Power is Shifting Among the County Commissioners

And Al French Doesn’t Like It

Spokane County Commissioner Al French fought tooth and nail against the 2018 state law (SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 2887) requiring that Washington State non-charter counties with a population over 400,000 shift from a three member to a five member Board of County Commissioners. Mr. French took his challenge to the law all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court, which declared, in a 9-0 decision, that the law is, in fact, constitutional.

Mr. French has been the most powerful (and one of the best paid at 120K/yr) elected official with legislative duties in Spokane County for more than a decade. (Unlike City of Spokane elected officials with legislative duties, County Commissioners are not term limited.) When Mr. French previously served on the City of Spokane City Council he was just one of six City Council Members. In contrast, for the last twelve years as County Commissioner he was one of three County Commissioners. For those twelve years all he needed was to convince one other like mind on the Board to pass his ideas for county legislation. Considering that Washington State’s open meeting law prevents two commissioners of a three member commission (two is quorum) from discussing county business outside of meetings, it seemed remarkable how often Josh Kerns, in particular, found himself in agreement with Mr. French, often making the preferences of the third commissioner, Mary Kuney, irrelevant. 

Now Mr. French is one voice on the new five member Spokane County Board of County Commissioners that includes his frequent Republican ally, Josh Kerns; fellow Republican Mary Kuney; and newly elected Commissioners Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan, both Democrats. 

The power shift on the Board was on display in the first half hour of the first full Regular Session Meeting of the new Board on January 10 (confusingly labelled “Consent Agenda”). 

I encourage you to watch that first half hour on YouTube. (The drama of the election of the chair begins at about 5:40.) Seeing the Commissioners interact in person within the constrained framework of Roberts Rules of Order as they nominate and elect their chairperson for 2023 is an education in parliamentary procedure—and offers a personal perspective that a print medium cannot. 

Here’s the Detail Revealed in the Video:

Commissioner Kuney was the chairperson of the three member Board of County Commissioners during 2022, a position that, we must assume, demonstrates her qualifications for the job. She presides over this first meeting of the new five member Board. Ms. Kuney presides by remote link. As soon as the floor is open Amber Waldref leads off with a motion nominating Ms. Kuney to serve as 2023 chair of the new Board. Even before there is a second to Ms. Waldref’s motion (which Chris Jordan was willing to offer) Mr. French leaps in to offer an amendment to Ms. Waldref’s motion . Mr. French’s would change Ms. Waldref’s nomination motion to nominate Mr. Kerns instead. Mr. Kerns seconds French’s offered amendment. Mr. Kerns then offers an amendment to the amendment, an amendment that would make the nominee Mr. French—and French seconds the amendment to the amendment. Confused yet? The procedure sets up three successive votes for chairperson in this order: French, Kerns, then Kuney. 

In defense of his being voted chair Mr. French states that the position “really has no authority over the Board”. (Speaking as a former chairman, that is not accurate. The chairperson sets the agenda, a critical function.) The vote is taken. The motion to amend the amendment and elect French chairman fails with French and Kerns voting Yay and Waldref, Jordan, and Kuney voting Nay. Next up is the amendment to change the original nomination motion so as to nominate Kerns to serve as chair instead of Kuney. French speaks at length in favor of Kerns while suggesting that Kuney would be ineffective because of absences due to her duties with the Washington State Association of Counties (verbally abbreviated “Wa SAC”). This is bizarre, since Ms. Kuney is, right at that moment, doing a perfectly good job while chairing the meeting remotely. Ms. Kuney takes some umbrage at French’s characterization. The amended nomination that would have made Kerns chairman fails on the same votes as the amendment to the amendment. Predictably, the original motion, the one to make Ms. Kuney chairperson, passes on the same voting pattern. The tension is palpable.

For years Commissioner French has been quietly and effectively running the Board of County Commissioners of Spokane County as his personal fiefdom. With only two other commissioners, both Republicans, he hasn’t had to listen to, much less make accommodations for, the full range of opinion on major issues. 

Colin Tiernan’s Spokesman article, “Republican Mary Kuney is the new chair of the Spokane County Commission … and other Republicans aren’t happy about it”, quotes Mr. French expressing his umbrage that he might actually have to listen to voices on the Board that represent roughly forty-five percent of those voting in Spokane County:

“She sided with the Democrats[!],” Republican Spokane County Commissioner Al French said of new Spokane County Commission Chair Mary Kuney, another Republican.

Sided with Democrats!! It’s as if, for Al French, considering the opinions of the new members of the board were like drinking bleach.

