McMorris Rodgers and the entire Republican blare machine is dishing out breathless bullshit about the Inflation Reduction Act, like her bald-faced lie that “Democrats Just Voted to Raise Your Taxes” that I wrote about on Wednesday. In the same email McMorris Rodgers goes on [the bold is hers, not mine]:
This bill will spend an estimated $740 billion by raising taxes on the American people in an attempt to implement price controls on prescription drugs, allow the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents, and spend billions on Green New Deal initiatives.
Her audience has been plied for decades with bogus claims that any increase in taxes anywhere in the economy will come directly out of their personal pockets, that any sort of price regulation of industry is bad, that the IRS is evil and selectively targets households of middle and low income taxpayers like them, and that climate change isn’t real and therefore doesn’t need to be addressed—and most certainly not by an initiative put forward by an extremely bright person of color from New York. It is all hot air. For sane analyses of the Inflation Reduction Act’s effects I recommend: Forbes’ (not exactly a “liberal” outlet) “The Inflation Reduction Act Won’t Affect Most Americans’ Tax Bill” and this evenhanded interview on PBS “How the Inflation Reduction Act could affect your taxes”.
Whom is McMorris Rodgers and the entire Republican Party trying to protect with their barrage of lies about a piece of legislation that imposes a minimum tax on very large corporations and endeavors to re-fund the IRS efforts to conduct a reasonable audit sample of taxpaying entities (consider the legal barriers and the cost the IRS faces in auditing businesses like those of former President Trump)?
Spend six minutes watching a video that I cannot get out of my head, a video that obliquely offers the answer. I linked it once before months ago, but only a few readers followed the link. This time I want to make it the centerpiece. Here’s the link:
The video dates from late 2012. The disparity it illustrates has only widened in the last ten years. With more than 24 million views this video has captured quite a lot of well-deserved attention.
McMorris Rodgers and her entire Republican Party are using misinformation to perpetuate and expand the sort of wealth (and income) gap illustrated. It’s time to send them packing with their blatant lies about any legislation that might level the playing field even slightly.
CMR’s Magical Economics and the Inflation Reduction Act
McMorris Rodgers sends out a “Weekly Newsletter”. The one I’ve pasted below arrived in selected constituents’ email folders on August 12. Clearly, McMorris Rodgers’ targeting of her “Newsletter” is imperfect: this was forwarded to me by one of my readers who received it and was understandably outraged.
The same day, Friday, August 12, Orion Donovan-Smith covered the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act through the U.S. House in a front page article that appeared in the Spokesman the next morning (the Saturday Spokesman is online only). In it, Donovan-Smith writes:
The bill’s 15% minimum tax applies only to corporations with at least $1 billion in annual revenue, which limits the requirement to about 200 of the country’s biggest companies. It also adds a 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks and gives $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service, which has seen its budget and staffing fall by about 20% over the past decade, to help crack down on tax evasion by big companies and wealthy Americans.
Donovan-Smith quoted Republican U.S. House Representatives in the article. Their claim is tortured, twisted, doublespeak: walking back a part of the blatant corporate tax cuts of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” of the Trump administration would raise “your” taxes. Just how is this supposed to happen when the plain language of the bill says otherwise?
Donovan-Smith goes on to explain (the bold is mine):
Sticking to a Biden campaign promise, the bill doesn’t raise taxes on anyone who earns less than $400,000 a year. But Republicans, who universally opposed the bill, argued it would effectively raise taxes on all Americans because corporations will pass on higher taxes to consumers in the form of price hikes.
