Month: July 2019

Community Support/Action needed: Office of Police Ombudsman Commission meeting

Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Spokane City Council Chambers, W. Spokane Falls Blvd

Dear Group,

Is the City of Spokane Police Department accountable to elected government or is it an independent quasi-military organization that passes judgment on itself?

The Spokane Police help keep us safe and secure, but we should all be uncomfortable with a Police Department/Police Guild that consistently resists existing mechanisms of civilian government oversight. As citizens, this issue demands our attention.

The immediate issue on the table tomorrow evening (Tuesday) at the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission meeting (for details see above) is the resistance of the Spokane Police Guild to accepting oversight established by city ordinance. The City of Spokane Police Ombudsman’s is stymied by the Police Guild in a case of potential law enforcement excess brought to the Ombudsman’s attention by a blogger and former cop, Brian Breen. This is exactly the sort  of alleged incident the Office of Police Ombudsman is set up to handle. We are shirking our duty as citizens if we don’t make it clear we disapprove of the Spokane Police being allowed to operate in the dark. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it has partisan overtones: If neither Mayor Condon (a Republican dressed in non-partisan clothing) as the chief of the executive branch of City government or Chief Meidl won’t stand up to the Police Guild, we need a new mayor who will. 

Shawn Vestal writes in a Spokesman article from June 30 entitled, Spokane Police Guild demand to exclude ombudsman from officer misconduct investigation should be rejected clearly:

The [Spokane Police] Guild, which represents officers in the Spokane Police Department, is demanding that the police ombudsman be kicked off an investigation into whether officers threatened to kill a suspect and hoisted a police dog into a car to attack the man. There’s body-cam video of the encounter, word of which has been dribbling out, and an ongoing internal affairs investigation.

The Office of Police Ombudsman was established in 2008 in the wake of the death of Otto Zehm (1970-2006), a developmentally disabled man beaten and suffocated to death by members of the Spokane Police in May of 2006 in a downtown convenience store. Otto’s last words were “All I wanted was a Snickers Bar.” The sordid story of the Zehm case, which you can review in summary and in detail here, involved a three month delay in the release of the convenience store video, elements of a coverup, the conviction of a police officer for the use of excessive force and for lying to investigators, and a civil suit costing the city 1.67 million dollars. Rarely has there been a clearer example of a need for civilian oversight. The Otto Zehm story is one we would all do well to revisit in current context.

There has been tension between the Office of Ombudsman and the City of Spokane Police Department/Police Guild ever since the Office was established in 2008. The work of the Office of Ombudsman was strengthened by the voice of the voters of the City of Spokane with the passage of  Proposition 1 on February 12, 2013 with 67% of the vote and codified in resolution #2013-0033 passed unanimously by the City Council. 

Even that public support did not settle the issue. As Shawn Vestal put it on December 12, 2018, in another column well worth your reading: “The Spokane Police Guild stands in the way at every turn, arguing that the demands of transparency and citizens oversight are but union bargaining issues – a strategy through which they continually attempt, often successfully, to block independent oversight.”

The Police Guild and, apparently, Mayor Condon want to return to self-oversight, to the days before Otto Zehm. Especially, screamingly, now, in the day of an out-of-control national Executive wielding national police and military in defiance of civil outcry, it is important that we not lose sight of the local equivalent. 

Come down the City Council Chambers tomorrow night and show your support for the Ombudsman. This is an issue we cannot afford to ignore. While you’re at it, send a message to Mayor Condon and Chief Meidl that they need to assert themselves…and ask the mayoral candidates how they plan to approach this mess.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Elsewhere in Mr. Vestal’s December 12, 2018 column, he refers to the Spokane Police Guild as a union. Interesting. “Guild” sounds like a quasi-governmental entity, something above the fray of contract negotiations and backroom intrigue. in fact, the Spokane Police Guild is a closed union, a very well armed union, a union whose members interact, sometimes in lethal ways, with the public on a daily basis. After decades of Republican/Libertarian propaganda demonizing unions, we need to call a spade a spade. The Spokane Police Guild is a union. Are we supposed to think the police are somehow above oversight because they have a bargaining unit called a “guild?”