In a news release, the two commissioners [French and Kerns] said that, by voting for herself as chair, Kuney is “effectively ushering in a Democrat majority.”

French and Kerns are clearly math challenged. Having a Republican chair of the Board who might at least consider the opinions expressed by 2/5 of the Board is “ushering in a Democrat majority”? French and Kerns, it would seem, are not interested in entertaining the perspective of very nearly half of county voters. 

On top of denouncing her attendance, French and Kerns said they don’t think Kuney is a true conservative.

“On the tough votes, she basically hasn’t been there,” French said in an interview.

The evidence they offer? Ms. Kuney wasn’t present to offer her third vote in support of a piece of legislation passed four years ago (legislation that was struck down in a unanimous ruling by the State Supreme Court just last month). They failed to draw attention to a 2-0 vote Kerns and French held last month to put a referendum on the ballot next November for a sales tax to build a new jail

It is worth your time to click and read Mr. Tiernan’s Spokesman piece in full. 

Mr. French is revealing himself as a divisive Republican extremist in the same mold as Republicans in our adjacent Kootenai County, Idaho, Republicans who denigrate as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) any Republican who “reaches across the aisle” to consider input from other voices in the small-d democratic process on which this country was founded. Mr. French, feeling his stranglehold on power slipping slightly, sounds desperate to declare a Republican slightly less extreme than himself as an apostate to modern-day Republican orthodoxy. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The Bullet We Still Need to Dodge

But are beginning to ignore…

The victory of our Spokane County Auditor, Vicky Dalton, over the vocal election denier and conspiracy theorist Bob McCaslin in last November’s general election was cause for celebration. However, we would do well to note that what should have been a landslide victory was very narrow, only a 1183 vote difference among 218,552 total votes cast. What does it mean that very nearly half of our fellow Spokane County voters cast ballots for a man not only unqualified for the job, but a man who actively challenged the legitimacy and integrity of the 2020 election, a man who actively promoted the Big Lie of election fraud?

It should also escape no one’s notice that many of the Republican U.S. House majority featured in the Kevin McCarthy spectacle last week, including “our” Representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, also actively participated in Trump’s scheme to subvert democracy and continue to nurture the Big Lie—regardless of the lack of evidence. 

Many who read these emails also read “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyderwhen it came out 2017 in the early days of the Trump presidency. Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, an historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. His Yale lecture series “The Making of Modern Ukraine” (available for free on YouTube) is a masterpiece. It is a considerable time investment (twenty-three lectures) that vividly reminded me how little history (beyond the classic stories of “American” history) that I (and, by extension, most Americans) receive in the context of our formal public education. 

Especially in the last forty years I have often lamented (mostly to myself) that we of the American public are frequently exposed to braying asses on talk TV and radio posing as “experts”—while many people with broad expertise in complex subjects are rarely seen or heard outside of university settings. Often they are not interviewed because these people don’t speak in the soundbites of buzzword-tested political culture—real life generally isn’t that simple. Furthermore, their messages and knowledge have been broadly denigrated by demagogues on the right as the “liberal elite.” 

I live in some hope that the chaos of the Trump presidency, the Trump insurrection, and the ongoing threat American democracy that Trump and his dogged followers represent is beginning to awaken Americans to the need to better understand history. As the narrowness of Vicky Dalton’s win over Bob McCaslin should remind us, we need to listen and learn. When the history we think we understand encompasses only our own republic’s meager 250 years, the 250 years customarily taught in our high schools (often as a series of names and dates) we run a grave risk of imagining that republics and democracies are always destined to triumph over autocracy and totalitarianism. That is a dangerous fallacy when viewed in the context of broader history. 

A friend just introduced me to Timothy Snyder as a Substack writer—and a podcaster—in a forum entitled “Thinking about…”. It is Snyder’s very first podcast effort that sparked my writing today. It is a 13 minute talk entitled “America is on the ballot” recorded just before the November election. One statement stands out: “If you vote for someone who denies the 2020 electoral results you are voting for someone who is taking part in a plan to overturn the 2024 or perhaps the 2028 electoral results. You will have responsibility for that, and for everything that follows.” That rings painfully true as we face off with a Republican Party that continues to traffic in lies and conspiracy theories that threaten the continuation of our democracy. I urge you to click, watch, and listen to “America is on the ballot”.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Dueling Speeches

Before we leave the U.S. House

For some of us it was hard to avoid watching parts of Kevin McCarthy’s self-debasement in his protracted effort to become the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty initial Republican holdouts, under the apparent leadership of two right wing Republican House members, Matt Gaetz, (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), forced McCarthy to beg for votes in order to end his agony on the fifteenth ballot. A haggard-looking McMorris Rodgers (R-CD5, eastern WA) was seen in her signature black and white checked blazer shaking her head at the spectacle. Like a majority of the Republican caucus McMorris Rodgers voted fifteen times for Kevin McCarthy, no doubt hoping Republicans could avoid the political spotlight focused on their dysfunction. 