First, the assertion made by McMorris Rodgers that the Inflation Reduction Act will raise your taxes is a bald-faced lie (unless your AGI [adjusted gross income] is more than four hundred grand a year). To whom does she think she’s writing? Second, the assertion that establishing a minimum corporate tax of 15% will necessarily raise prices for the common man is one of those Republican magical economic tropes born of “trickle down” economic theory. The “trickle down” theory (See P.S.) has been convenient Republican orthodoxy since Reagan. The proposition is whatever further enriches the wealthy will “trickle down” to the commoners, and, conversely, any tax of the wealthy is really a tax paid by people of modest means. In this theory the generationally wealthy and corporations are seen as “job creators”, benevolently keeping the economy humming purely FBO their economic lessers. Anything that cuts into the profits of wealthy is twistedly seen as inflationary.
McMorris Rodgers, apparently confident that her selected email audience is sufficiently deluded by the “trickle down” cult, simply lies with a straight face, “Democrats Just Voted to Raise YourTaxes,” then descends to every Democrat-demonizing, Republican-tested trigger phrase she can find. She must assume, perhaps correctly, that her readers will accept her analysis as gospel, that they won’t ever peek out of their news silo to see what The Inflation Reduction Act (or even what its called) actually does or to understand that the Act pays for itself.
The worst part: McMorris Rodgers is so bought in to this economic cult that she probably believes her own lie.
It is time to vote this woman out of office this November. We should be tired of her divisive lies, her climate denial, and her pandering to militant right supporters.
Keep to the high ground, Jerry
P.S. “Trickle Down” economics was once known as “Horse and Sparrow” economics, referring to the Sparrows eating the oat seeds that had passed through the digestive tract of the horses. That was back when people understood what “trickle down” economics really was as a theory: horse manure.
Here is CMR’s August 12 Newsletter (BELOW) The pictures of a smiling CMR sitting around tables with people in small towns have been removed to reduce the KB of this Substack missive. Click here to access her lying, divisive, vacuous speech as Ranking Member (leader of the Republican contingent) on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Democrats Just Voted to Raise Your Taxes
President Biden’s economic recession, record-high inflation, surging energy costs, looming blackouts, higher health care costs, and empty store shelves are making it harder to get by in America. Families all across Eastern Washington are stretching their budgets just to buy groceries and keep the lights on, and it’s still too expensive to fill up gas tanks.
Yet despite this frightening reality, earlier today, House Democrats voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill will spend an estimated $740 billion by raising taxes on the American people in an attempt to implement price controls on prescription drugs, allow the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents, and spend billions on Green New Deal initiatives.
Let me be clear: This legislation will do nothing to reduce inflation. As the Democrats continue to double down on making life harder for people in Eastern Washington, I will be working hard to produce tangible solutions that will eliminate the record-high inflation that is threatening to destroy our way of life.
I had another exciting week traveling across Eastern Washington to sit down with so many different inspiring groups in our communities. I always enjoy meeting all the incredible individuals who work hard to make Eastern Washington the best it can possibly be and learning more about the issues that matter most to you! Here’s what I’ve been up to this week:
Disability Inclusivity at WSU
I kicked off my week meeting with representatives of WSU’s ROAR(Responsibility Opportunity Advocacy and Respect) program. I learned so much more about the incredible work they’re doing to ensure students with disabilities are getting the most out of their time on campus. The work this program does for the disability community continues to inspire me every day. Go Cougs!
A Great Discussion with Pullman’s Local Leaders
My next stop was to the Pullman Regional Hospital where I met with an incredible group of local leaders, including hospital CEO Scott Adams, Mayor Glenn Johnson, Cat Amortegui with WSU, Whitman County Commissioner Tom Handy, and more! We had a great discussion about the progress being made to improve the Pullman-Moscow Airport, and we shared ideas about how we can work together to continue expanding access to health care in rural communities.
Meeting with Colfax Community Leaders
Later, I traveled to Colfax for a roundtable discussion with Port of Whitman Commissioner Tom Kammerzell, Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers, Mayor Jim Retzer, and other community leaders. We talked a lot about our shared passion to save the Lower Snake River dams, some of the most pressing issues facing our country today, and how we can continue our work to ensure Whitman County remains one of the most productive agricultural countiesin the world.