Local Republicans (and national Republicans) are very careful with words. For another local example, read Empowerment or Entitlement?

Dear Group,

In the next few weeks the Spokesman will print endorsements. If the past is a guide, the Editorial Board of the Spokesman will offer it’s endorsement in each primary race that has more than two candidates. 

Despite its position as the paper with the third highest readership in the State of Washington, The Spokesman, like other print media is challenged to remain solvent in this era of social media and cable news. The ranks of the senior staff are thinning with retirements of people not replaced. The Editorial Board of the Spokesman, as announced in the masthead, numbered six in 2006: Stacey Cowles, Steven A. Smith, Doug Floyd, Gary Crooks, Rebecca Nappi, and D.F. Oliveria. Of these, only Stacey Cowles remains. The masthead no longer identifies the Editorial Board.

Today’s “Editorial Endorsement,” the opinion of the newspaper, is really the opinion of one man, William Stacey Cowles. As the publisher, Stacey Cowles has always had the last say, but, over the last decade the influences leading up to issuance of an endorsement have polarized, like our national politics. We would do well to pay attention. For example, Gary Crooks, one of the six members of the Editorial Board listed above, must have served as a balancing voice before his retirement. Shortly after his retirement, Mr. Crooks spent time working on the Lisa Brown campaign. Gone are the voices that served to soften Mr. Cowles’ profoundly conservative familial influences. Stacey’s wife, Anne Cowles, has long served on the board of the Washington Policy Center, the Koch donor group funded promoter of conservative libertarian, free enterprise themes in Washington State. The Cowles family owns extensive interests in Spokane besides the Spokesman Review, including Inland Paper, River Park Square, and the M apartments. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but such ownership must color the family’s political self-interest.

Even more important than the composition of the Board, the process leading up to a Spokesman endorsement no longer includes an interview in many cases. In 2018 no interview was offered Lisa Brown, Ted Cummings, Jessa Lewis, Michael Kirk, David Greene, and even a few Republican candidates, including Dave Lucas and Jenny Graham. How does Mr. Cowles form a reasoned opinion without even meeting a candidate, an opinion resulting in an endorsement that retains considerable influence in swaying an election? 

For me (as for Daniel Walters, writer for The Inlander, from whose article I gathered much of what is written here) the most glaringly biased example of the Cowles’ endorsement process was in the Ted Cummings v. Matt Shea race in Legislative District 4 in 2018 (Spokane Valley to the Idaho border and north to Mt. Spokane). To his credit, Mr. Cowles could not bring himself to endorse Matt Shea, a conspiracy theorist  at the flapping white supremacist fringe of the Republican Party, but Mr. Cowles’ Republican bias was so strong he could not bear to endorse Mr. Cummings, a decent, thoughtful, principled man whose sins, seen by Mr. Cowles, were Mr. Cummings’ union ties and that “he generally aligns himself with causes more liberal than his deeply red district.” Mr. Cowles’ inability to swallow hard and endorse the decent, moral candidate in this race made me a bit ill. His reason, a presumption of the leanings of those who bother to come out and vote is LD4, was a thin disguise of his support for Republican power regardless of decency. 

Bear all this in mind as you read the Spokesman endorsements for voting suggestions in the municipal Primary Elections this August. I am a little ashamed to admit that for years I allowed this newspaper undue influence in my voting decisions in local elections, instead of doing my homework…and that was before the endorsements came to be the opinion of just one man.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. A major stimulus for writing this post came from a Guest Opinion in the Spokesman published on June 27 entitled “Outside Voices: Participation in 2020 Census is important.” The striking thing was not the content but the listed author, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. At the end of the opinion was this notification: “The Union-Bulletin’s Editorial Board is composed of Brian Hunt, Rick Eskil, James Blethen and Alasdair Stewart.” If a newspaper in a city of 31,000 inhabitants can field an editorial board of four, thought I, there must be something amiss in the balance of the Spokesman with an editorial board of one.