Consider this: There was only the slimmest of chances that House Republicans could elect anyone other than McCarthy (unless, of course, some of them committed political suicide by appealing to and bargaining with Democrats for votes). McCarthy served in Republican House leadership from 2009 onward, just two years after he was first elected to the House in 2006 (just two years after McMorris Rodgers herself was elected). As a practical matter, no other Republican ever garnered more than 20 votes in any ballot during the entire spectacle—a spectacle most Republicans in the House had wished to avoid. (Even Jim Jordan, the nasty former Ohio wrestling coach and one of the two twenty-vote recipients, actually voted fifteen times for Kevin McCarthy.)

Dueling Speeches

In the wee hours of the morning last Saturday, after Kevin McCarthy had finally won his coveted prize of the Speakership, two remarkable acceptance speeches were given, speeches all Americans should watch in full and compare: Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) rose to speak as the new Minority Leader of the House Democrats and Kevin McCarthy spoke as the new Speaker of the House. 

As an American I found Jeffries’ speech compelling. Watch House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ historic first speech (You could start at the 4:15 mark where he quotes from Galatians—if you’re given to impatience.) Jeffries speech should go down in history as an inspiration—but don’t take my word for it—click, listen, and share widely. 

In stark contrast is McCarthy’s rambling 27 minutes of “remarks”. (In this video McMorris Rodgers stands out in her checked jacket.) I will refrain from dissecting McCarthy’s words, except to note that (at 6:02) he declares (the italics are mine), “I know the night is late, but when we come back our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents.” The entire Republican side, including McMorris Rodgers, stands and applauds. Oh, my God. If that is the loftiest thing McCarthy can think of to bring first to the House floor then the national Republican Party (and “our” Representative) are a sad lot indeed. First, his numbers are based on a flat out lie. Defunding the IRS is a dog whistle to wealthy tax cheats and those skating (with the aid of their hired lawyers) at the edge of legal tax avoidance, a dog whistle telling these uneasy folk that House Republicans will protect them from the inconvenience (and possible criminal liability) of an audit. (Of course, the Republican base has been drummed with the idea that they would be the victims of persecution by a better-funded IRS.) I invite you to listen to McCarthy drone on about “woke” politics and endless investigations…

Jeffries’ speech is one for the history books. McCarthy’s, one hopes and prays, is destined for the dustbin.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I cannot resist one more quote from McCarthy: “This chamber is now fully open for all Americans to visit.” (9:25) With those words McCarthy implies (to the gullible) that the House chamber has not been open. His words are another dog whistle, this time to the concealed carry crowd. Since the January 6th insurrection two years ago all House members were required to pass through magnetometers (metal detectors) to come onto the House floor—an inconvenience against which House Republicans have railed for two years. On January 3, 2023, with the incoming Republican majority, the magnetometers were removed. Now, apparently, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, both strong proponents of carrying arms (as well as insolent and confrontational participants in the events of January 6th)—and anyone else of the same ilk—might enter the House Chamber with a weapon. THAT is the dog whistle the Republicans, including McMorris Rodgers, applauded for a full 20 seconds—accompanied by a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” the same chant that echoes in the halls of the Capitol the day of the insurrection. Apparently, this is their vision of a better America…

Where Was Cathy?

“Our” Representative in the U.S. House

Three days ago, in the wee hours of last Saturday morning, the fractious Republican majority (by a margin of five) in the U.S. House of Representatives finally elected Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House—on the fifteenth ballot. It was a spectacle the like of which has not been seen since the House majority was divided by the issue of slavery in 1855. 

And a spectacle it was. Kevin McCarthy essentially abdicated decision-making to a rabid minority of Republicans in order to become the Speaker of the House (and the second in line for the presidency after the VP). 

To finally gather enough votes McCarthy made multiple concessions to fringe right Representatives Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and four others—not to finally garner a YES vote from them—but just to get them to vote “PRESENT” and thereby lower the number required. (For details on the 15 votes click here.)

What did he give up? For that, the best I’ve found comes from Tyler Durden writing on the web at ZeroHedge. Durden acquired the information second hand from Roger L. Simon, the perennial right wing opinion writer for the Epoch Times. Simon apparently got it in writing from a freshman Republican congressman. (Concessions like this aren’t usually made public—it’s too embarrassing.)

