Weyerhaeuser “NO”! For a change, defend our interests and not Quadrant’s.

Government funded Choice schools coming

2006-02-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought that public education couldn't get more rediculous, comes a new Choice school to my community. The Lake Washington School District website has information about these schools.

The notice announcing the Information Night for a new alternative junior high school arrived today, and I don't think I've ever read a more laughable advertisement for a public school or government sponsored program in my life. I suppose if you're somewhat left of center socially or politically, this will sound wonderful. To the rest of us, all I can say is oh my God!

It's called "The Renaissance School of Art and Reasoning" and will be located within Eastlake High School. I'm not kidding. But if you think putting 7th and 8th graders (9th graders starting in 2007) into a high school doesn't sound bad enough, here is the description of the school provided on the meeting notice.

"At Renaissance School students develop in an environment of artistry, rigor, and warmth; learn to think and act using multiple approaches and perspectives; are known and nurtured as important individuals who have an active concern for their community and society. The school's program integrates reasoning, artistic, and community building skills to support the learning of important content."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I know, though, that if the cirriculum lives up to the impression left by this description, that the left can never complain again about home schooling or vouchers. This publicly funded school for liberal education should provide ample evidence to counter any complaints.

Builders reward Sims for his billion dollar Brightwater plant to sustain development into the future

2006-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

I think this could have been titled more accurately, "Sims recognized as 2005 Developer Champion". The billion or more taxpayer dollars it will cost to build his Brightwater plant might as well be checks written to subsidize the profits of the region's largest builders. If only Sims and King County had an equal concern that roads are built ahead of development? Unfortunately the state can't threaten to halt growth simply because the roads are inadequate, or they might. But why should Sims be concerned when DOT planners have demonstrated their ability and willingness to simply cook the books to make any road show available capacity; even roads gridlocked during commutes?

How many billions of dollars in road impacts will result from Brightwater and the subsequent growth it will support? And who will pay for those roads now that history shows how willing King County has been to cheat to help the growth industry avoid funding the roads necessary to support its development?

Jan. 26, 2006

Executive Sims recognized as 2005 'Economic Development Champion' for Brightwater-related work

For his leadership role in moving the Brightwater treatment system project forward, King County Executive Ron Sims earned the 2005 Public Sector Economic Development Champion award from enterpriseSeattle at the annual Economic Forecast Conference in Seattle last week.

Sims was nominated for the award by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. At the presentation ceremony Jan. 20, Master Builders Association Chairman Jim Potter referred to Sims as a "champion for the economy and the environment." (I'd go so far as to crown Sims the Builders' champion!)

Potter expressed appreciation for Sims' extraordinary effort in working cooperatively with multiple jurisdictions, permitting agencies and tribal governments on getting the project sited and ready to start construction in early 2006.

The business community (Generic term casually used to refer to the profiteers of growth) had expressed concern that without Brightwater there would not be enough wastewater treatment capacity to support and sustain economic growth over the short-term and long-term. And the state had threatened the possibility of a building moratorium throughout much of King and Snohomish counties if Brightwater is not built and operating by 2010.

Brightwater will create nearly 4,000 building-trade jobs during construction (That's a billion dollars in work for the growth industries), generating over $250 million in payroll. The facility will provide the necessary infrastructure that will support long-term job creation and economic growth in our region over the next several decades. (Will Sims ever focus on the roads necessary to support this and past growth in the region?)

[Snipped]

Quadrant offers to buy back homes

2006-01-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

The number of homeowners alleging substandard construction has grown to 11 in Snoqualmie Ridge. Could be quite a precendent if Quadrant starts buying poorly constructed homes, huh? Anyone want a bargain on slightly lived-in home with some minor rat and mold problems?

Quadrant offers to buy back homes
by Ashley Bach
Sat, 31 Dec 2005 - Seattle Times Eastside News
(Made available on-line January 11, 2006)

Seven families in Snoqualmie Ridge who sued Quadrant Homes over what they say is unhealthy air in their homes can sell the homes back to Quadrant at market value, according to their attorney.

Quadrant's recent offer to buy back the homes will be accepted by some of the families, said the families' attorney, Lory Lybeck. According to the lawsuits, Quadrant, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser, negligently built the homes with fiberglass insulation installed in the heating ducts, a code violation that spread glass fibers and caused several health problems.

Since The Times reported the story in August, the families have expanded their lawsuits and say their homes also had poor ventilation that spread furnace fumes, bad wiring, leaky roofs, crawl spaces containing mold, rodents in the walls, poorly built porch columns and problems with siding.

Four other families have filed similar legal notices, said Lybeck.

Quadrant officials declined to comment on the lawsuits or any offers made to the families. But in legal briefs filed in King County Superior Court, the company denies all but one of the families' claims. It admits that seven homes were built with fiberglass installed in the return-air spaces leading to the furnaces. Some of the families' lawsuits are scheduled to be heard in May.

Quadrant Homes being sued for substandard construction

2006-01-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

The following article appeared on August 25, 2005 in the Seattle Times. It discusses a lawsuit filed by 7 homeowners in Snoqualmie Ridge alleging substandard construction of the their Quadrant homes causing health problems. Apparently another story appeared in the Seattle Times on December 31, 2005 with follow-up information, including additional homeowner participation in the litigation alleging additional problems with their Quadrant-built homes. I am currently trying to obtain that article, because it is not available on-line through the Times. I'll post it when I have it.

Makes you want to run right out and buy in one of Quadrant's urban communities, doesn't it?

7 Families File Suit Over Poor Air Quality
by Ashley Bach
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

Over the first year of her life, Caroline Weaks frequently had a hacking cough, ear infections and breathing problems. But when the baby would leave her Snoqualmie Ridge home for a period of time, her sinuses would clear, said her mother, Laura.

Laura Weaks was one of several parents who stood on a sidewalk in her neighborhood last week protesting what they say is unhealthy air in several Snoqualmie Ridge homes. Her daughter, now almost 2, played in the shade nearby while the parents held signs that said the homes make "kids sick."

The Weakses are one of seven families that have individually sued Quadrant Homes, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser and the developer of the Snoqualmie Ridge urban village, which has attracted thousands of residents to Snoqualmie. The first lawsuit is scheduled to be heard in May 2006.

The lawsuits, most filed last fall but the latest filed last week in King County Superior Court, say Quadrant negligently built the families' homes with fiberglass insulation installed in the heating ducts, a code violation that spread glass fibers throughout the homes.

According to the lawsuits, the fibers caused several health problems among the parents and their children, including frequent nosebleeds, eye problems, sinus infections, sore throats and breathing difficulties. The families are seeking unspecified damages for medical costs, cleanup and loss of property value.

Since the fiberglass was discovered last year, Quadrant has refused to "completely decontaminate homes," the lawsuits say, or "reasonably investigate the extent of the fiberglass contamination."

Quadrant declined to comment at length on the lawsuits but denied some of the families' allegations.

In a written statement, Quadrant spokesman Bill Boucher said the fiberglass "has been an isolated problem that has affected a small number of homes."

"We have offered inspections to all homeowners," Boucher said. "When we have found misplaced insulation, we have offered to work with the homeowners to remedy the situation. Some have accepted our offer.

"Airborne fiberglass may be an irritant under certain circumstances, but does not pose a health risk."

Tim Hardin, the state indoor-air-quality program manager, has not investigated the Snoqualmie Ridge allegations, but he said fiberglass, while not likely to have toxic effects, is a "very powerful irritant" that could have caused the health problems the families say they had.

Snoqualmie officials inspected a small number of homes last year and discovered fiberglass insulation in the return-air spaces leading to the furnaces, a violation of the city building code. They sent a letter to hundreds of Snoqualmie Ridge residents with Quadrant-built homes warning them of the potential problem.

The city received "some calls" from residents after the letter, and every known code violation was fixed, City Administrator Bob Larson said.

Most of the families involved in the lawsuits want large-scale cleanups of their homes that would remove any trace of the glass fibers, including replacement of carpets and repainting of walls. They say Quadrant offered more-comprehensive cleanups to at least two homeowners, but then offered just a new furnace filter and insulation removal to subsequent families.

Quadrant officials declined to give details about what they offered homeowners.

Some of the families say they still suffer health problems, even after spending thousands of dollars cleaning up their homes.

Daniel and Jean Saimo bought their four-bedroom home five years ago for $305,000. They say they've spent about $4,200 to clean the house so far, but the maladies have not entirely gone away.

"I'm trying to get the safe home I thought I was purchasing from [Quadrant]. ... I want my house made right," Jean Saimo said.

2005 was an amazing year

2006-01-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

When the year began I was actually filled with some optimism. With a November 2004 election corrupted by King County and thousands of illegal and invalid votes counted, who would have thought that a judge would accept depositions from felons removing votes from Dino Rossi while allowing an admitted 1,760 illegal votes in a race decided by 129 votes to decide the election in Gregoire's favor?