In case you missed it, I announced this week that the City of Spokane Valley will receive nearly $21.7 million in RAISE grant program fundingto support the Pines Road/BNSF Grade Separation Project. This is a project I’ve supported for a long time, and I’m thrilled to have been a part of making it happen.
In addition to the award to the City of Spokane Valley, the City of Pullman and Spokane County will also receive funding for critical infrastructure projects that will improve our communities. You can learn more about these projects and the funding announced this week here:
The announcement and analysis copied below was sent by email from Jerusha Hampson with encouragement to “pass this on”. I’ve read the Rolling Stone article M. Hampson referenced and visited the Facebook Pageadvertising this coming Sunday’s (August 21) “free” concert at 6PM in the Spokane Pavilion. It all checks out. Apparently, Sean Feucht is sufficiently well known among the Evangelical/Fundamentalist/Christian Nationalist far right to score his own wikipedia page. Who is footing the bill for this concert? A national political operative of a similar Evangelical stripe, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, was brought to Spokane by the Spokane GOP as the featured speaker at their Lincoln Dinner in 2019 (the following year Kirk appeared at the Candlelight Christian Fellowship in CDA). Some one or some organization must be covering the cost of staging the concert.
Rolling Stone shows Sen. Josh Hawley on stage with Feucht on October 25, 2020, in Washington, D.C. In Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano, far right Republican candidate for PA governor, appeared on stage in May 2022 with Feucht in the run up to the primary election in PA. Inquiring minds want to know which local candidate(s) in Spokane County will seek the “blessing” of appearing with Feucht and thereby declare their allegiance to Feucht’s toxic brand of political Christianity. Regardless of whether you can attend to find out and record a video, I think it is worthwhile to take note of the tendrils of national extremism drawn to our region. Read up.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
Christian National/ Worship Leader/Far-Right Activist, Sean Feucht, is Holding a Concert at the Spokane Pavilion on Aug. 21st
Sean Feucht is a Christian singer/songwriter/former worship leader at Bethel Church in Redding, CA. Two years ago, in the summer of 2020, he began holding “worship protests,” in defiance of California’s restrictions on large gatherings due to covid-19. Because the restrictions included church-related gatherings, he claimed it was Christian persecution. These worship events became the “Let Us Worship” movement, and Sean has spent the last two years traveling to dozens of cities around the US holding these worship concerts. His concerts can draw thousands of people. He repeatedly broke covid restrictions and has also had some issues with getting event permits. For example, he was banned from holding a concert at Seattle’s Gas Works park in Sep. 2020, so instead he set up in a nearby street and called it a “protest.” Despite still being able to hold an event, he claimed it was persecution. Covid restrictions are mostly lifted now, but he is still holding these concerts to push the right-wing movement he’s built.
During 2020, he specifically made a point of going to cities with a lot of Black Lives Matter protests- basically saying those cities were broken and needed God. In June 2020, he held a concert in Minneapolis at the spot where George Floyd was murdered. He’s called to BLM movement a “fraud,” and has been very antagonistic toward the movement in general. In Dec 2020 he held a couple “outreach” events at Skid Row where he and dozens of followers went mask-less into Skid Row (during a time when covid-19 cases and transmission rates were high) and evangelized to the homeless population, praying over them, and even laying hands on them. He did however, face a lot of resistance from activist who came out to try and protect the homeless population. At one event in Portland, OR, he invited people to come out and provide event security, and at least one of guys who showed up was a Proud Boy.
He’s a Christian Nationalist and very politically active. He has also started a movement called “Hold the Line,” which is aimed at getting younger Christians involved in politics. As you can probably guess, he is extremely anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ. He’s held events in DC at the National Mall and in front of the Supreme Court. Sean is a huge Trump supporter and was one of many pastors and worship leaders who visited Trump in the Oval Office to support him during his 2019 impeachment. He is frequently at events with far-right politicians/activists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley, and countless others.