That thought set me at looking at other editorial boards. The Seattle Times Editorial Board has seven members. There are fifteen members with widely ranging expertise, experience, and background who make up the Editorial Board of the New York Times, eight men and seven women, The Washington Post’s Editorials “represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the editorial board.” The Post’s Editorial Board lists twenty members. I submit that the Spokesman’s single member editorial board endorsements are hopelessly small town, little more than an expression of the deep conservatism of the Cowles family. 

Dear Group, The municipal Primary Election due date is August 6, just four weeks from tomorrow. Ballots will appear in mailboxes in just a little over two weeks. In Spokane, we will select those who will appear on the General Election ballot in November for the positions of Mayor (head of the executive branch of city government), City Council President (head of the legislative branch of city government), three of the six city council seats, and several school board members.* It’s time to start doing your homework. See who and what are on your particular ballot and check out voters’ guide statements at MyVote.wa.gov. These elections are important. The outcome will strongly influence the function of the communities in which we live. On top of that, these are often the positions from which candidates are later attracted to state and federal positions. It behooves us to pay close attention.  These are nominally non-partisan races. What that means in our current partisan environment is only this: there is no statement on the ballot for each candidate that says “Prefers ____ Party.” That makes it harder for voters who subscribe to an ideology rather than the particulars of a candidate. However, in the current partisan climate a quick visit to a candidate’s website or listening to a stump speech ought to make partisan leanings abundantly clear.  Researching these candidates is time-consuming…and it comes just as we’re all trying to enjoy the summer (before smoke season). But understand this: These summer, off-off year elections suffer from apathy and low ballot turn-in (what is elsewhere called “turnout”). The results of the voting can express the opinions of just the zealots, leaving us in November with irritating choices. In addition, how candidates do in the August Primary affects campaign donations and voter perceptions for the General Election in November. We have no right to complain if we don’t do our research and vote. Where to start? The League of Women Voters provided the links I’ve copied below. They make it easy to see the candidate forums the League has held. Watching them as videos is a great way to shorten your study time by using the option to skip around and re-play as needed. I plan to watch and comment on several of these videos over the next few weeks, but don’t wait for me. Watch them. Then talk with friends and neighbors about your impressions. If you wonder which City Council District you live in check out MyVote.wa.gov or, for the broader map view, click here. Recently, the League of Women Voters sponsored the 2019 Primary Candidates Forum (June 25th and 27th) and we wanted to share with the full membership opportunities to watch the activity. Videos Spokane Mayor Spokane City Council President Spokane City Council District #1, Position #1 Northeast Spokane Spokane City Council District #2, Position #1 South Spokane Spokane City Council District #3, Position #1 West Spokane Spokane School District #81 School Board Television https://my.spokanecity.org/citycable5/schedule  (This links to CityCable5’s schedule Spokane LWV Website (under What’s New)  http://lwvspokane.org/New.html   Keep to the high ground, Jerry *The City of Spokane has had a “Strong Mayor” form of government since 2000, a governance structure similar to state and federal governments with an executive and legislative branch. Here’s the link to the current City of Spokane city council roster. It also shows a map of the districts. The City of Spokane Valley’s governance structure is “Council Manager” with the Mayor essentially the chairman of the council. In Spokane Valley three of the seven city council positions are at stake in this year’s election. Here’s the roster of current officials in Spokane Valley.