A personal battle with the corrupt King County land use departments was coming to head and the Washington State Supreme Court would decide many of the issues once and for all. Who would have imagined that after 10 years the court would rule unanimously to excuse a decade of wrongdoing based on King County's acceptance in 1989 of an illegal subdivision application that the Superior Court, Appellate Court and even the Supremes themselves refused to even rule on given repeated opportunities?

Then last month the King County Board of Ethic refused to rule on a half-dozen ethical questions related to King County actions, keeping their 6-year record of non-action perfect. That then excused the King County Ombudsman from investigating even larger issues. I learned that in King County, ethics doesn't drive behavior, but the Ethics Code does. But what is the Ethics Code but a law written and adopted by politicians to make sure that just about anything can be done in King County and still be called ethical.

When the year began George W. Bush was the overwhelming victor in a Presidential race ran against an arguably treasonous opponent? But despite his strong victory, the mainstream media has only ratcheted up their efforts further to damage him and his popularity, with papers like the New York Times now even orchestrating the release of news to hurt the administration? It's a tribute to many Americans that they can withstand the barrage of unfair and untruthful negative coverage and still approve of the president's actions.

But as a conservative in Washington State what can one do? With a state Republican Party run by the growth industry and their poster boy Chris Vance, what kind of choice is it choosing between the Democrats' social welfare and voter "purchase plan" or the Republicans' corporate welfare agenda and corporate "purchase plan"? Democrats higher taxes to feed the dependency class versus Republican higher taxes to subsidize the growth industries profits? Or even the shared strategies supporting higher taxes to build tributes to the elite in the form of new coliseums or race tracks?

No, whatever optimism I had left in those first days of 2005 is gone in these early days of 2006.

As a conservative all I have to look forward to in 2006 is the unrelenting attacks on our "moderate" president for being too "non-Democrat". Democrats will continue to hope, and even attempt to orchestrate failures in Iraq while they and their allies in the media will continue to hype their version of the Iraq scorecard, which will continue to be centered around our soldiers' deaths and anything negative they can come up with or invent.

Brainless politicians like Maria Cantwell, elected only as a result of the tech boom and likely shenanigans in King County that helped her defeat Slade Gorton, will fight logical and reasonable efforts to drill in ANWR. Never mind that it might actually be environmentally friendly and would move tankers off the oceans where the greater risks are. But it's all political. Right and wrong don't count. What's best for Americans doesn't matter. To Democrats in Washington, both this one and DC, all that matters is winning. An America in flames would be acceptable to today's Democrats as long as they are in control of it.

I hope I'm wrong about 2006, but while conservatives argue between themselves about issues, this party has to wake up to the fact that they're up against a massive propaganda machine we call the mainstream media. The MSM doesn't care about issues. The issues are all decided, as far as they are concerned, and they just happen to be the exact opposite positions supported by Bush, Republicans and especially conservatives.

The fight cannot be won taking it to Democrat politicians. They were elected by constituencies that share in their liberalism or have been bought off with their handouts. Why would they turn on the successful equations that got them into office? These politicians, along with many liberal Republicans and other RINOs, have proven that they have no concern about right and wrong, but only gaining and holding onto power. The only way to fight this battle is to take it to the media and other forces of the miseducation of Americans in higher education and Hollywood. As long as the "left" controls those propaganda distrubution mediums, then the battle cannot even be engaged among the "majority" of Americans. As long as the New York Times, Washington Post, Network TV vews, or even the news pages of the Wall Street Journal are controlled by liberals, the alternative voice is nothing but a faint whisper heard by only a very few Americans.

Consider the amazing efforts of Stefan Sharkansky and SoundPolitics.com? What percentage of Washington voters even know of this site's existence? 5% maybe? If only they knew of the evidence of fraud uncovered by Sharkansky would Sims be able to push an all-mail election system?

How about KVI or KTTH radio? Maybe 10%-20% of Puget Sound adults have listened and are already on-board with conservative beliefs. As the only successful alternatives to the Times, PI, and the plethora of television and other radio stations spewing liberalisms (or more accurately - anti-Republicanism), while some inroads have been made, the "right" has a very long way to go before they can even get into the 'real' fight over issues.

What Board of Ethics? Just another facade of enforcement in King County

2005-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

In addition to specific charges of wrongdoing by KCDOT to help Weyerhaesuer, included with them were several ethical questions asked of King County Ombudsman Amy Calderwood that I requested be asked of the King County Board of Ethics. Calderwood's response was that no investigation of my charges could be performed by her office until these questions of ethics were addressed. As she put it, these questions go "to the very foundational structure of county government, its departments, and its legal obligations."

The basic issues addressed by the Board of Ethics on October 17, 2005 were:

1. Does an agency have a conflict of interest when asked to perform the actual technical analysis for a development application, when the recommendations based on those studies could result in the loss of significant revenues deemed critical to the operation of the department?

2. Is it ethical for a government agency to hire outside private counsel to represent it, whether as plaintiff or defendant, in litigation against other county agencies being defended by the Prosecuting Attorney's Office?

3. Does the Prosecuting Attorney have a conflict of interest in representing two county agencies on opposite sides of the same issue?

In a letter dated October 18, 2005 from the Board of Ethics to Calderwood, BOE Administrator Catherine Clemens stated:

"During the October 17 meeting, the Board of Ethics considered your requests. Following its deliberations - and based on the Code of Ethics, its Procedures for issuing Advisory Opinions, and the fact surrounding the matter - the Board moved to decline to issue an advisory opinion or conduct a review because: 1) the matters are subject to controversy and legal dispute, and 2) advisory opinions are issued to guide future conduct, not current disputes. The motion was approved unanimously."

Following the decision by the Board of Ethics to do nothing, the Ombudsman then dismissed my complaints, partially based on the failure of the Board to rule, and partly on strained logic that has become the standard from the Ombudsman. Among the excuses, paraphrasing now, since the law requires certain agencies to self-fund, like DDES or DOT, then entering into conflicts of interests are okay. Or another one - since the PA's Office technically hires the private counsel to represent other county agencies, then the benefitting agency hasn't violated any ethical standard, even if that private counsel has cost the taxpayers more than a million dollars to defend the agency's alleged wrongdoing.

But above all else, the overriding conclusion I must come to is that ethical behavior in King County is not driven by ethical standards accepted by our society, but by the watered down standards that King County politicians have put into the code. In other words, ethics in King County only goes as far as the politicians allow the law to define them. And in areas where actions are clearly unethical or demonstrate a clear conflict of interest, not even the Board of Ethics will make an advisory opinion to suggest to the politicians that the law is inadequate.

It is not a suprise to me now to learn that the Board had not issued an opinion of any kind since 1999. Weve all come to know now how ethically challenged King County is. One need look no further than the Elections Department and some of the recent decisions made by Dean Logan making it a more and more partisan office. But with a standard of wrongdoing that requires a violation of the county's meaningless Ethics Code, is it any wonder that the Board doesn't/can't rule on anything?

Foll0w-up questions to the Ombudsman after her conclusion was mailed to me have been dismissed out of hand now, with the ombudsman again siting the Ethics Code and its failure to prohibit the conflicts of interests I allege. Those additional questions were:

4. Is it ethical for an agency director to participate in decisions related to a development application where that director is personally being sued in Federal court for allegations of wrongdoing and retaliation against departement whistleblowers who are attempting to expose the wrongdoing committed by that agency related to that specific application?

5. Is it ethical for a government to allow a private traffic consultant hired by a major developer to be responsible for providing traffic data and interpretation of that data when permit conditions would halt the development if certain levels of traffic or conclusions were reached?

Again, these last 2 issues were dismissed out of hand by the ombudsman because the Ethics Code in King County doesn't address these issues. How convenient for a county that ultimately works for special interests and not the people of the county?

But just in case anyone might be left to believe that the county would act if an actual Ethics Code violation occurred, I have evidence that should dismiss that belieft too.

In 1997, then King County Councilman Chris Vance was deposed in a lawsuit alleging his bias in support of a masive Weyerhaeuser development on the Eastside. During the course of that deposition, and to the complete surprise to the plaintiff's lawyers, Vance casually admitted that he had 3 in-laws employed in management by Weyerhaeuser. Under the Ethics Code, in-laws are considered close family members. As employees of Weyerhaeuser, while proof of a direct financial benefit resulting from the approval of this or other Weyerhaeuser projects was arguable, Vance was clearly in violation of the King County Ethics Code by failing to disclose these relatiionships while he was championing this project as head of the Growth Management Committee.