Anyway, he is holding a free worship concert at the Spokane Pavilion on August 21st at 6pm. There is nothing inherently wrong with a worship concert, but Sean Feucht holds particularly dangerous views, and his concerts are about much more than music. Plus his events often bring in large numbers of people. Maybe it’s not important in the grand scheme of things, but I think it’s just good to know about events like this that are happening in your community. Sean and many of the people who follow him are also the type who will do things like evangelize to strangers and pray over ill or disabled people- and these events have clearly caused trouble in the past. He has traveled recklessly around the country for the past two years, breaking state/local regulations, and facing almost no consequences for his actions. He does get protestors at some events, but like many other Christians of this brand, he has a persecution complex, so anyone or anything that tries to stop him is evidence that Christians are being oppressed. And it’s also evidence that his movement is in the right.
Also, the church he was formally a worship leader at, Bethel, is another fascinating rabbit hole to go down and might also give you a lot of insight as to why Sean is who he is. Bethel is a large, non-denominational, charismatic church that emphasis faith healing, and has caused all sort of problems for the city of Redding. There is a lot of good media about it, too.
Anyway I just have a particular fascination with extremism and fundamentalism. I know too much about this guy and I am bad at making things short. Sorry for any errors as I am a horrible proof reader. But thanks for reading.
Spokane County County Commissioner Al French is, arguably, the most powerful elected official in Spokane County (and among the best paid). He retains his power by mostly keeping a low profile, working behind the scenes while leaving only a few fingerprints in public controversies (like the firing of the County Health Officer, Dr. Bob Lutz, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic). Mr. French, an architect and developer, is an astute politician. He mostly stays out of the public eye while he exerts influence, “currently sit[ting] on 40 boards, commissions, councils from the local to regional and state levels” (quote taken from a 2022 Spokesman article whose link has since gone stale).
First, let’s get one thing straight. As a matter of pure physics a heat pump as a way of heating (or cooling) indoor space is wildly efficient. As a baseline, consider that baseboard electric heating is 100% efficient, that is, every packet of electrical energy delivered to the baseboard is converted to heat in the room it is meant to heat. A modern heat pump, by contrast, delivers between two to five times the heat energy in the home for every unit of electrical energy that powers it. That’s an “efficiency” of between 200 and 500 percent. By contrast, any other form of energy, natural gas, oil, propane, or wood, (once it is delivered to your home) will produce less heat in the home than the energy contained in the fuel delivered. For example, natural gas, even when burned in the most expensive and highest efficiency boilers and furnaces, still has to lose heat as exhaust from combustion, yielding a maximum efficiency of less than 100 percent, i.e. less energy as heat is delivered to the space than the energy contained in the fuel.
But wait! Doesn’t a named “efficiency” of two to four hundred percent for a heat pump violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that within a closed system energy is neither created or destroyed? Here’s the trick: the “closed system” of a heat pump includes the outdoor source of heat content (the air or the ground). The electricity used by a heat pump is not directly “burned” for its energy value. Instead the pump extracts already existing heat (or cold) from the air or ground and moves it into the room. (A refrigerator is a “heat pump” that works only in one direction, extracting heat from the inside of the refrigerator and moving that heat up-gradient into the kitchen.) The instantaneous efficiency of a heat pump depends on the temperature gradient between the source and the destination.
Consider this doubling to quintupling of the input electricity’s heating (or cooling) energy value that a heat pump offers. As an oversimplified thought experiment consider that if one could snap one’s fingers and instantly supply all the world’s heating and cooling needs with heat pump technology the world would use 50-80% less total energy to satisfy those heating and cooling needs than we currently satisfy mostly by burning fossil fuels that significantly contribute to global warming.
