It’s been nearly three years since conservative firebrand Ann Coulter rightfully labeled Washington State Senator Patty Murray “The Stupidest Person in America” and Ms. Murray appears hell-bent to keep on proving it.
Nowhere is this better shown than in her blind, rabid support of the Columbia River Crossing light rail project as she ignores bridge engineers, WSDOT, ODOT and past Dept. of Transportation Director Paula Hammond’s call of the current bridge over the Columbia River being “safe” so she can parrot other fearmongers erroneous calls of “the bridge is collapsing any moment.”
The Lazy C, staunch blind proponents themselves make Murray’s idiocy their headline news in the Saturday June 14, 2013 edition with Murray targets opponents of CRC wherein she repeatedly states how “unsafe” she feels the bridge is adding, “people who don’t want this to go forward don’t often think of the consequences if they win, and I think they need to think about that. … If this bridge collapsed here, there would be loss of life, there’s no doubt about it. I don’t want to go to anybody’s funeral to get federal funding.”
In a stunning announcement that sent shockwaves through the organized crime world and Vancouver politics, FBI and Justice Department Attorneys from the District of Oregon Portland Division today unveiled a five-count indictment against the Mayor of Vancouver, Timothy D. Leavitt, and his private employer, Government Contracts R Us, Inc. The indictment from the secret grand jury culminates a 4-year investigation dubbed Operation Low Bridge by the several federal and state agencies involved.
The indictment alleges improper lobbying of Congress by government contractors, failure to declare lobbying activities by employees, failure to register as a lobbyist, abuse of office, and mail fraud. All such activities are precluded or restricted for recipients of federal money, including government issued contracts, under Title 31 of US Code Section 1352. Criminal and civil penalties and remedies may be pursued in fines plus jail time.
Many of us have alleged for some time now that the Lazy C is totally out of touch with the community they claim they serve. If subscribers that do not buy into the agenda’s pushed by the Lazy C aren’t being labeled ‘Hounds of Whinerville,’ they’re censored in commenting under certain articles.
The Lazy C shows just how out of touch they are with Clark County in the headline run in their Monday June 10, 2013 edition.
Prof. Dean: Welcome back, Class! Let’s get started.
Prof. Dean: Welcome back to the Second Quarter of Psychology 601: TRUTH OR FICTION? I trust you all had a good break and are ready to explore the wonders of Chapter Two: Deception in the Modern Era.
Prof. Dean: You all are graduate students but we have a new guest, undergraduate Jim Moeller, who has joined us. I see him in the back there. Welcome Mr. Moeller. And, of course, we welcome back Ms. Tiffany Couch who is auditing the class. Welcome back Ms. Couch.
Prof. Dean: Now, last term we divided into groups. Each group was given an assignment to be presented to the whole class this first week of the second term. Let’s see, first up we have the Copperheads with a presentation they have titled “Lie to Me.” Sounds relevant and interesting.
Either the fix is in or someone has been given the word that construction of a new bridge is likely a sure thing.
I received word today from a well connected source that a “worldwide mega-corporation” is making calls locally to ensure there will be 800 pile drivers on hand by fall of 2014 to “begin construction on a bridge across the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.”
This has not been confirmed by an “official” but the source is very well connected to be included in inside information.
It is unknown if this is a move to just be ready in case the CRC is funded or if the go ahead has been given at the highest of levels to build it.
One time or another we have all heard the old adage, “Don’t take any wooden nickels” meaning to be cautious in one’s dealings. The exact origin of the phrase is debated, but we have come to accept a wooden nickel as indicative of something with little or no intrinsic value.
Such is the case with the Columbia River Crossing light rail project to force taxpayers in Clark County Washington to accept a financially ailing light rail extension from Portland, Oregon a very short distance into our community, even though voters have rejected it and all funding measures considered associated with it.
Since the collapse of the bridge over the Skagit River in Mount Vernon, Washington a week ago, proponents of the CRC light rail project have craftily used that collapse to urge swift approval of funding in the Washington State Legislature to ‘get going’ on replacing the aging spans linking Washington State and Oregon, completely ignoring the collapse had nothing to do with the bridge itself and was caused by an over-sized load on a semi-truck striking numerous structural beams holding the bridge section up.
Advocates of the Columbia River Crossing light rail project are pulling out all of the stops to coerce passage of funding to get moving on the project, ignoring citizen voices, pleas of the middle class to stop the bankrupting madness and throwing all caution to the wind that the current design calls for creating the lowest river clearance point on the Columbia River, making the new bridge more susceptible to collision from waterborne craft, unsafe in my estimation.
It didn’t take but minutes for proponents to grab hold of the Skagit River Bridge collapse to equate it to the need to replace the current Interstate Bridge with a light rail carrier. The Lazy C has run articles nearly every single day trying to tie the two bridges together and minimizing the collapse was caused by a semi-truck with an oversized load impacting and taking out structural support beams.
Waiting for results from the NTSB is out of the question when you have a crisis you don’t want to waste.
The Columbian article, Group forms in support of new I-5 bridge about two wealthy engineers forming an advocacy group of other self-interested CRC proponents brings to mind one my kids’ favorite bedtime books – I Wish That I Had Duck Feet by Dr. Seuss.
Sorry to butcher the first few stanzas but my mind tends to twist things around after mulling on them.
Jim Moeller Oh Robert! Will you please quit trying to scare me with your “legal mumbo jumbo”? I don’t take you seriously I certainly hope you don’t. Clark County going bankrupt??!! Really?? How is that going to happen when there is NO county money in it? WOW! Are you that desperate to kill this Project? 18 hours ago • Like
Jim Moeller No need to answer that question, Robert. Of course you are. 18 hours ago • Like
Robert Dean: Jim, hooray! At last you are seriously questioning the project. OK, great, hang with me here, I don’t want to lose you again. OK, sit at your computer monitor and open this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_County,_Alabama
Mike Briggs, thank you for launching into facts, now, in the ongoing debate over the costs and benefits of the CRC to the local community. I know numbers are not your thing so I’ll try to make it simple for you.
You might say 1974 was a watermark for the media, Journalism in particular. The diligent investigative journalism of the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein resulted in the only resignation of a sitting U.S. President as Richard Nixon was forced to resign over the scandal.
I missed much of it as I was stationed overseas in Germany during that time, after completing my tour in Vietnam. But we heard of the relentless pursuit of information on the cover-up and illegal actions of President Nixon. It was clearly a fine example of how dogged determination of scandal by the media could change the course of a country.
With that in mind, I find it peculiar to see Columbian editor Lou Brancaccio leaning on the investigative journalism of Woodward and Bernstein in his Saturday, April 27, 2013 editorial, Of Watergate, awards & stress. I find it so peculiar because the Columbian is anything but serious investigative journalism.
It’s been nearly three years since conservative firebrand Ann Coulter rightfully labeled Washington State Senator Patty Murray “The Stupidest Person in America” and Ms. Murray appears hell-bent to keep on proving it.