In 1998 I filed an Ethics Complaint against Vance to then King County Ombudsman Duncan Fowler. Fowler had replaced David Krull after Krull had been improperly fired by the County Council in response to some pitiful harassment charges made by current ombudsman Amy Calderwood. Krull would eventually be paid $400,000 for the wrongful termination in a settlement paid with taxpayer dollars, but that's another sad story.

In a nutshell, my complaint against Vance went nowhere. With so much at stake, including the approval of this massive Weyerhaeuser project, the ombudsman excused Vance from the clear disclosure violation finding that I had not proved a direct financial gain to his in-laws resulting from Vance's actions on Weyerhaeuser's behalf. Of course that was a standard impossible to satisfy and an allegation I had not even made. Vance had violated the requirement to disclose the relationship and that could not be excused, by the ombudsman, so he defened Vance from a charge I'd not made. This tactic was witnessed by other enforcement authorities, including the PA and the Sheriff too. Had Vance disclosed the "potential" conflict of interest, he would most assuredly would have been asked to recuse himself years earlier and it would have been poltiically impossible for him to refuse.

Vance now chairs the Washington State Republican Party. He was hand-picked by the growth industry to run and manage the "conservative" party in Washington. Just another sad reality.

Anyway, I'm done. Not just with this post, but with trying to fight the corruption that permeates throughout King County. It's everywhere. As I see it King County is a $3 billion a year special interest machine that pretends to honor the people and law, but in fact, honors only its friends, the growth industries. I've also come to expect this government to ignore the law, ethics, and fairness as part of its daily work. That is the legacy of Ron Sims and Gary Locke before him. That is the festering cesspool that is King County government.

The end!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

King County DOT continuing to ignore miles of congestion to help Weyerhaesuer approve more development

2005-11-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

On September 26, 2005, I received the findings from the King County Ombudsman to one of my complaints alleging the willful refusal by King County DOT to enforce a critical Redmond Ridge and Trilogy permit condition. My complaint, available within this blog, alleges that King County has refused to enforce a critical Redmond Ridge and Trilogy permit condition. That condition stated that if volumes traveling east in the PM commute ever reach 1,350 vehicles per hour (vph) at a point just east of the intersection of Novelty Hill Road and NE 208^th, that no new permits could be issued to these developments. Despite the authority and responsibility to adjust this trigger if it was found to be too high or in error, or to increase the intervals betweens counts if the threshold came close to being triggered, King County did nothing. In April 2004, the volume at this location reached 1,340 vph one afternoon, and averaged 1,331 vph over a 3-day period.

King County planners and their managers didn't even blink!

Since May 2004, King County has issued over 600 permits to these developments and received in excess of $1.2 million in permit fees, demonstrating a clear conflict of interest and strong disincentive for King County to act on this permit condition.

In the Ombudsman’s September 26 report, Deputy King County Ombudsman John Stier stated, while referring to my charges, “while you make the very serious suggestion that such a count (October 2004) may exist but is being covered up, you have provided no evidence that either is the case.”

While I did not have evidence that such a count existed or that it was being covered up at the time, I did have two responses from DOT to Public Disclosure Act requests that had failed to provide any evidence that this October count existed. Given Mr. Stier’s suggestion that DOT had provided him a “report” suggesting such a count had been done, I submitted another PDA request last month and specifically asked for this October 2004 traffic count data from King County DOT. No such data was included in the ombudsman’s findings, only hearsay that DOT had claimed to have such data.

I’ve now just received the response to that request. Once again, while I received the detailed April 2004 data and the new detailed October 2005 data, I received no data identified for the alleged October 2004 count. The only reference to a possible count done in October 2004 was a single row in a table, identified in a row labeled only as “2004”, in a memo from Quadrant’s traffic consultant to King County. The values in that row differ from those from the April 2004 count, so I am only making an assumption that these numbers are from October. Except for these unidentified numbers, there is no data to support these numbers like the data received for April 2004 and October 2005, or even evidence that they are from October or any other period during 2004.

In this latest information for the October 2005 traffic count, the data shows, remarkably, that traffic volumes eastbound from the intersection at 208^th have decreased since April 2004. The likelihood of this occurring defies all logic and common sense given the hundreds of homes constructed since then. How could measured volumes decrease with hundreds of new homes constructed since April 2004? Once again, though, King County DOT is hiding behind a convenient explanation provided to them by Quadrant’s traffic consultant.

In that same memo referred to above from a James Webb, who works for Quadrant’s traffic consultant, Transpo, Webb attempts to explain the decrease as the result of the “back door” connection between Trilogy and NR 133^rd that was opened in July 2004. As is typical for every assumption made out of convenience to help Weyerhaeuser, this claim is equally flawed. Webb even admits that the roadway was being used only “sparingly” in October 2004, three months after its opening, as it should given its lack of benefit to commuters in the PM commute. That roadway is an illogical path for PM commuters. Only southbound Avondale Road commuters would even consider using it, by turning east onto 132^nd, working their way to 133^rd, then driving south through Trilogy, and then turning east onto Novelty Hill Road. But this route is not logical for southbound commuters and is likely not being used by anyone to go east.

Northbound commuters, which represent the “primary” commute direction on Avondale Road in the afternoon, would never use this back door! It would require a drive of several extra miles to the north, with a several mile drive south back through Trilogy before turning onto Novelty Hill Road. This excuse is just another convenient diversion, in a long history of convenient explanations, from the real reason for the reduction in volumes east of 208^th. That reason is simply that there are too many westbound cars turning south onto 208^th, and too many cars turning west from 208^th onto Novelty Hill Road to allow 1,350 vph to occur eastbound out of that intersection.

Simply put, the increased number of cars heading “west” on Novelty Hill Road that are turning south onto 208^th are causing the light at Novelty Hill Road and 208^th to restrict eastbound traffic more today than in April 2004. Additional northbound cars on 208^th turning west onto Novelty Hill Road have also increased, again increasing the amount of time eastbound cars are sitting at that light and unable to move east through the intersection. If eastbound cars can’t get through the intersection, the volumes sufficient to trigger the threshold can never occur. Given the increasing back-up of those eastbound cars to the west of that intersection, which is now regularly more than one mile, and on some occasions all the way back onto Avondale Road, that intersection is not only saturated, but failed a long time ago.

Should this be a surprise to King County DOT? No! It was King County that insisted on a threshold that was roughly 130% of the NoveltyHill Road design capacity over the objections of project opponents. When DOT inserted the new stoplight at 208^th into their plan, opponents discovered that King County had failed to adjust volumes and capacities impacted by the stoplights. When challenged what did the county do? Nothing. If the mistake was an accident, their refusal to correct their major mistake proves they cared more about helping Weyerhaeuser than helping thousands of county residents avoid what would become massive traffic congestion on Novelty Hill road.

As a result of their manipulation, or "cooking the books" as we called it, instead of adjusting the design capacities for Novelty Hill Road upwards from 1,100 vph to 1,350 vph for shoulders and turn lanes, they should have reduced it to 980 vph to adjust the capacity to account for a half-dozen new stoplights. Their acts then and now to address these errors are not honest mistakes, but continue a pattern that continues today in their actions for Redmond Ridge East that have been alleged to be both improper and illegal. Ron Sims was even made aware of these glaring errors in 1998, and his response was to join in the cover-up of the continued wrongdoing.

As far as I know, King County DOT could be setting the cycle time on that light specifically to prevent a volume of 1,350 vph from occurring on the east side of that intersection, regardless of the impacts to growing traffic congestion.

In April 2004, volumes reached 1,340 vph on the PM commute, or just 10 cars short of triggering the threshold. 6 months later, if I assume that one reference in my PDA response to be for October 2004, volumes reached 1,343 vph, or just 7 cars short of the threshold. But then 12 months later, according to the data received and the addition of hundreds of new homes and commuters using the roadway, the volume has been reduced to a maximum level of 1,312? This is absurd, if not explained by the restrictive nature of the 208^th intersection on eastbound flows.

Here is the count data I have as it applies to the 1,350 vph threshold(vehicles per hour):

Dismissing Transpo’s convenient explanation based on the illogical use of the Trilogy back door by PM commuters is easy, because the facts demonstrate the truth. The decrease that was measured after the back door was opened continued with no evidence that anyone was using that back door at all for commuting.

The intersection at Novelty Hill Road and 208^th has now begun to reduce the potential volume of cars that can head east. We know that volumes came within just 10 cars of triggering the threshold in April 2004, and maybe within 7 cars in October 2004. The volume may actually have peaked before or after April 2004 and exceeded the threshold, but we all know that King County was in no hurry to enforce this permit and lose the millions of dollars in permit fees that would have resulted if permits had been halted. (605 permits and $1.2 million in fees between May 2004 and August 2005.)

