The Hypocrisy Meter Has Hit A New High

Source:  ShiftWA.org

Governor Inslee and the Democrats want to cut funding for classroom education and the Washington Education Association is not happy.  Despite Washington State voters shooting down the renewal of state-sponsored racial quota policies in 2019 (with their “reject” vote on Referendum 88), Governor Inslee has included over $30 million ondubious equity and diversity programs at the state’s community colleges and universities in his budget proposal. He proposes stealing money for these new programs form the state’s budget for classroom education. (Shift Article and Secretary of State 2019 election results)

As expected, Governor Jay Inslee condemned the violence that occurred in Washington, D.C. and Olympia yesterday.  Nearly all elected Republican leaders in our state (as well as all of us here at Shift) have joined in denouncing this violence.  Regrettably, the governor attempted to make this unified response into a partisan issue when he stated, “I especially encourage the Republican Party to do some soul searching,” regarding the violence.  Yet the Republicans had already done this “soul searching” and had condemned the violence long before Inslee’s office had responded.  The governor should have known that Republicans (including Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Congressman Dan Newhouse, House Republican Leader JT Wilcox, and Washington State Republican Party Chair Caleb Heimlich) had condemned the violence conducted by those on the fringe of the far-Right, even while it was taking place.  It is interesting that the governor was demanding Republicans to do some “soul searching” regarding political violence, when he (and nearly all Democrat officials) failed to do the same “soul searching” when the flames of violence were being fanned by those on the far-Left last summer in Seattle.  In fact, Governor Inslee famously acted as if he had never heard of the Seattle violence and occupation of a police precinct (which was the top headline in all local and much of the national media) when he was questioned about it by a reporter.   Inslee and the Democrats, by their silence last summer, made political violence more acceptable and more “normal.”  Republican leaders clearly demonstrated yesterday that they do not want political violence to be considered acceptable regardless of the political agenda of the criminals involved, when they immediately denounced the actions by some of President Donald Trump’s supporters.  Political violence should not be a partisan issue.  Leaders on both the Right and the Left need to rebuke political violence, no matter who perpetuates it.  It is hypocrisy to condemn violence only when it comes from your political opposition.  (Governor Inslee’s address, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers Twitter, Congressman Dan Newhouse Twitter, House Republican Leader JT Wilcox Twitter, GOP Chair Caleb Heimlich Twitter, and Rebecca Perry Twitter)

House Republican Leader JT Wilcox and Senate Republican Leader John Braun criticized Governor Inslee’s management during the coronavirus pandemic and said the governor needs to take more responsibilities for the many failures of his state agencies.  In a joint statement, the Republican leaders were critical of Inslee’s management of much of the state’s response to the pandemic.  They specifically mentioned the multiple failures of the Employment Security Department in allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be stolen by foreign criminals, and then slowly providing unemployment benefits to those thrown out of work by Inslee’s orders, and the Department of Health’s incredibly slow disbursement of the COVID-19 vaccine.  Wilcox and Braun said that Governor Inslee has required “no accountability from important state agencies involved in the pandemic response.” Regarding the poor allocation of the vaccine from Inslee’s Department of Health, Wilcox stated, “Think of the vulnerable infected this week, who should have been vaccinated already.” (Centralia Chronicle)

Governor Inslee’s new Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah shows he is learning quickly from his new boss, providing rather pathetic excuses for the extremely slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in Washington State.  The Secretary stated, “I know that for some it feels like it’s taking a long time to get vaccines into arms. You aren’t alone in feeling that urgency. Like many aspects of the Covid-19 response, vaccination at this scale and speed is a first. It involves a lot of planning and logistics.” Yes, it does require planning, but for over nine months state health officials have known that a massive vaccination program was going to be needed to end this health crisis.  Were there no state employees, all of whom have continued receiving paychecks during the pandemic, who could have been working on those “logistics”? Shouldn’t the governor have made it a priority to develop methods to quickly and safely get the vaccine out to the public? (Puget Sound Business Journal)

It’s official: Senator June Robinson (D – Everett) has filed the Democrats’ unconstitutional state income tax on capital gains bill!  Democrat lawmakers have been trying to pry open the locks keeping them from implementing a state income tax for decades, to fund their desire for a larger and more powerful government. Unfortunately for them, it is unconstitutional in Washington State to tax income, and the IRS and all other 49 states categorize a capital gains tax as a tax on income. So, Jay Inslee is calling this an “excise tax”, since it has the same number of letters as an “income tax” and excise taxes are not necessarily unconstitutional in Washington. (Washington State Bill Summary)