Dear Group, Yesterday, July 4th, I displayed the flag that once draped my father’s casket. I am proud of his service in the “Great War,” World War I, the war once called the “war to end all wars.” I displayed my father’s casket flag on July 4th with a sense of sadness, knowing that in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump would stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial and hijack the celebration of Independence Day as another cheap campaign rally, probably to rail yet again against the immigrants who built this country as he winks and nods to the racists and white supremacists on whose support he depends. Earlier this week our attention was focused on a government report of squalid conditions in Trump’s immigrant concentration camps at the southern border and of the mindset Trump’s leadership encourages among a significant subset of the Border Patrol.  Amid the endless Trump-induced uproar there is something you understandably might have missed. It offers me a ray of hope while Trump prances on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The July 4th edition of the Washington Post carried what was labelled an opinion piece by Justin Amash entitled, “Our politics is in a partisan death spiral. That’s why I’m leaving the GOP.” Until July 4 and this announcement Justin Amash was the Republican representing Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House. Predictably, Fox News wasted no time in adding spin critical of Amash’s decision. There was a warning: a month ago Justin Amash made news when he stated that Trump “engaged in impeachable conduct,” asserting few members of Congress had actually the Mueller report and if they had read it, instead of taking their cue from Trump and Barr, they would draw the same conclusion. (If you are not confronted by a paywall, I strongly encourage you to read Jennifer Rubin’s opinion “Why Justin Amash stands alone” from the May 19 WaPost. McMorris Rodgers should read and ponder both Rubin and Amash.) This is a good read in contemplation of Fourth of July we just passed and what it should mean. [The bolding in the quoted article below is mine.] Justin Amash: Our politics is in a partisan death spiral. That’s why I’m leaving the GOP. When my dad was 16, America welcomed him as a Palestinian refugee. It wasn’t easy moving to a new country, but it was the greatest blessing of his life. Throughout my childhood, my dad would remind my brothers and me of the challenges he faced before coming here and how fortunate we were to be Americans. In this country, he told us, everyone has an opportunity to succeed regardless of background. Growing up, I thought a lot about the brilliance of America. Our country’s founders established a constitutional republic uniquely dedicated to securing the rights of the people. In fact, they designed a political system so ordered around liberty that, in succeeding generations, the Constitution itself would strike back against the biases and blind spots of its authors. My parents, both immigrants, were Republicans. I supported Republican candidates throughout my early adult life and then successfully ran for office as a Republican. The Republican Party, I believed, stood for limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty — principles that had made the American Dream possible for my family. In recent years, though, I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions. George Washington was so concerned as he watched political parties take shape in America that he dedicated much of his farewell address to warning that partisanship, although “inseparable from our nature,” was the people’s “worst enemy.” He observed that it was “the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” Washington said of partisanship, in one of America’s most prescient addresses: “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. … “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.” True to Washington’s fears, Americans have allowed government officials, under assertions of expediency and party unity, to ignore the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law. The result has been the consolidation of political power and the near disintegration of representative democracy. These are consequences of a mind-set among the political class that loyalty to party is more important than serving the American people or protecting our governing institutions. The parties value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost. Instead of acting as an independent branch of government and serving as a check on the executive branch, congressional leaders of both parties expect the House and Senate to act in obedience or opposition to the president and their colleagues on a partisan basis. In this hyperpartisan environment, congressional leaders use every tool to compel party members to stick with the team, dangling chairmanships, committee assignments, bill sponsorships, endorsements and campaign resources. As donors recognize the growing power of party leaders, they supply these officials with ever-increasing funds, which, in turn, further tightens their grip on power. The founders envisioned Congress as a deliberative body in which outcomes are discovered. We are fast approaching the point, however, where Congress exists as little more than a formality to legitimize outcomes dictated by the president, the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader. With little genuine debate on policy happening in Congress, party leaders distract and divide the public by exploiting wedge issues and waging pointless messaging wars. These strategies fuel mistrust and anger, leading millions of people to take to social media to express contempt for their political opponents, with the media magnifying the most extreme voices. This all combines to reinforce the us-vs.-them, party-first mind-set of government officials. Modern politics is trapped in a partisan death spiral, but there is an escape. Most Americans are not rigidly partisan and do not feel well represented by either of the two major parties. In fact, the parties have become more partisan in part because they are catering to fewer people, as Americans are rejecting party affiliation in record numbers. These same independent-minded Americans, however, tend to be less politically engaged than Red Team and Blue Team activists. Many avoid politics to focus on their own lives, while others don’t want to get into the muck with the radical partisans. But we owe it to future generations to stand up for our constitutional republic so that Americans may continue to live free for centuries to come. Preserving liberty means telling the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that we’ll no longer let them play their partisan game at our expense. Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party. No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.   While I am certain I would deeply disagree many policies Rep Amash might promote, at least I can imagine I might have a principled discussion with him. I have never felt I was offered anything but party lines from McMorris Rodgers. Keep to the high ground, Jerry P.S. One of the articles I read around this post said that Amash already has a primary challenger…and, of course, Trump is crowing about that. I do not know the details of Michigan primary voting. Each state is a little different. It will be very interesting to see if he holds his seat in 2020.