If King County DOT had properly and reasonably exercised their “discretion”, based on the facts and reasonable and honest judgment, they would have used the authority they were granted in the Redmond Ridge and Trilogy permit to do the honest and responsible thing, which would have been to adjust the threshold to a level that demonstrated a measured volume that indicated saturation and failure of that intersection. Instead they have done nothing but look the other way and defend the continued issuing of permits. They are even trying to defend their approvals of 800 more homes in Redmond Ridge East through even more dishonest manipulation and imagination. This is unbelievable!!!!

Given the traffic back-ups that existed long before April 2004 and that have only increased to date, using what has been proven out to be a volume greater than the absolute peak value of cars capable of navigating this intersection, was a grotesque and disgusting volume level to define failure of this intersection. To hide behind the failure of this trigger to be reached while stop and go traffic congestions reaches back towards Avondale Road is criminal.

This threshold was suspected and alleged 8 years ago to have been concocted as an unachievable level to make the only significant permit condition, aimed at protecting the local road system, only a façade that would leave Quadrant to build every home despite the growing congestion. Given the design capacity of the roadways entering the intersection from the south and west, which are both 2-lane roads with design capacities less than 1,000 vph, establishing this trigger at 1,350 vph was clearly designed by DOT to deceive the community. And again, DOT’s failure to correct the error today, only proves their corrupt intent and determination to continue to defraud the citizens in this area who are now living with the consequences of their corrupt acts.

King County DOT’s continued refusal to address these now-shrinking volumes, which are no doubt the result of the failure of this intersection, is evidence of their bias, conflict of interest, and continued “arbitrary and capricious” actions to help Weyerhaeuser.

As I’ve stated in responses earlier to Mr. Stier’s suggestions that DOT can commit these acts because they are afforded the discretion to do so, I would simply state again that no one in government has the discretion to commit arbitrary and capricious acts.

Finally, I will state the obvious to everyone reading this. There is not a single honest or reasonable person who could look at that traffic congestion in the AM and PM commutes on Novelty Hill Road and justify the approval of a single new home. For every single county employee who does so, I have no problem whatsoever in questioning their honesty and integrity. There is not a person who uses Novelty Hill Road that would agree that the roadway has not long-since failed and that King County is simply working on behalf of Weyerhaeuser and Quadrant Homes to assist them in making money at the expense of our lifestyles and quality of life.

The westbound AM commute on Novelty Hill Road is now backing up 1-3 miles every morning. But King County doesn’t have to care about that at all, do they? They made certain a long time ago that the worst commute period would always be ignored by policy.

I believe that King County DOT, DDES, Ron Sims, and the PA's Office have always worked to advance the agenda of Weyerhaeuser, but the continued efforts now to approve Redmond Ridge East while there is such clear evidence of road saturation and gridlock is moving beyond obsene, to something I can't even describe with words.

Will they get away with it - again?

Marymoor Parking - What we're paying so agencies like DOT can hire private lawyers to defend alleged wrongdoing

2005-10-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

I recently received several pieces of information from King County Parks in response to my PDA request that asks, how much are we paying to collect parking fees at Marymoor Park, and how much is being collected?

The thought to find this out was the result of the discovery that King County DOT has spent more than $1 million dollars to hire, not one, but two private law firms to defend it and its leadership from allegations of wrongdoing and retaliation against King County DOT whistleblowers.

The results are mixed, and confusing.

The easy part is understanding the revenues. Click here for the PDF. Since January 1, 2004, parking collections have been about $708,000. I don't know when the machines were actually activated last year, but it was sometime last summer, so let's assume the annual revenue number to be around $606,000. Why this number? It will result in a good "ballpark" number after the costs are applied.

The second document is a spreadsheet with costs. Click here for that Excel file (1.2 MB). I'll admit that I can't read this whole thing. The "Summary of Parking Costs" worksheet estimates that annual costs for maintenance, permits, counting, collection and clerical at about $106,000. The other worksheets appear to support this summary, while the "LowOrgDepartmentAcctDetailRepor" tab appears to be all expenditures for the park, including the machines and installation of them. The total is $2 million for the year, while I can only speculate on the part of these costs associated with the parking machines, so I'm going to ignore the setup costs and just look at this from an "annual costs versus revenues" approach.

So with these assumptions, $606,000 in annual revenue and $106,000 in annual costs, the parking fees at Marymoor Park are raising approximately $500,000 a year.

To put this in some context; 611,204 people have paid the fee, stood or waited in the lines to pay it and get their ticket, waited in line at the eastern exit to drive through the ticket enforcement booth, or dealt with the generally annoying process to pay their $1 for daily parking.

So now for the questions I'm trying to ask and answer.

1. What would these thousands and thousands of people think if they knew that 2 years worth of their hassling with parking at Marymoor Park would only raise only $1 million?

2. And then, on the assumption that these revenues were critical to the operating of Marymoor Park, what would people think if they knew that the county has "blown" an equivalent amount to hire two private law firms to defend the alleged wrondgoing by King County DOT for Redmond Ridge East?

I know the direct connection is vague beyond both agencies being part of the same government funded by the same taxpayers, but why should we pay for parking at a public park so a corrupt agency can hire private lawyers to defend both the agency AND it's director and managers from allegations of personal wrongdoing?

I know that I've just lost all interest in continuing to support this parking "tax", because in my mind, it's nothing short of revenue enhancement for the defense of continuing county corruption.

King County - where fairness and common sense have been replaced with whatever they can get away with - for developers

2005-09-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

Read the latest "blessing" from the King County Ombudsman of DOT and DDES conspiracies to keep the permit fees flowing from their favorite developer. Her findings are in response to my complaint alleging the intentional halting of traffic counts on Novelty Hill Road to maintain the flow of permit fees into King County.

Oh, and be aware that the October 2004 count the report refers to, somehow was never disclosed to anyone prior to this report, despite at least 2 PDA requests from myself and one other person requesting all traffic counts for NHR . Of course, I'm sure that was just an "oversight", "ineptitude", or some other such "accident" that again benefitted this developer, like every mistake always does, as was the failure by the ombudsman to include its results in this report.

Whitewash

County makes permit conditions.
County makes sure conditions are meaningless.
Ombudsman's office make certain that county gets away with it.

It's the perfectly engineered system to hand control of land use decisions to the developers who fund DOT and DDES, and shift the real billions in infrastructure costs to us, the foolish taxpayers.

Picking this apart would fill volumes, and be equally as futile as the complaint was in the first place.

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Update

I couldn't resist. This report was full of so much bulls**t I had to respond. Futile I know, but I knew that going in.

Response to Ombudsman

What does King County pay for private lawyers? Here's good news and bad news

2005-09-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Bad News First

When I learned that King County DOT had hired a private law firm to represent its interests (and those of Weyerhaeuser) in defending their "arbitrary and capricious" traffic study for Redmond Ridge East, I was pretty disgusted. When I learned as a result of an early PDA request that DOT had already paid one private firm more than $200,000, I was furious. I mean this was roughly half of what opponents of Redmond Ridge, Trilogy and Redmond Ridge East had spent over a decade to fight county bias and "mistakes" in a half-dozen lawsuits related to these developments.

Now imagine my outrage when I learned today that King County DOT has actually spent more than a million dollars to hire not just one, but two law firms to defend itself - and its director and 2 managers - from challenges to its "arbitrary and capricious" traffic studies and the retaliation charges made against these 3 county employees by several King County DOT whistleblowers. These are the whistleblowers who tried to expose alleged improper and illegal acts by DOT in 2002, and lost their positions in reward for their efforts? In fact, the total dollars spent to these two law firms, as of this report, is an incredible $1,028,635!

... and counting!

Who thinks this is right? King County DOT has committed incredible acts to help developers in general for years, and has worked for developers like Weyerhaeuser's Quadrant Homes to grease the skids for Redmond Ridge, Trilogy and Redmond Ridge East. But could anyone have imagined that they'd spend over a million dollars to just two law firms to defend its grotesquely flawed and manipulated road study for Redmond Ridge East, and the allegedly improper retaliation by the departement's director and managers?

How can citizens fight those kinds of resources? Here is the letter I received today from John Gerberding in the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office. Click here for the pdf (1.66 MB)

More Bad News

Private law firms engaged in active litigation on behalf of King County have been paid $3,471,323 since January 2003. Keep in mind that these are only active cases in King County right now. How much was spent on litigation in 2004 or 2003 in cases now closed?

Good News? You judge

So what's the good news in this report? Gerberding claims in response 3 that, "King County does not have retainer agreements with any private law firms or attorneys." But he goes on to state that, "All lawyers hired by King County must comply with Rule 1.7 of the Rules of Professional Conduct which might, depending on the facts of a given situation, prohibit them from representing a client who has interests adverse to King County." So how convenient is that?