Here they are quoted from ZeroHedge:

  1. As has been reported, it will only take a single congressperson, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the Speaker if he or she goes back on their word or policy agenda.
  2. A “Church” style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people. [The original Church Committee, led by Senator Frank Church (D-ID), investigated abuses by U.S. Intelligence agencies, particularly the NSA and the CIA in the 1970s.]
  3. Term limits will be put up for a vote.
  4. Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmarks, and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them.
  5. The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.’”
  6. COVID mandates will be ended as will all funding for them, including so-called “emergency funding.”
  7. Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same.

Of course, points one through six will form the basis for political performance, since none of this (for the next two years) has a chance of producing legislation that could pass in the Senate. However, the United States government, as a whole, is still dependent on the U.S. House of Representatives to appropriate funds and raise the debt ceiling so that the government can continue to function. (See Origination ClauseArticle I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution.) 

Since 1995 Republican majorities in the House have precipitated a debt ceiling crisis four times, holding the government hostage by threatening to trash the credit rating of the country if their conditions aren’t met. (See herefor an excellent summary of the debt ceiling, its history, and how it has been used.) In 2011 Tea Party Republicans precipitated a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating with this tactic. The current House Republican majority is an even more extreme direct descendant of these Republicans. 

It should have escaped no one that Kevin McCarthy’s rise to Speaker occurred just hours after the second anniversary of the Trumpian insurrection of January 6th, 2021. In an interview following the 15th vote, McCarthy profusely thanked “President Trump” (notably not “former President Trump”) for his help in corralling the necessary votes from House Republicans. The new Speaker of the House performed obeisance to the man who tried, by force, to trash the peaceful transfer of power. Remarkable.

“Our” Representative

What was Cathy McMorris Rodgers’, “our” U.S. Representative to the U.S. House from Congressional District 5 (CD5), eastern Washington, role in all this?

On Saturday morning the Spokesman carried an article entitled “Northwest lawmakers reflect on second anniversary of Jan. 6 Capitol riot”. I searched in vain for a comment from McMorris Rodgers concerning the insurrection put in motion by the man she had called her “positive disruptor”, Donald Trump. I expect that if she had to comment it would have been along these lines:

[U.S.] Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho Falls, said he didn’t see any connection between the mob that besieged the Capitol and the group of hard-right Republicans who have blocked McCarthy from the position he had long coveted.

Let’s move on, nothing to see here. What horse manure. McCarthy’s obeisance to Trump after the vote is a glaring reminder that House Republicans are still carrying water for the man responsible for January 6th. 

McMorris Rodgers voted fifteen times in a row for Kevin McCarthy, wishing, no doubt, to avoid last week’s blatant reminder what the Republican Party has become. A haggard-looking McMorris Rodgers appeared in this clip from a Washington Post video that features Jim Jordan. Right after this clip she shakes her head in apparent disgust. 

Always remember, though, that McMorris Rodgers is the consummate Republican Party team player, almost never deviating from the prescribed vote. I think it is safe to assume that when a debt ceiling vote comes up later in 2023 that she will (quietly) vote with the Republican block to hold the government hostage as Republicans did in 2011. She will cast that vote hoping that centrist and independent voters won’t notice. If that happens it will be our job to watch closely, explain what she and her party are doing, and hold her feet to the fire.

Her only public comment after the s__tshow over the Speakership? Widely reported (flagged by Google Alerts):

“These concessions have been agreed to by our conference, and ultimately I believe it’s going to lead to a more people-driven legislative process,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “It’s about restoring more power and decision making to the members.” 

All in for Team Trump—don’t look back at January 6th—nothing to see there. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. In a great opinion piece in the Washington Post Dana Milbank cataloged some of what was happening on the House floor during over this crazy weekof McCarthy’s self-debasement in pursuit of the Speakership:

This week, Republicans referred to one another as the “Taliban” and “terrorists” and “hostage takers.” They traded obscenities in a caucus meeting. One of the anti-McCarthy Republicans, Matt Gaetz of Florida, publicly called McCarthy a “squatter” for prematurely occupying the speaker’s Capitol office.

In an appalling scene on the House floor Friday night, Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the incoming chairman of the Armed Services committee, lunged at holdout Gaetz and had to be pulled away. 

There was only one upside to the anarchy: The government no longer controlled the TV cameras in the House chamber. Americans at home could watch leaders huddling with rebels, far-right Gaetz conferring with far-left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and the serial fabricator Santos sitting alone, discreetly picking his nose.

Gaetz referred to McCarthy as “someone who has sold shares of themselves for more than a decade” to get the job.