Dear Group,

Last Sunday, June 30, the Spokesman published yet another Washington Policy Center “Guest Opinion,” this one entitled “Local climate activists’ rhetoric comes up short on action.” (The online version has a related title, “Spokane greens fail the climate test.”) Todd Myers, the author (and Director of the WPC’s “Center for the Environment”), claims in the opening paragraph that 350 Spokane (a climate action group, 350 in parts per million is the sustainable level of CO2 in the atmosphere), “signed a proclamation [that]…would eliminate about 94% of electrical generation in Washington state.” That is nonsense no reader should accept. The online article, where he could offer links supporting his statement, offers none. 

Mr. Myers goes on to name 350 Spokane and “Rep. Marcus Riccelli and Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart and City Council members Kate Burke, Lori Kinnear and Breean Beggs” as having signed a newspaper ad “attacking” the Washington Policy Center’s environmental protection policy recommendations. You can read the newspaper ad here. The ad concerns “Gov.” Scott Walker, not the environment. WPC’s environmental policy is mentioned in a single phrase. Mr. Myers’ assertion as to the thrust of the ad and its signatories is pure partisan political bluster, designed to cast doubt.

At the end of Mr. Myers’ article his primary credential for writing his opinion is laid out: “Todd Myers is the author of the book “Eco-Fads” and is the environmental director at the Washington Policy Center, an independent research organization with offices in Spokane, Tri-Cities, Olympia and Seattle.”

A book. Let’s look at that. The full title is “Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment.” It was published in 2011…by the Washington Policy Center itself. WPC not only pays Mr. Myers as “environmental director,” but in the interest of bolstering Mr. Myers’ credentials, WPC published his book. The book’s Best Sellers Ranking on Amazon is “#2,057,240 in Books and #1992 in Environmental Policy.” Not widely read, not influential, not peer reviewed, pure opinion. (For quick reference, Prof. Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition,” published by Penguin Books also in 2011, is currently ranked “#6,510 in Books, #9 in Environmental Policy“)  Myers’ book has all the gravitas of a lengthy Facebook diatribe, but, thanks to WPC money, it is presented as proof of competence. 

That Wikipedia has no listing for a Todd Myers ought to be no surprise. Google does better. It leads to a richly footnoted entry in the Desmog Blog that lays out Mr. Myers’ standing as a critic of environmental policy. Mr. Myers holds a B.A. from Whitman College in Politics and an M.A. in Russian/International Studies from the University of Washington. “Myers does not have a scientific background, and a search for his name on Google Scholar does not return any articles published in peer-reviewed journals.” 

Mr. Myers has been selected and is paid not for his expertise in environmental science but for the political opinions the Washington Policy Center wishes to push. Mr. Myers functions not as a thinker, but as a one man opinion mouthpiece of environmental naysaying. Visit his WPC page. The same statement can accurately be said of other directors directors of the “Centers” at WPC. See the P.P.P.S below.

Bottom line: An institution like the Washington Policy Center, amply funded by the members of the Koch donors group (read Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money”) seek out like-minded political operatives and elevate them to positions of supposed intellectual prominence in local communities. It is not expertise in a field that is required. It is simply the willingness to serve Republican/Libertarian/free market ideology. Money (and the assistance of the local newspaper) can make such people the loudest voices in the room. Pay attention. Check out the credentials of those attempting to form your opinions. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Mr. Myers in his Guest Opinion attempts to claim the high ground by announcing that he annually buys “11 metric tons of CO2 production” (the average annual CO2 emissions of a Washington State resident) from the “Bonneville Environmental Foundation.” Mr. Myers responded promptly to my email request for more detail. He purchases $110 worth of “Carbon Offsets–U.S.” In his email he acknowledges, “There is debate about whether offsets make a real difference.” Considering the obscurity of this investment and the faith required to believe the money will be well spent, I heartily agree. I expect Mr. Myers would argue carbon offsets are a “free market solution” for the problem of global warming. a problem he elsewhere suggests is mostly insignificant and overblown. If he considered atmospheric CO2 as a real threat he would be advocating for a real free market solution like H.R. 763.