So if the county doesn't use retainers to tie up law firms, consider this list of law firms "which might" be prohibited from representing citizens in litigation challenging county wrongdoing:

Betts, Paterson

Buck & Gordon

Bullivant Houser

Burgess Fitzer

Edwards, Sieh, Smith, Goodfriend

Foster Pepper

Johnson Christie Andrews & Skinner

Lane Powell

Mills Meyers Swartling

Ogden Murphy Wallace

Perkins Coie

Preston Gates

Savitt & Bruce

Short Cressman Burgess

Stoel Rives

Summit Law Group

Vandeberg, Johnson & Gandara

Williams Kastner Gibbs

Winterbauer & Diamond

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Update 9/30/2005
Received some additional firms not identified in original response:

Garvey Shubert & Barr
Karr Tuttle Campbell

These 2 bring the total to 21 law firms representing King County, and subsequently "off limits" to the public in litigation against county wrongdoing.

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Update 9/24/2005

I've just faxed a new ethics complaint to the King County Ombudsman alleging conflicts of interest related to the continuing involvement by several King County DOT officials in matters related to Redmond Ridge East. Click here for that complaint.

These officials, including the DOT Road Services Director, are currently being sued in Federal Court for alleged wrongdoing and alleged retaliation against other DOT employees who tried to expose this wrongdoing. The Road Services director and 2 other supervisors have refused to recuse themselves from decisions related to Redmond Ridge East, which include the directing of taxpayer dollars, now in excess of $1 million, to defend themselves and DOT against whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing and personal allegations of retaliation against the DOT whistleblowers. The charges brought by the DOT whistleblowers against King County include allegations against these individuals personally that are outside the general protections granted to government employees working within their official capacities.

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Conclusions

So what can we conclude from this information?

1) King County will spend whatever it needs to defend itself. It's our money, so why should they care?

2) King County has currently spent in excess of $1 million dollars to not one, but two private law firms to defend its "arbitrary and capricious" actions for Weyerhaeuser, and to defend the alleged personal wrongdoing by 3 county employees in DOT leadership.

3) King County effectively limits access to some pretty large law firms by hiring them to represent the county. Consider that if the King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office provided the representation as they are funded to do, most of these law firms would be available to the public to litigate actions against King County.

4) Under the leadership of Ron Sims, this waste of taxpayer dollars is ignored, and the policies that allow this spending - $3,471,323 since January 2003 on active cases - continue without resistance.

5) Under this strategy of spreading out current litigation among more than a dozen different law firms, King County quite effectively has purchased their allegiance and the public must settle on smaller and less influential firms, while they should expect to be met in court by these powerhouses.

Blogs: Diversion or Benefit?

2005-09-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Who reads blogs? Bloggers read them, sure. A handful of concerned citizens read them too, and a handful of them leave comments on the blog postings. But does this emphasis on blogs help educate the mainstream, or just focus the energized in perfecting their arguments to each other. Blogs are great for sharing information the mainstream won't report, but getting that information is only the start.

I'm as guilty as anyone. I created this blog in the hopes of spreading the history that I've painfully lived related to the land use machine in King County. Have I shared that knowledge? I don't know. Have I shared as much with a detailed post compared to a 200-word letter to the local papers? I don't think so.

While the Letters to the Editor pages on local papers are generally little more than Bush-bashing and anti-American assaults on nearly anything Republican, those that write letters are sharing a sense of the voters with the respective editorial boards. Secondly, many readers who turn to the letters page do so assuming it the only place where they will see an alternative to the liberal anti-Bush nonsense that is typically printed throughout the rest of the paper.

If anyone wants to know of one thing they can do that will make a difference, albiet small, it's writing letters to your elected leaders and writing letters to area papers. Papers in particular, are always looking for a letter to offset the half-dozen they're going to print anyway that promote the liberal viewpoint. The more letters from conservatives, the more likely the conservative viewpoint will get some ink. And we all know that the letters page is just about the only way conservatives are going to get any voice in the mainstream media.

So don't waste the opportunity. If you've written a comment on a blog and it sounds like a point that the community should hear, send it to the Times, PI, King County Journal, etc. Let some people who won't normally agree with you read it. That will make a difference.

opinion@seattletimes.com (Seattle Times)

editpage@seattlepi.com (Seattle PI)

letterstoeditor@kingcountyjournal.com (King County Journal)

Parks and King County Lawsuits

2005-09-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

As I was walking back to my car this weekend, after paying my $1 for the required parking ticket at Marymoor Park, I couldn't help but think about why we are asked to pay that $1 and lose that minute or two to get it? Is that revenue so vital that funding of our parks cannot come from anywhere else funded by our taxes?

Call me fixated on the subject, but I couldn't help but think about that private lawyer, hired by King County DOT to sue the King County Hearing Examiner, and the $210 per hour that DOT is paying him to help Weyerhaesuer.

As I've posted already, King County DOT has paid - I mean the taxpayers have paid - this private firm $202,000 between the end of January through July. I'm assuming that this firm is still being paid as that lawsuit progresses. I thought about all the other firms under retainer by King County, intended to prevent them from being able to represent anyone litigating against the county.

My Public Disclosure Act request asking for this information won't be available until mid-October, but how many millions of dollars a year does King County spend hiring and retaining private law firms, despite having the Prosecuting Attorneys Office there to defend it against allegations of wrongdoing, or representing it in lawsuits and appeals even if against other King County agencies?

$1 dollar to support parks isn't very much for such a valuable public resource, but for every 210 cars in that lot, one could equate that to King County hiring one lawyer for just one hour to do something that the county probably should not be doing. For the first 202,000 cars parked at Marymoor Park between January and July of this year, what would those people think if they were told that their parking fee was going to hire private lawyers to help Weyerhaeuser and sue another King County agency?

We were forced to vote on a parks initiative to maintain our county parks, but why aren't we asked when county agencies spend our money to help developers and sue other county agencies who make findings they disagree with?

We all know the answer to that question, don't we?

It's time to make government officials personally responsible for their actions

2005-09-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

In 1997, Armen Yousoufian sued King County when Ron Sims refused to produce the economic-impact studies he had requested under the Public Disclosure Act. Sims had alleged on radio that a taxpayer expenditure on a new Seahawk stadium would result in an economic boon. Yousoufian simply wanted to see the evidence behind that claim and other financial data.

Eight years later, despite winning in King County Superior Court, the Court of Appeals and the Washington State Supreme Court, Yousoufian still doesn’t have the documents! And the awarded $300,000 in penalties against King County barely covers his legal costs.

But what is $300,000 to King County? Between January and July of this year, King County DOT has spent an incredible $202,000 to one private law firm to defend its alleged wrongdoing aimed at helping Weyerhaeuser and Redmond Ridge East. They are also suing the King County Hearing Examiner, and appealing the examiner’s findings of “arbitrary and capricious” acts committed by DOT to help Weyerhaeuser obtain the mandatory concurrency certificates for Redmond Ridge East. The examiner has recommended denial of the project and the rescinding of that dubious certificate.

The taxpayer costs to hire just this one private firm to defend DOT and sue another county agency will probably eclipse Yousoufian’s award soon. Click here for the invoice

Notice the attorney in the invoice labelled "KEM". This single attorney has billed King County nearly $155,000 for 6 months of work, at a rate of nearly $212 per hour. Doesn't anyone else find this outrageous? DOT's payments to this one attorney more than doubled the cash settlement with Friends of the Law.

Ron Sims and DOT have absolutely no respect for the taxpayers and we are not only paying to defend their wrongdoing, but the awards to their victims as well.

Your tax dollars at work - helping a developer make his case

2005-08-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

I received a response today to my PDA request trying to identify the costs incurred by the taxpayers with the hiring of a private law firm, Buck and Gordon, to represent KCDOT in the Redmond Ridge East hearings, lawsuit, and appeals of the King County examiner's June ruling recommending denial of Redmond Ridge East and the rescinding of its improperly issued transporation concurrency certificate in 2002. Here is what King County taxpayers paid to hire this pro-developer law firm to represent this government agency against the hearing examiner:

January - May

RRE Hearing Fees = $140,590

RRE Hearing Costs = $ 7,426

June - July

Council Appeal = $ 43,458

LUPA Appeal = $ 10,912

Total all RRE Proceedings = $202,386

Can you imagine if the opposition to these "arbitrary and capricous" DOT actions had this kind of money to challenge the wrongdoing?

Add Quadrant's lawyers to the mix for the hearings, lawsuit and appeal, along with the PA's Office's costs in representing DDES in their appeal, and is there any wonder why opposition groups eventually are bankrupted and driven into silence?

Friends of the Law settled for $75,000, with most of it going to their lawyer to pay off their outstanding debts. I wonder what "fraction" that is of the profit on just one Quadrant house?