The holdouts had been given essentially everything they had asked for — and still, the extremists demanded more. “A deal is NOT done,” Perry, head of the House Freedom Caucus, tweeted Thursday afternoon.

“Somebody should check and make sure Kevin McCarthy still has two kidneys,” Adam Smith (Wash.), top Democrat on the Armed Services committee, quipped Friday.

By Friday evening, the rebels could hardly believe the breadth of McCarthy’s capitulation. “We’re running out of things to ask for,” Gaetz marveled.

McCathy, during 14 separate votes, was blocked from gathering a majority of those voting by as many as twenty votes of his Republican colleagues.

The one thing McCarthy didn’t try? Negotiating with Democrats. They could easily have given him the votes he needs to become speaker, in exchange for concessions. But bipartisanship is a nonstarter in McCarthy’s caucus.

Rather than negotiating with Democrats and exhibiting the bipartisanship to which a few Republicans still pay occasional lip service, McCarthy caved in to the demands of the farthest right of the Republican Party, people who, by and large, openly supported the January 6th insurrection, people who would happily hamstring the federal government rather than legislate.

The Al French Way

One More Power Play Before the County Commission Gets More Complicated

First a plug for RANGE Media. RANGE is a new (started April 2020), local, digital news outlet with (currently) three young writers, Luke Baumgarten, Valerie Osier, and Carl Segerstrom, who publish two or three times each week. The articles include an end of week concise guide to local government meetings with links to agendas and more. Here’s an example from Sunday, December 18, that I found very useful in constructing this post: New year, new jail? by Valerie Osier. The RANGE articles provide a richness and clarity on local issues and local government actions that one finds only sporadically in local print and television outlets. I urge you to sign up for the RANGE emails. There is a free option. I finally signed up for a paid subscription. I urge you to join me in supporting their work. 

The Al French way on the Spokane County Commission

This month—finally—the Spokane County Commission, the legislative and executive power of the county, seats five commissioners instead of three. Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan, elected last November, were sworn in to two new seats on the commission in a well-attended ceremony held on the coldest day of 2022, December 22. (YouTube video here. See P.P.S.) The prior three member commission, the standard in Washington State for small counties, consisted of Al French, Josh Kerns, and Mary Kuney. All three were re-elected to the commission under the new by-district election format that (by state law) replaced the older election scheme. (In the old system commissioners first had to survive an in-district top two primary, but then were elected in a county-wide contest.) Mr. French narrowly retained his seat in the new in-district election format, garnering 23,786 votes (51.6%) over Democrat Maggie Yates’ 22,279. 

It is no secret that Mr. French in particular did not take conversion to the new structure of county government lightly: he mounted a legal challenge to the new state law that mandated the new structure, a challenge that went all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court. He and his fellow plaintiffs lost. Most county voters probably didn’t notice. 

With the composition of the Spokane County Commission changing at the first scheduled “BoCC Regular Session Meeting” this month one might have naively thought that significant not-time-critical decisions could wait until the new commissioners were seated in January. At least one might have hoped that a prospective vote on such a decision might be announced ahead of time so the public would have a chance to weigh in—but that’s not the Al French way. (See P.S.)

In the way of Al French, the published agenda for the December 13th meeting of the Commission, the last “Regular Session Meeting” of the year (ifyou could even find it on the county website), buried the matter of putting up a referendum for next November in the “Consent Agenda”—a part of the meeting meant for routine items. Here’s the entry under “d” of the Consent Agenda Items:

In the matter of calling an Election within Spokane County to be held on Tuesday, November 7, 2023, and submitting to Electors a Proposition to impose a Two-Tenths of One Percent (0.2%) Sales and Use Tax equal throughout Spokane County, as authorized by RCW 82.14.450, the proceeds to be used by the County, Cities and Towns within Spokane County for Criminal Justice,Public Safety, and Behavioral Health purposes.

Since the Consent Agenda items are supposed to be routine, there is no public comment. Mary Kuney was out of town on county business, so the meeting—and the voting—was all up to Al French and Josh Kerns. 

You would be pardoned if, after reading this Consent Agenda item in full, you still weren’t sure of the intended use for the new revenue. Commissioner Kerns provided a hint.

From the Spokesman article on the new tax referendum:

“We have kicked this political football around for over a decade,” Kerns said. “It’s time for the voters’ voices to be heard.”

The “political football” is, of course, a new jail. Remarkable. If “We have kicked it…around for over a decade”, what is the emergency that requires that two good ‘ole boys, in the last meeting before a major change in county governance, to vote in a tax referendum that won’t be on the ballot for eleven months? I guess it’s just the Al French way. 