Eventual conversion to heat pump technology would produce such a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that objections can only be aimed at the details of making the conversion, not at the desirability of the result. (Unless one is a closet climate denier who believes that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is completely unnecessary.) Here is the entirety of French’s arguments as put forward in the Spokesman article:
Spokane County Commissioner Al French, who serves on the State Building Codes Council and has pushed against the electric requirements, noted such a change also would require increasing the electrical capacity at a home or multifamily building. The additional costs would be passed on to renters, he said, and leave them without a source of heat should the power fail in the winter.
The requirement would most directly hit low-income renters and people of color, French argued, increasing their costs of living.
French said the effort to change the building code to require electricity circumvented the Legislature, which refused to forward to a vote a bill this session that would have prohibited expansion of new natural gas services in the state.
“The governor is trying to go around that,” French said.
French’s argument is relies on two longstanding (and very tired) Republican shibboleths:
“It will cost money and hurt the poor.” By this argument everything that has any cost will eventually “hurt the poor”. Using the magic of Republican economic thinking, anything with a cost to producers is posed as a passthrough to consumers. (This is the flip-side of “trickle down” economics. Any expense to business is posed as a passthrough.) French conveniently avoids considering the burdens imposed on the poor by climate change.
Freedom from regulation. Any governmental regulatory meddling with the free market prerogatives of builders and developers is inherently bad simply because regulation is bad. French ignores the fact that free markets, especially today’s free markets, are wildly myopic, focusing on shareholder value in the near term, not the expensive and painful consequences of global warming. Would we have reduced our electrical consumption by switching to LEDs from inefficient incandescents without a regulatory nudge?
Mr. French is at least consistent. He has worked behind the scenes, backed up by realtors and developers, against all efforts to encourage conversion to heat pump technology since the topic first came up in the City of Spokane. (His efforts are detailed in the last half of the post Al French and the Levers of Government.)
Mr. French reveals his stand on global warming in his responses to the WeBelieveWeVote Survey. He marks maximal agreement with a statement that reads in part:
Ironically, pioneers in green industry technology favor increased oil and gas production because: a) green energy development requires fossil fuels; and, b) the transition to clean energy will take longer than predicted.
That is pure doublethink nonsense. Further development of fossil fuels means that conversion to clean energy will take longer.
Mr. French is too much of a cagey politician, as are the WeBelieveWeVote people, to come right out and declare that they think we ought to ignore the issue of global warming—but they doesn’t need to. We are in a hole—and Mr. French wants us to keep digging. He sees no problem.
Maggie Yates is running against Al French for a seat on the Spokane County Commission representing County Commissioner District 5. It is past time for Mr. French to move on. French’s Republican primary opponent, Don Harmon, former Mayor of Airway Heights, agrees. Soon after the primary Mr. Harmon publicly endorsed Ms. Yates. Predictably, French pulls out a wordier but just as flimsy version of Trump’s “RINO!” in response:
“Mr Harmon’s endorsement of my far left liberal opponent clearly demonstrates that he is not a Republican and misled the voters in the primary,” French wrote.
Send French packing in November. We need him to stop digging this hole.
If we plan to tackle the problem of homelessness, a growing issue both locally and nationally, the first task is to acknowledge the complexity of the problem, the varied reasons that people find themselves homeless, and, therefore, the varied paths to regain a place in society.
Once a person in modern society is rendered homeless the barriers to re-entry are far greater than are usually appreciated by the housed population. Once left without four walls and a lockable door pretty much everything housed people take for granted becomes a challenge. What contact address to give as a place for people or agencies trying to help? Cell phone? Where do you charge it? Still holding down a job? Where do you bathe, clean and store your clothes? How do you keep your few belongings from being rifled through or stolen while you’re working or gone to the public library for the air conditioning or seeking assistance? Prepared food is expensive, but without access to means to cook and preserve food… Where are toilet facilities available? Will the police come by while I’m away and throw my belongings in a dumpster?