And from today's reporting on the settlement between Quadrant and Friends of the Law, now Quadrant is blaming King County for the hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded road projects. Quadrant's president is calling on the county to build their share of the roads to support Redmond Ridge, Trilogy AND Redmond Ridge East. Never mind that King County and Redmond's share will be in the half billion to a billion dollar range before they're done.

Maybe if Quadrant is such a community-minded mega-developer, maybe they should have stopped building and worsening the problems last year when volumes on Novelty Hill Road triggered project-halting conditions on Novelty Hill Road (A condition that King County is refusing to enforce while they've completely stopped counting cars on NHR). They didn't!

Maybe Quadrant will just stop building now until the roads are improved to handle the added capacity? They won't!

But now it's all King County's fault? And Quadrant would have us believe that King County continues to commit "arbitrary and capricious" acts for them becasue...

Another champion driven into silence

2005-08-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

On its face, few people can argue with this quote from Edmund Burke, but it's not accurate. It should have stipulated that it takes a lot of good men and women to defeat evil. A handful of good men and women cannot do it alone, because they are generally outnumbered, outfinanced, and bound by laws and ethics that those on the dark side ignore.

For over a decade and a half, Friends of the Law fought land use actions by King County aimed at helping a major developer build a massive housing project in the rural area east of Redmond. When the law got in the way of the developer's plans, the county rewrote the law when possible, and simply ignored the law when necessary. When those actions were challenged in the courts by Friends, judges simply ignored the wrongdoing and refused to rule on it, or they simply changed the laws by inventing new interpretations to allow and excuse the wrongdoing. Some even ruled against Friends while refusing to even explain their ruling. Former King County Superior Court Judge Marcia Pechman was rewarded with appointment to the Federal Bench despite such a ruling in a Friends' case. (Remember that judges in Washington are all elected, and subject to the same concerns surrounding financing of campaigns and "avoidance of well-funded challengers".)

During the early years when the community was ignited and was supporting the defense of their rural community, funding was easily obtained to fight this corruption within King County - $250,000 during the first 5 years. But as the years advanced and the litigation was appealed and reappealed again and again, that interest and support faded. The efforts to stop Redmond Ridge and Trilogy ended earlier this year, after more than 10 years, when the state Supreme Court simply redefined the Growth Management Act and allowed an "incomplete" and "illegal" subdivision application, that was accepted by the county in 1989, to vest these urban developments on land that the court ruled was, "characterized by urban growth" even if it was covered by nothing but trees and wildlife. The court effectively gutted the GMA by allowing counties to designate any land as urban, simply by vesting a subdivision application, even if such an application itself was illegal and/or incomplete.

(This specific subdivision application was challenged and litigated for years, all the way to the same supreme court several years ago, with that court, along with the lower courts, simply refusing to even rule on it. The courts at every level of the system knew the consequences to King County and these developments, and they unanimously turned their backs on the law and the citizens challenging the legality of this bogus subdivision application.)

When Redmond Ridge East entered hearings earlier this year, Friends of the Law took it on to support 5 courageous whistleblowers from within King County DOT who had alleged a pattern of wrongdoing, and even illegal acts by their colleagues in DOT for developers, and specifically for Redmond Ridge East (a new 800-home development on top of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy that are already gridlocking area roads). Without sufficient funding from the community, Friends also did it going into further debt to their attorney.

Despite the overwhelming victory in those hearings and the ruling from the Hearing Examiner that King County has engaged in "arbitrary and capricious" acts for developers, now everyone is suing the examiner or appealing to the county council, even other county agencies, like DOT and DDES, that should be considered nearly "employed" by the development machine . With the right judges and pressures on the County Council, even these "arbitrary and capricious" actions will likely be excused.

Friends is calling it quits. They're settling with the developer for pennies to pay off their outstanding legal bills. Sadly, to do so they are agreeing to silence themselves from any future involvement with Redmond Ridge East, selling their First Amendments rights to pay off their lawyer who failed to win any lasting victories in more than 10 years of effort. They're also ending any litigation challenging Redmond Ridge East, and with their exit, no one else can challenge Redmond Ridge East in court given that all appeal deadlines have expired.

What is the lesson learned in this debacle? Well, in 2 words it can be summed up by the phrase "business model". This is the business model employed by developers and government to get what they want.

At first, every alleged improper or illegal act was challenged by Friends. As the shear number of alleged improper or illegal acts by King County grew, only the significant ones could be challenged. With the help of a special "Loser Pays" law enacted as a gift for the growth lobby in 1994, which was designed to shield governments from challenges to their improper and even illegal land use actions, many challenges could not even be appealed when superior court judges ruled against Friends, or refused to rule at all. Even when Friends won victories in court, as they did in the Supreme Court in 2000, these "elected" judges never made a ruling that made anything final, always remanding the cases back to other jurisdictions, while leaving the door open for easy appeals and further delays. As the multiple litigation threads continued for years, it became nearly irrelevant, as much of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy was being constructed, making any findings against the county even a more unrealistic expectation from elected judges concerned for their own careers.

In time, Friends was forced into significant debt, while King County and Quadrant continued with tax dollars, or profits from grossly inflated housing sales in these developments to fund their appeals and challenges. Friends of the Law wasn't funded with taxpayer dollars like county agencies when they litigated the defense of their actions. DOT, DDES and the PA's Office have an unlimited pot of taxpayer dollars at their disposal, but for Friends it became less and less about opposition, and more and more about how to repay their lawyer.

Friends and other area opponents of this incestuous relationship between government and developers now fully understand the developers' business model, which is to litigate, litigate and litigate until opposition is put out of business. Then seal the deal with a few pennies thrown their way to silence them forever, just to clear the way for anything in the future. In this case the settlement will probably not even equate to the profit from one house sold in Redmond Ridge East.

In the case of Redmond Ridge, Trilogy and Redmond Ridge east, King County and the courts were fully engaged on the side of this developer and against the community from the beginning. You don't have to believe me, but those who have lived this know it to be true. And with the mitigation and fee revenues to the county that fund departments like DOT and DDES, why should anyone be surprised that they would ignore citizens, or even engage in "dishonest or "arbitrary and capricious" actions that benefit their real providers? One thing is certain, though, when government and the courts side with a developer, it's an unbeatable combination. Don't ever be fooled into believing that the law comes first! And don't ever believe that government will put your interests above those or their "paying" customers!

I was never a member of Friends of the Law, but was part of a short-lived organization called "The Coalition for Public Trust". That group dissolved after 4 years, once we learned that the "public trust" in government was unattainable and undeserved in King County. Under the leadership of Gary Locke, then Ron Sims, and the rest of the cabal of developer-owned "public servants" and officials, King County deserves nothing but disdain for their repeated acts of bias, actions contrary to the facts, and dishonesty.

Goodbye Friends of the Law. You may not have won, but you've helped a few to understand just how bad the whole land use system is in King County. You pushed every button and challenged every branch of government to do the right thing to no avail. You've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that government can be bought by the right special interest. Your persistence and efforts are appreciated, even if they resulted in a series of legal precedents - invented to help this developer - that have perverted state and county land use laws. No one could have known just how far government would go to satisfy a corporation like Weyerhaeuser.

We do now!

And when King County or Olympia comes to us and says they need a half billion more dollars for roads and a couple hundred million for schools to support growth in this area, will people in King County and throughout the state understand why they are being blackmailed into paying for it and not Weyerhaeuser? When we are forced to pay for it, it will be because Weyerhaeuser will already have their billion dollars of profit in the bank earning interest! Less, of course, their generous contributions to our elected officials.

PS-
Almost every person involved with this fight from the beginning is gone. Most moved away when they saw the futility, or simply gave up. Some stayed with this optimistic hope that it was only a matter of time before it would all be exposed, but it hasn't. The press won't even cover it anymore; tired of the story and too lazy to investigate. Maybe they're simply too afraid of the developers' lawyers - they should be.

Now Friends has joined the silence. Bought off like Redmond 9 years ago. With the last of the organized opposition gone now, King County is free to hand it all to the developers, while they work to find more ways to take our money to subsidize the billion dollar profits of the companies that are their real task-masters, like Weyerhaeuser and others in the King County growth machine.

Do ethics exist anywhere in King County?

2005-08-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last year, 2 employees of King County DOT, Ho-Chuan Chen and Hoissein Barahimi, filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against King County, KCDOT Road Services director Linda Dougherty and managers Jennifer Lindwall and Matthew Nolan. The suit alleged retaliation against Chen and Barahimi by the defendants as a result of their refusal, along with 3 other members of the King County TFDM group, to go along with what they alleged were a series of improper and illegal actions committed by the DOT concurrency group to help developers obtain traffic concurrency certificates. They alleged that these actions helped Redmond Ridge East improperly obtain a traffic concurrency certificate in 2002, and their refusal to go along with the alleged wrongdoing resulted in retaliation that included bad performance reviews, temporary layoff, and demotions with loss of pay. You can read their original complaint filed in superior court here, before it was moved to Federal Court.