Whether or not we should support a 0.2% increase in the sales tax levied in Spokane County, one purpose of which is to build a new jail, depends greatly on the specifics. French and Kerns (grandly identified as “the Spokane County Commissioners”) provide a “news flash” with few details but a lot of glossy language about “Criminal Justice Improvements”. One expects that the 2023 municipal elections will be all about “law and order.”

Choosing a rise in sales tax as the method of funding a new jail by declaring this referendum in the last days of the old commissioner regime is strategically preemptive. Why choose an increased sales tax, absolutely the most regressive tax option, the option that falls most heavily on those who can least afford the extra burden? 

One hopes that the Al French way will play less well with the new five member commission. Mr. French, the most powerful elected law-making official in Spokane County, has cast his shadow over the operations of county government for far too long. Perhaps his need to usher in this jail funding referendum in such a rush is a sign that Mr. French fears that his grip on the levers of local power are about to loosen.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. We saw another example of the Al French way of power in the Zoom meeting in which [we have to suspect] he engineered the firing of the Spokane County Health Officer, Bob Lutz, in the middle of the Covid pandemic—a firing for which Amelia Clark, his inept administrative ally in the Spokane Regional Health District, ultimately resigned. 

P.P.S. Attendees at the swearing in ceremony for Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan on December 22 noted that current Spokane County Commissioners Josh Kerns and Mary Kuney also attended the ceremony, but Al French was conspicuously absent. Perhaps he was out of town for the holidays—or perhaps this was just another example of the Al French Way—staying out of the limelight while pulling the levers.

Republican Manufactured Immigration Crises

Intended Consequence of Republican Messaging?

Drumming up angst over caravans of immigrants coming from Central America, “rapists and murderers” all, were a key feature of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Rampant immigration was the justification for his “Build the Wall” rallies. Fox News was especially good at breathless coverage of the latest caravan. More recently, Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis’, a presidential aspirant, and Texas Governor Greg Abbot’s heartless stunts shipping legal asylum seekers north to score political points remind us that immigration remains an issue that Republicans find useful. 

Surges of migration from Central America are usually covered in the media as caused by gangs, political repression, and poor economic conditions in some Central American countries. But why do surges seem to happen in the lead up to elections, just in time to rile up fear and hate for electoral advantage? 

Thanks to Martha Raddatz and Thom Hartmann and a basic understanding of how people are motivated to make desperate migrations, we may have a better way of looking at the phenomenon. Start by asking yourself if you’ve ever heard a Democrat say anything about “open borders”. Then remind yourselves of the unified buzzword messaging that the Republican Party and right wing media are really good at.

I’ve copied Hartmann’s article below. I don’t always agree with the opinions he expresses in his almost daily The Hartmann Report, but I always find it interesting reading, and this time I really think he nailed it. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The Dirty Game Republicans are Playing with Desperate People’s Lives

Who on Earth would want to send thousands of desperate people to our Southern border just in time for every midterm facing a Democratic president? Who would be that crass and cynical?

Thom Hartmann Dec 20

Just a month ago we finished President Biden’s first midterm election and, as predictably as the sun rises in the east, right around election time and for the months afterward a wave of refugees and immigrants have shown up at our southern border.

This happens every two years when a Democratic President is in office. And finally the US news media seems to be getting a clue as to why. More about that in a moment.

Notwithstanding Fox “News” hysteria about a “caravan” of immigrants heading for the border during Obama’s last year as president, in the months leading up to the 2016 election, by that time, as Politico noted:

“In fiscal year 2017, the last year of the Obama administration and the first of Trump’s, 303,916 migrants were arrested by the Border Patrol. This was the lowest level in more than three decades.”

The last big “surge” was two years earlier, five months before President Obama’s second 2014 midterm elections. You may remember when the southern border was suddenly overwhelmed by an unexpected wave of immigrants and refugees and it was all over the news with apprehensions at 220,000, up from just 96,000 the non-election year before.

The crush of people “somebody” had sent to the United States was so intense Obama had to declare it an “urgent humanitarian situation,” thus enabling him to mobilize more resources to block or deal with the seemingly-unending stream of desperate humanity.

The same thing happened, mysteriously, during Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign; the severity of the border crisis during that election year led to President Obama taking executive actions that included creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and an expansion of provisional waivers.

Who sent them and why do they so conveniently and predictably arrive just in time for elections (and echo for a few months afterwards)?

During Obama’s first midterm election, the fall and winter of 2010, another “sudden wave” of immigrants provoked Arizona to put into law the notorious “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.”