The ”Housing First” model offers substantive relief from all these challenges by providing basic living quarters first of all. Basic housing provides a foundation (and an address) from which to work with a client’s other issues, which might include drug use and/or mental health. “Housing First” was developed and supported by social research over the last thirty years: first provide a basic, safe place to be, then work on the other issues. (Click Housing First for more.)
When a “Fall Symposium” to discuss the issue of homelessness in Spokane is announced by Hello for Good, a coalition of local business people, one might reasonably expect that “Housing First” would be discussed as a major part of the solution.
The introduction to the Symposium to be held Thursday, September 1, at 8AM at the upscale Davenport Grand Hotel certainly sounds promising—even collaborative:
Please join us on September 1st for an educational discussion on homelessness and its effects on our region. Engage with “renowned experts” [the quotation marks are mine] on this complicated topic to understand solutions, challenges, and data-driven decisions.
This event is hosted by Hello for Good, a coalition of private businesses committed to helping Spokane community members connect to important resources and take advantage of opportunities that will help them thrive. Through a collaborative effort with business owners, leaders, and community members, we strive to create full-spectrum solutions that address addiction recovery, housing, education, job training, and employment to create real and lasting change.
The collaboration and balance implied by that introduction is belied by the featured speaker, Dr. Robert Marbut. Dr. Marbut is the chief spokesperson and proponent of a homelessness solution ideology which he characterizes as “Housing Fourth”, a characterization by which he underlines the stark contrast between his approach and “Housing First”.
Chris Patterson is one of the co-chairs of Hello for Good and, presumably, one of the organizers of the September 1 Symposium. In an article in the Spokesman last May, Mr. Patterson was hired by Hello For Good after serving as a regional administrator in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration.
Contemporaneous with Mr. Patterson, Dr. Marbut, the featured speaker, “served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness…after being appointed by then-President Donald Trump.” (Dr. Marbut left that position less than a month after Trump left office.) It seems entirely fair to imagine that Mr. Patterson was aware of Dr. Marbut through his position in the Trump administration and fully aware of Dr. Marbut’s ideology concerning homelessness.
Dr. Marbut’s position is articulated in his wikipedia article [a link worth reading in full for perspective on Dr. Marbut’s ideology]:
“I believe in Housing Fourth” — awarding permanent housing after residents have shown their personal lives are in order. “I often say, ‘Having a home is not the problem for the homeless,'” Marbut told the magazine Next City. “It’s maintaining a financial stability that allows you to maintain your homestead.”
As with many polarizing Trump appointees to government agencies, it appears that Dr. Marbut was chosen for precisely because his ideology was at odds with agency he was supposed to direct. Here’s how The National Low Income Housing Coalition characterizes Dr. Marbut’s tenure:
Robert Marbut left his position as executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) on February 16 [2021]. Mr. Marbut’s tenure at USICH was defined by his rejection of evidence-based best practices and endorsement of dehumanizing and ineffective methods for addressing homelessness.
Mr. Marbut rejected “Housing First,” a proven strategy that prioritizes finding safe, stable, accessible housing for people experiencing homelessness before addressing other problems, like substance abuse or untreated mental health issues. The efficacy of the Housing First model is supported by two decades of research and has been identified by USICH as a best practice for ending homelessness.
One of the other two speakers at Hello For Good’s September 1 Symposium is Paul Webster, a blustery fellow representing an entity he founded called the “Hope Street Coalition”. I urge you to visit the website and see for yourself. Look for substance amid the glitz and the general statements. There is no record of any program the organization actually runs or has brought to completion. The primary purpose of the website is for Mr. Webster to showcase (as “News and Media”) his opinion pieces. The title of one of his articles reveals his partisan stance: “Homelessness: Biden’s Plan to Combat It Is Recycled and Feeble.” Tucked away with one of the articles is a note that Mr. Webster served “most recently as Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD is a large department, but it is hard not to wonder if Mr. Patterson became acquainted with Mr. Webster and his ideology in that setting.