2 months ago, King County Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith issued his findings after his review of the Redmond Ridge East application, and in particular, the traffic concurrency certificate issued to Quadrant in 2002 for Redmond Ridge East. The same certificate that was the basis for the whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing and retaliation. You can read the examiner's findings here.

Smith's findings strongly affirmed the allegations made by the whistleblowers in the Whistleblower complaint they filed in 2003 that alleged wrongdoing. In fact, Smith's findings went so far as to allege that in 3 separate instances, the Concurrency Group had committed "arbitrary and capricious" acts to help Quadrant obtain that certificate. In affirming the whistleblowers' charges of wrongdoing, the examiner confirmed the basis for the retaliation alleged to have been committed by Dougherty, Lindwall and Nolan in their federal complaint.

On August 8, I sent an email to Dougherty, Lindwall and Nolan and requested that they recuse themselves from any further involvement in the Redmond Ridge East application, and that all decisions made by them since the filing of this lawsuit be reviewed for fairness,responsibility, and appropriateness.

In that email I alleged that these 3 had a clear conflict of interest, given that the outcome of the Redmond Ridge East challenges and appeals would have a direct impact on the Federal lawsuit and that it was entirely inappropriate for them to remain involved in the decision making process related to this development when they had so much at stake personally.

Below is that original request, the recusal refusal email from Dougherty I received today, and my strongly worded request that they reconsider and request an opinion of the King County Board of Ethics.

What stake do these public servants have in Redmond Ridge East, if 'not' conflicted by their own status as defendants in this Federal lawsuit, that is driving them to refuse to step aside and leave the decisions related to Redmond Ridge East and DOT's challenges of the hearing examiner's ruling to others?

Please judge for yourselves and help me to understand how this is ethical behavior.

My original request

From: Michael Costello
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005
To: Linda Dougherty, Jennifer Lindwall, Matthew Nolan
Subject: Request for Recusal

August 8, 2005

Linda Dougherty - Director KCDOT Road Services
Jennifer Lindwall - Manager KCDOT
Mathew Nolan - Supervisor KCDOT

RE: Request for recusal from all Redmond Ridge East decisions and involvement

Dear Ms. Dougherty, Ms. Lindwall & Mr. Nolan,

As defendants in a lawsuit filed by DOT Whistleblowers last year, who have alleged retaliation by you in response to their allegations of wrongdoing by DOT under your leadership, it is entirely inappropriate for any of you to continue in the decision-making process on issues related to Redmond Ridge East, including decisions related to lawsuits and/or appeals your department has engaged in against the Hearing Examiner.

This letter is to formally request that each of you publicly recuse yourself from all decisions or matters related to Redmond Ridge East, and that any decisions that you have made since the litigation was filed against you, be reviewed for fairness, responsibility, and appropriateness on behalf of what should be a "neutral" Department of Transportation.

There can be no argument that each of you are now trapped in a serious personal conflict of interest, where findings of wrongdoing by the Hearing Examiner have supported the Whistleblowers allegations against DOT's actions in the Redmond Ridge East concurrency process. This decision has created a significant incentive for you to work to overturn that ruling and defend your personal interests and actions.

Your decisions, such as the hiring of a private pro-development law firm to sue the Hearing Examiner at additional taxpayer expense, supports my strong concern in your neutrality.

Please provide me a response, in writing or by email, of your decision on my request.

Thank you.

Michael Costello
Redmond, WA

cc. Kathy Lambert, Norm Maleng

Response from DOT (Linda Dougherty on behalf of others)

From: Linda Dougherty
To: Michael Costello
Subject: RE: Request for Recusal
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005

August 25, 2005

Dear Mr. Costello,

Thank you for your email of August 8, 2005 requesting that we recuse ourselves from all decisions or matters related to Redmond Ridge East. We have considered your request and the reasons you gave for making it. We are confident that we do not have any conflict of interest in connection with either our past decisions or decisions we may be called on to make in the future related to Redmond Ridge East. We therefore decline your request that we recuse ourselves.

Sincerely,

Linda Dougherty
Director, Road Services Division

Jennifer Lindwall
Manager, CIP and Planning Section

Matt Nolan,
Traffic Engineer/Manager
Traffic Engineering Section

And my request for reconsideration and an opinion from the Board of Ethics

From: Michael Costello
To: Linda Dougherty, Jennifer Lindwall, Matthew Nolan & King County Board of Ethics
Subject: RE: Request for Recusal
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005

August 25, 2005

RE: Recusal request of matters related to Redmond Ridge East

Dear Ms. Dougherty, Ms. Lindwall & Mr. Nolan,

A claim that you don't have a clear and direct conflict of interest in matters related to Redmond Ridge East is utterly absurd! As defendants in a Federal lawsuit alleging retaliation and wrongdoing by you in the allegedly improper issuance of the Redmond Ridge East concurrency certificate in 2002, and the alleged retaliation against DOT employees who objected to the actions of your department and groups, you have a massive conflict of interest by staying involved in any decisions related to that development application, or any decisions related to whether your department should participate in litigation or appeals challenging the findings of King County Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith condemning the actions by your department. Mr. Smith's finding of repeated "arbitrary and capricious" actions by your department in favor of Redmond Ridge East has already affirmed much of the allegations contained within the Federal lawsuit against you.

To state the obvious; the success or failure of your department in reversing the findings of Mr. Smith will have direct personal consequences to you and your defense in the aforementioned Federal lawsuit. Even your involvement in decisions to pursue such challenges, including DOT's lawsuit filed in superior court to overturn the examiner and DOT's appeal of the examiner's concurrency findings to the King County Council, can be easily be questioned as designed to benefit you personally and even financially, should the results of those challenges affect the costs you may incur in your defense and the success or failure of your defense of all the charges.

I most strongly request that you reconsider your refusal to recuse yourselves and request that you ask for an opinion from the King County Board of Ethics based on my request, and please include me in their reply.

Dear Board of Ethics,

With this email I am personally requesting such a review be conducted by the King County Board of Ethics in the appropriateness of the continued involvement of Ms. Dougherty, Ms. Lindwall, and Mr. Nolan in any matters or decisions related to Redmond Ridge East, which is the principal subject of the Federal lawsuit brought by the DOT whistleblowers. With the findings by the Hearing Examiner 2 months ago of "arbitrary and capricious" actions committed by DOT for this development, many of the charges in the Federal lawsuit have already been established as credible. The defendants' clear conflict of interest not only demonstrates a perception of a direct conflict, but such a direct conflict exists and has since that suit was first filed. With the outcome of that suit directly tied to the finding of the hearing examiner and the actions taken by the defendants to overturn those findings, their involvement is unethical and clearly inappropriate. Their inability or unwillingness to step away only supports my concerns that their involvement is more than professional, but personal.

Thank you.

Michael Costello
Redmond, WA 98053

cc. King County Board of Ethics, Kathy Lambert, Norm Maleng

County using "retainers" to put lawyers off-limits to the people

2005-08-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

Did you know that King County has placed an incredible number of attorneys and law firms on retainer to prevent them from representing citizens in litigation against the county? While on retainer they can't represent anyone suing the county without entering into a conflict of interest.

Got this from an elected county official today. "Most all the attorney firms in the county are on some kind of retainer from the county. It is most amazing indeed."

Don't know what that's costing us here in King County, but I've just submitted a PDA request to find out. Certainly doesn't sound like a very worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars to me, does it?

Don't even have to ask what they're afraid of, because we all know.

So many lawyers, and we're paying for them all

2005-08-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has declared that they will defend the hearing examiner from lawsuits filed by Weyerhaeuser and KCDOT challenging his rulings on Redmond Ridge East and the improperly issued traffic concurrency certificate issued in 2002. KCDOT is being represented by private counsel on our dime.

The PA's Office is also still representing DDES in its appeal of the hearing examiner's ruling, putting it on the developer's side too, while KCDOT is also "illegally" appealing the examiner's ruling to deny the concurrency certificate, again with private counsel, and again on our dime. (Only concurrency certificate "approvals" may be appealed to the county council. Denials must be challenged in Superior Court.)

So far this means that the taxpayers are footing the bill for King County DOT's hiring of private counsel in their lawsuit against the examiner and again for their "illegal" concurrency appeal to the King County Council. We're also paying for the PA's Office representation of DDES in their appeal of the examiner's recommendations to deny Redmond Ridge East and to rescind their improperly issued traffic concurrency certificate. And one more time, we're paying for the PA's Office to represent us, in defense of the hearing examiner in the lawsuits brought by Weyerhaeuser and KCDOT, while they represent DDES against the examiner.

Confused yet?