P.P.S. Another example to illustrate the insignificance of Mr. Myers’ book: A friend of mine, a retired professor of the History of Science, Dr. Michael Hobart, wrote a scholarly tome entitled “The Great Rift: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Religion-Science Divide.” It was published in hardcover in 2018 by Harvard University Press. It currently ranks on Amazon’s Best Sellers at #772,306 in Books, suggesting far greater influence among those who read than Myers’ book at #2,057,240 in Books

P.P.P.S. On a side note, another member of the Washington Policy Center “think” tank is Dr. Roger Stark. In 2012 his book, “The Patient-centered Solution: Our Health Care Crisis, How It Happened, and How We Can Fix It” was published by the not-so-well known publisher, “CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.” It was 136 pages. It is now ranked #4,939,854 in Books on Amazon…another example of résumé padding.

Dear Group, Matt Shea (WA State Rep, Legislative District 4, Spokane valley to the ID/WA border and north to Mount Spokane) is a blight on our region in Washington State governance and a blight on our region’s national and international reputation. He remains in office in part because many voters in LD4 remain unaware of Matt Shea’s character, only aware he is the incumbent with the cute campaign signs sporting a green shamrock. The other alternative, that he remains in office because voters in LD4 actually endorse this man for what he is, is too distasteful to contemplate.  There is now an entire website, MeetMattShea.com, dedicated to assembling a history of Shea’s antics as covered periodically in local, national, and even international media. His connections with wing nut conspiracy theory and the Christian Identity movement; and his manifesto, The Biblical Basis for War, are also covered in my earlier emails. Even the very Republican Spokane Spokesman Review withheld its endorsement from Shea in 2018 (Mr. Cowles could not bring himself to endorse Shea’s Democratic opponent either).  Lately, some of Shea’s former supporters and bodyguards for Mr. Shea have shone a light on Shea’s beliefs, character and intent, questioning Shea’s claim to “Christian” values given his associations and writings. One of these men is Tanner Rowe, mentioned in the blurb I’ve copied below. Come on out tomorrow evening and show your support for decency in Spokane Valley. Help publicize what this man Shea is and why he a disgrace as a legislator. Share the links. Discuss with your neighbors. Incumbents, no matter how awful, don’t dislodge without an electorate that is aware.   VIGIL TO BE HELD TO REPAIR DAMAGE DONE TO SPOKANE VALLEY’S REPUTATION AND CHARACTER Recognition of Tanner Rowe for exposing WA State Rep. Matt Shea’s  “Biblical Basis for War” document WHEN: Tuesday, July 2, 5PM WHERE: Spokane Valley City Hall (10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley, WA 99206)    On Tuesday, July 2, a vigil will be held at 5pm prior to the Spokane Valley City Council’s meeting in front of the Spokane Valley City Hall (10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley, WA 99206). Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience will be speaking about the moral need to heal the Spokane Valley’s reputation from the damage done by those advocating Christian extremism.  Christian leaders intend to talk about how Christian extremism does not represent the teachings of the Christian faith.  The vigil is also intended to remind elected officials to vigorously denounce Christian Identity politics as both anti-Christian and un-American.    Also, Tanner Rowe (a former WA State Representative Matt Shea supporter and body guard), will be recognized for his courage in speaking out against Shea.  Rowe exposed Shea’s document, the “Biblical Basis for War”.  The document is a “how to” manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the Christian Identity/Aryan Nations movement and the Redoubt movement of the 1990s. Keep to the high ground, Jerry