A third speaker, Jon Ponder, is the founder of “Hope for Prisoners”, a faith-based organization based in Las Vegas whose mission is to aid prisoners in re-entering society. Pastor Paula White recently joined the board of Hope for Prisoners. Her prosperity-gospel, televangelist ministry is based in Florida. She controversially served as chair of the “evangelical advisory board” in the Trump administration.
We would all like to solve the homelessness crisis that plagues not just Spokane, but communities with high housing costs (the factor most correlated with homelessness) throughout the nation. We also can acknowledge that for some homeless people taking advantage of a “Housing Fourth” style offering (like the Union Gospel Mission) is the best way forward. That said, this Hello For Good Symposium exclusively offers a forum to only contrary “experts” representative of a minority ideology of homelessness is a poor excuse for a gathering meant to help attendees “understand solutions, challenges, and data-driven decisions”. It would be a difficult to assemble a more partisan Republican speaker panel than the speakers Hello For Good is offering. This is not collaboration. It does, however, shine some light on Mayor Woodward’s comment that homelessness needs to be made “less comfortable”.
Some who attend the Hello For Good Symposium will have their biases confirmed. Some, having little acquaintance with the issue, will accept the Symposium as the distillation of expert opinion on homelessness. Meanwhile, as the attendees listen to Dr. Marbut, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Ponder in air-conditioned comfort, people who actually serve on the ground with the homeless, like Julie Garcia of Jewels Helping Hands and Maurice Smith of Rising River Media and a host of others, will be out actually doing the work.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. If you are unfamiliar with the movement and documentation of “Housing First” I urge you to click that link and become acquainted. Too often we (myself included) are lulled into thinking that groups like Hello For Good must know what’s best—and we stand aside in a position of ignorance as they roll over better evidence. It is time for that to stop.
P.P.S. I can’t get Chris Patterson’s comment about Hello For Good, “We’re not focused on supporting the mayor or the City Council. We don’t work for them, they work for us” out of my head. Hmmm. I thought, perhaps naively, that the Mayor and the City Council were supposed to answer to the voters who elected them, not just a monied, ideologically driven group of local business people.
One of my readers who still receives notifications from McMorris Rodgers’ targeted email system received this today. Write down your questions in case “our” Representative offers another “Conversation.”
Dear ______,
On August 3, 2022, Congresswoman Jackie Walorski was tragically killed in a car accident while serving the people of Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District.
In order to attend her funeral, I am postponing the town hall originally scheduled for tomorrowevening in Spokane. My team and I are already working to secure a new date for this in-person event, and I will follow upin the coming days once more information about the rescheduled event is finalized.
In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to my office with any questions or concerns you may have.
A short article in the Sunday Spokesman in the Northwest Section noted that McMorris Rodgers will hold a town hall in Spokane on Wednesday. With some diligence it is possible to locate the advertisement for McMorris Rodgers’ town hall on her congressional website under the “Events” tab:
I am signed up to receive notifications of “Events” at least two different email addresses, but I have received nothing from “my” Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives for months. One might wonder if she were purposefully advertising her rare in-the-City-of-Spokane “Conversation with Cathy” only to known supporters rather than broadly to all those she is supposed to represent.
The statement “Space is limited” comes with every CMR town hall announcement. It is hard to imagine that the Centennial Ballroom at the Spokane Convention Center would fail to contain those wishing to attend.
There ought to be plenty for her to try and explain, including recent votes against codifying the right to use contraception, the right to marriage equality, and against a right for a woman to cross state lines for medical treatment. The bill numbers (and therefore access to the texts at Congress.gov) can be found, along with commentary, at Contraception and “Our” Representative.
I will be unable to attend—and would be unlikely to be called upon if I did. I hope others will are able to go, prepare good questions, and post a video of the interaction. McMorris Rodgers has much to answer for.