Then today I received this email in response to my request to Amy Calderwood, the King County Ombudsman, for status on my 2 complaints filed July 15 and July 25:

Mr. Costello:

Our Office is looking into both of your complaints. Jon Stier, Assistant Ombudsman, is investigating your complaint related to the traffic counts.

I will be looking into your allegations of conflict of interest on the part of DDES. The Prosecuting Attorney has declared a conflict, and will not be providing me with legal advice on this case. I am in the process of obtaining special counsel. Once I get our special counsel in place, I will be better able to determine what course our review will take.

Please feel free to email Jon directly at jon.stier@metrokc.gov with any questions related to the traffic count complaint.
Amy Calderwood
Ombudsman-Director
King County Office of Citizen Complaints - Ombudsman

So despite the PA's Office not seeing a conflict of interest in representing DDES against the examiner, on Weyerhaeuser's side, while defending the examiner from lawsuits brought by both DOT and Weyerhaesuser, they can't provide legal counsel to the ombudsman in the investigation of my complaint because of an admitted conflict of interest. At least they can see a conflict some of the time.

Now the ombudsman gets to hire even more lawyers to investigate whether DOT, DDES and the PA's Office all have conflicts of interest in performing the technical reviews on applications that will generate revenue to their departments, and also in suing the examiner to preserve revenues gained from the improperly issued traffic concurrency certificates for Redmond Ridge East. Whew! Even I'm getting confused now.

Just a reminder... King County obtained over $1.2 million in permit fees from just over 600 permits issued to Redmond Ridge and Trilogy in the 15 months since they stopped counting cars on Novelty Hill Road, and therefore failed to enforce the permit condition that would have required halting of permits over a year ago.

Now add all those lawyer costs and that $1.2 million doesn't look like the windfall it did a couple months ago, huh?

What a mess!

DOT Whistleblowers strike back at alleged wrongdoing in DOT - Part 1

2005-08-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

King County DOT and DDES perform the technical reviews on development applications. The fees and mitigation the county obtains as a result of approving permits funds DOT, DOT projects, and DDES. This revenue source is so critical to these departments, that I've been told that memos are actually circulated throughout these agencies warning employees of the impacts to their departments, including layoffs if permits are denied.

In 2002, 5 years after Redmond Ridge had been approved - and another long story I'll save for some other time, King County received a subdivision application from a private landowner with a 20-acre parcel wishing to subdivide it into 4 5-acre lots (you'll have to excuse me if these numbers are not exactly correct, but they are somewhat irrelevant to my point, except for their relative small size).

The county denied this guy's application on the basis that Novelty Hill Road could not handle one single more car. (All of this development is occurring in the rural area 3 miles east of Redmond.) He appealed and was denied again. He was only trying to add, something like 1.1 car trips to the Novelty Hill Road PM commute, but the road was already well over capacity as a result of Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, so King County DOT denied his application on the basis that he could not obtain a concurrency certificate to allow a single car added to the road.

Later that year, Quadrant Homes submitted an 800-home application for Redmond Ridge East, the last phase of their urbanization project. King County denied their application, but then suddenly approved their traffic concurrency certificate. The concurrency process is not a public one, but an application cannot be even submitted unless a traffic concurrency certificate is approved. No one would know this had been granted until October 2003 when events would make documents available to the public - outside the normal process.

In DOT there are 2 camps of traffic planners. There is the TFDM group that is responsible for building the current road model, and their is the TFM group that takes their model, updates it for future projects and impacts, and determines whether a new development proposal can be supported by the road network. TFM is more regularly called the Concurrency Group.

So in 2002 when the Concurrency Group granted Quadrant Homes a concurrency certificate, without requiring any additional road funds to improve area roads like Novelty Hill road, 5 members of the TFDM group objected, stating an assortment of improper and illegal actions committed by the Concurrency group to help Quadrant win their certificate. It's quite a list and documented very well in their complaint.

The certificate did not require Quadrant to pay for any road improvements to support their 800-home project, continuing a secret policy within DOT to help Quadrant avoid the hundreds of millions of dollars the taxpayers are now on the hook to pay to support Redmond Ridge and Trilogy, approved in 1997 and 1996, respectively.

The supervisor of the TFDM group, Ho-Chuan Chen, PHD, was asked repeatedly to endorse decisions made by the Concurrency group that he disagreed with and he refused. Chen and the TFDM group repeatedly refused to endorse the Concurrency group's actions until they were simply no longer allowed to participate in meetings related to Redmond Ridge East or reviews of concurrency group actions.

They went to their own management and could not get their support. They filed a Whistleblower complaint in February 2003 against the Concurrency Group alleging a myriad of wrongdoing by their KCDOT colleagues for Redmond Ridge East, as well as other development, including false testimony by the Concurrency Group made before the King County Council on road ordinances.

In October 2003, an anonymous tip was mailed to several activists and others in the Bear Creek area. Its attachments were not included, but since it had been emailed months earlier to members of the King County Council, District 3 Council representative Kathy Lambert emailed me the other 3 document attachments. They included email threads requesting an Ombudsman investigation, another addressing retaliation, and another challenging the hand-picked investigator who was to investigate their allegations.

After receiving the tip and other documentation myself, I made a request of the Sheriff's Office to launch a criminal investigation of the Concurrency Group based on the allegations of the whistleblowers. Their response was:

November 24, 2003

RE: Request for Criminal Investigation

Dear Mr. Costello,

Thank you for your email letter dated November 12, 2003. My staff has completed a review of the information that you have provided to us and we have contacted Director Amy Calderwood of the King County Ombudsman Office (Ombudsman case number 2003-00303). The Office of the Ombudsman has assured us that a thorough investigation of this complaint is under way.
The Ombudsman Office may make a referral or recommendation to the appropriate law enforcement agency at the conclusion of their investigation. If the assistance of the King County Sheriff’s Office is sought, we will certainly assist them in this process.
Sincerely,
[Signature]
Fabienne L. Brooks,
Chief
Criminal Investigations Division

I laughed out loud at the deferring of a criminal investigation from the Sheriff's Office to the hired defender of the county's growth machine. As I saw it, Reichert was willfully failing to perform his duty as sheriff, but public officials failing to perform their duty had become more the standard surrounding these developments, so I didn't get overly excited about it.

The Ombudsman allowed DOT to hand-pick the firm that would perform the "independent investigation". The whistleblowers objected to no avail. David Evans & Associates was doing the EIS for another controversial Weyerhaeuser project called Grouse Ridge, and it was totally inappropriate for DOT to hire them as an" independent" judge of the Concurrency group's actions, especially with Weyerhaeuser the developer involved in both projects . The whistleblowers listed their own reasons DEA was the wrong choice based on their expertise and ability to perform such a complex review, but the fix was in. DOT got their "independent" investigator, and the whitewash started.

Then things got really interesting. See Part 2 coming soon.

PDA data supports Conflict of Interest allegations

2005-08-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

The following additions were emailed to the County Ombudsman today related to my 2 complaints currently being investigated.

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Please add this email and attached letter to both of my complaints to the Ombudsman. Recent documents obtained by King County DOT affirm that over 600 permits have been issued to Redmond Ridge and Trilogy since May 1, 2004, and that these permits have generated in excess of $1.2 million in fees to the county.

Not only does this fact provide a motive for the county's refusal to count cars as alleged in my Novelty Hill Road complaint, but it proves a significant financial conflict of interest in DDES and/or DOT as alleged in my Conflict of Interest complaint. With so much revenue at stake when required to enforce this permit condition, the county is hopelessly conflicted when facing the loss of this revenue in exchange for upholding this Redmond Ridge permit condition.

Thank you.

Michael Costello

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Permit Fees motivating county to ignore permit conditions

Who does King County work for? The simple answer is that they work for whoever pays to fund their bureaucracies. The reality is that it’s developers that feed the county's growth machine, so King County needs to keep building permits flowing, no matter what.

Last April 2004, Novelty Hill Road came within just 10 vehicles per hour (vph) in the PM commute to shutting down Redmond Ridge and Trilogy; halting any further building permits. King County had the responsibility to consider homes under construction and those not yet started that had already been permitted, and halt the projects in their tracks to stop the already overwhelming impacts on area roads. They had the authority to adjust the 1,350 vph trigger to 1,340 vph, or to step up traffic counts until the trigger was reached, which would have happened within weeks.

Instead, King County simply stopped measuring traffic on Novelty Hill Road. In the 15 months since that near-miss, King County has only talked internally about the 1,350 trigger, while they have issued just over 600 permits to Redmond Ridge and Trilogy. But more importantly, the county has collected $1.2 million dollars from these projects in permit fees to fund the county’s growth machine. Not only does King County have a direct conflict of interest in enforcing this permit condition, but every new permit is now only worsening a traffic crisis that King County has no firm plan to address, and no funding to construct.

Michael Costello
Redmond, WA 98053