It famously allowed Arizona police to stop and even arrest people they suspected may look like “illegal immigrants,” and required police to investigate the immigration status of all persons detained. It was so odious that four of its major provisions were declared unconstitutional two years later by fellow Republicans on the US Supreme Court.

The wave of immigrants who hit our border in 1998, Bill Clinton’s last midterm election, was so severe that he initiated the Border Safety Initiative (BSI) and cut a joint-cooperation deal with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo.

Four years earlier, the surge that showed up for the 1994 midterm election caused Clinton to produce and implement the first Border Patrol Strategic Plan.

Who on Earth would want to send desperate thousands of people to our Southern border just in time for every midterm facing a Democratic president? Who would be that crass and cynical?

ABC host and reporter Martha Raddatz interviewed Texas Governor Greg Abbott last weekend. As if on cue, he insisted the sudden tsunami of immigrants and refugees on his state’s southern border was all Biden’s fault.

But — finally, after decades! — a reporter had heard enough Republican bullshit about immigration and the border.

“You talk about the border wall, you talk about open borders,” Raddatz said to Abbott, “but I don’t think I’ve ever heard President Biden say, ‘we have an open border, come on over.’

“But people I have heard say it are you, are former President Trump, Ron DeSantis; that message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an ‘open border,’ and smugglers use all those kinds of statements.”

Bingo.

Whenever there’s a Democrat in the White House, literally hundreds of Republican politicians step up to the microphone or tell their local newspapers and radio stations about how the president has suddenly “opened up America’s southern border!!!”

It’s a lie, but they amplify it as hard as they can.

Those news stories and press releases make their way via social media and the internet to desperate people in Venezuela, Central America, and Mexico. Impoverished people there aren’t knowledgeable enough about American politics to see the message for the cynical political ploy it is, so they abandon home and family to begin the dangerous and often deadly trek to the US.

Democrats don’t say our borders are open, and, as far as I can tell, never have. In March of 2021 the rightwing Washington Examiner newspaper went on a search for Democrats proclaiming that we’d “opened!” the southern border in the first months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

They found nothing. Well, they found that both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema had called the situation on our southern border “a crisis,” as well as a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan who was merely acknowledging the surge of immigrants. And a single Democratic mayor in Texas who also said it was a crisis. That’s it.

But literally hundreds of Republican politicians, just like they do every two years, have spent the past few months proclaiming to every despairing potential refugee south of our border that the door is wide open. Just google “open border” and “congressman,” “congresswoman,” or “senator” and you’ll get a list too long to print.

At the top of that list just from the past few months, of course, you’ll find the most contemptible Republican demagogues:

— Ted Cruz wants everybody south of our border to know that the “Biden Open Border Policy [is] A Very Craven Political Decision”;
— Rick Scott wants everybody to know that “Americans Don’t Want [Biden’s] Open Borders”;
— Marco Rubio says there’s “Nothing Compassionate About Biden’s Open Border Policies”;
— Rand Paul is so extreme he tells us Senator Rubio “is the one for an open border”;
— Josh Hawley says “Biden’s Open Border Policy Has Created a Moral Crisis”;
— Tom Cotton “Insists the Border is Wide Open”;
— Ron Johnson wants the world to know that “Our National Security is at Risk Because Democrats have Turned Border Security into a Partisan Issue”;
— Marjorie Taylor Greene “BLASTS Open Border Hypocrites”;
— Mo Brooks opposes “Socialist Democrats’ Open Border Policies for Helping Kill Americans”;
— Lauren Boebert says the “Root Cause” of the open border crisis “is in the White House”;
— Matt Gaetz “revealed a complex and deceitful agenda by Joe Biden’s Democrat administration to evade our Southern Border law enforcement”;
— Gym Jordan says “Biden’s Deliberate Support of Illegal Immigration Could Lead to Impeachment”;
— Kevin McCarthy says the Biden Administration has “Utterly Failed” to secure the “open border”;
— Elise Stefanik proclaims “Biden’s Open Border Policies have been a Complete Disaster.”
— Tom Cole’s website features “Biden’s Open Border America”;  
— Bob Goode brags about introducing legislation named the “Close Biden’s Open Border Act”;
— John Rose “Calls Out Biden’s Open Border Policies”;
— Paul Gosar claims Biden is “Destroying America with His Open Border Policies”;
— Roger Williams complains about the “Democrats’ Open Border Problem”;
— Tom Cole wants the world to know that Biden’s “open border policies have given the green light to migrants and bad actors from around the world…”;
— Gus Bilirakis “Denounces Dangerous Open Border Policies on the House Floor”;

The list goes on and on.

Democrats, on the other hand, only want people coming into the country legally and have tried to deal with the issue responsibly. That’s why they don’t shout so loud it can be heard in Venezuela that the US border is “open.” Most, in fact, refuse to even use the phrase, because it’s a naked political lie.

Every two years, this misanthropic Republican crew provokes a crisis on America’s southern border because it plays into their narrative that Democrats are encouraging more Brown people — “soon-to-be Democrat voters” they call them on rightwing hate radio — to come to the USA to “replace” good upstanding white people.

Lest you think this biennial Republican rhetoric isn’t a cynical political ploy but is, instead, a good-faith effort to identify and fix a problem, look at the vote recently on legislation that would update our immigration system and fund a more effective border patrol. Only five Republicans could bring themselves to say “yes” to doing something about this situation.

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From Rhonda Harbison on Twitter

Republicans are playing a dirty game with people’s lives. Somebody needs to ask these degenerate political SOBs:

“What it would take for you to leave your home with all your possessions in a small bag and travel a thousand miles on foot risking rape, robbery, kidnapping, torture, and the murder of yourself and your family members?”

There’s not a single Republican in Congress with half the courage of these men, women, and children who have risked everything — including their own lives — to answer the “Open Borders!!!” call the GOP puts out every two years just to score political points against Democratic presidents.

Thank G-d for Martha Raddatz. Hopefully more reporters will start asking Republicans why they hang out the welcome sign every two years and then blame Democrats when desperate people answer their call.

News Over the Holidays

Where was our attention focused?

Since Christmas there has been a welcome lull in local, regional, and even national news. Stories seem to bubble quietly in a cold, wet winter background as we slide into the new year. The filling of my email inboxes, text messages, and cell phone push notifications blessedly slacked off for the holidays. 

Of course, the right wing rage machine kept cranking away. My electronic feed from the Epoch Times continued apace. The Epoch Times is considered eminently trustworthy, a must-read “news” outlet, by an alarming number of my Republican friends and acquaintances. The ET presents me with a steady stream of click-bait headlines worthy of the old National Enquirer, headlines suggesting new ground-breaking information about the horrors of vaccines, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the revealed injustices against “free speech” on Twitter before Elon Musk welcomed back trolling misogynists, white supremacists, and Christian Nationalists. 

The one story that was fed to us every day over the holidays by local (and national) news outlets was the grisly murder of four young students at the University of Idaho. The publicly know facts remain slim: three young women and one young man were murdered, apparently in their sleep, in their apartment, by at least one assailant wielding a sharp weapon on November 13th. After more than a month a 28 year old Ph.D. student in the department of criminal justice and criminology who was studying at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, a short drive away from the U of I, was arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with the murders. He will be extradited. That is most of what is publicly known, and yet the reading and watching public all over the nation seems insatiable for every detail and the media obliged (or was it the other way around?). 

I am as horrified by this story as the next person—but reading each succeeding article adds very little to what I actually know. One day there will likely be a trial, then a book, then maybe a documentary like the recent Netflix series on Jeffrey Dahmer, but for now most of what we read and hear is speculation, quotes from (usually un-identified) sources said to be friends, relatives, and acquaintances of the victims and the accused—plus a accusation made by one deranged Texas TikTok mystic. Nonetheless, the articles keep appearing—and we keep reading them. 

I find myself stepping back to ask why we, and the media, are so captivated by this particular murder story while most unsolved murders, even local ones, disappear from the news in a just a few days. I suspect that the answer lies in our inability to mentally distance ourselves from these young people and their families. These were promising lives of three young women and one young man snuffed out in their prime for no reason we can identify. There is no hint of nefarious activity that might, in some warped person’s mind, have marked them for murder, nothing about their behavior that can set them apart from the people we are, were, or know. Their deaths are terrifyingly random and far too close to home geographically and emotionally. They remind us of our own, our children’s, and our friends’ potential mortality. We cannot look away—and, importantly, the mostly white, college-educated reporters covering these murders also cannot look away—it is all just too close. The articles keep coming and we keep reading with morbid fascination. It would be good of us to remind ourselves why we cannot break free—and to remember that other crime victims probably merit—but often do not receive—such rapt attention.

I mostly do not do Twitter, but occasionally I get wind of something that makes me smile. I leave you today with a link to 19 year old Greta Thunberg’s deflation of puffed up he-man Andrew Tate, a put down that not only rocketed to one of the most liked tweets of all time, but which may have led to Tate’s and his brother’s arrest soon thereafter in Romania on a charge of human trafficking. The exchange was covered by dozens of media outlets. It case you missed it, here’s a link to one of them. Good for Greta!

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry