On Blogging, Mountains and Molehills, and No Sense of Humor

To listen to some whiners around here, you would think they had never heard of blogging before or just what that entails. Political bloggers are generally a partisan and snarky lot and blog commenters often get very satirical or downright vicious with their words.

For example, a few years ago, former Whitman County Democratic State Committeeman Dave Gibney wrote the following comment on the liberal Washblog:

ALways thought the rapture would be a good thing. All the stuck up assholes would be gone. :)

Gibney's comment was in response to a Washblog contributor who was "disturbed" that Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers attended a "fundamentalist Christian college," writing:

As another layer is peeled away from that American girl facade, instead of a garden variety Reagan conservative Christian, I see another hypocritical fundamentalist.

Now, did anyone make an issue of this comment when Dave threw his hat in the ring for a Pullman City Council appointment? Did anyone demand that the Whitman County Democrats apologize to all Palouse evangelicals because of Gibney's comment. No, of course not. Dave was making a joke. Hence the smiley face. Some might have been offended, but there is no right in the Constitution to not be offended.

Current Whitman County Democratic State Committeeman and former candidate for Whitman County Auditor Nathan Horter has been a diarist at Daily Kos.

Another diarist at Daily Kos, A. Whitney Brown, wrote last year:

Do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country? No. I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded.

Wow. Once again, has anyone demanded an apology from the Whitman County Democrats, assuming Horter must feel the same way about our troops because he "countenances" posts like that by blogging at Daily Kos. No, of course not. That would be guilt by association a la McCarthyism. Theoretically, American political parties have moved beyond that kind of chilling of free speech.

Or have they? Could a local party be so desperate for a victory that they would say or do anything, no matter how exaggerated, how ridiculous or how base to try to win? I think we now know the answer to that question.

The Whitman County Democrats have bigger problems than me right now, and this little campaign of distraction, distortion, and dirt is not going to help.

Tyana Kelley Doesn't Think Your Truck is Sexy

Spokane urban transplant Tyana Kelley and Democratic candidate for the Washington state legislature has a lot to learn about the 9th District. Heck, she's only been here since last August.

For example, Kelley wrote on her blog about the Johnson and Albion 4th of July Parades:

The Republican candidates were out in force at both parades. Each candidate had their own vehicle: either a gas-guzzling truck, or car with an equally big engine. In Albion we were put in the line to walk right in between all these vehicles. It was a bit intimidating. My opponent, Joe Schmick, had the biggest truck, a Ford F-350.

I wonder if Tyana realizes that Joe is a farmer and needs that truck to farm? I wonder if she realizes that many of her potential voters also drive similar rigs for similar reasons?

She stated in an interview with the Moscow-Pullman Daily News that "We need someone in Olympia to work with the Democratic majority." God forbid. Do 9th District voters want a Democrat supermajority to hit us with the 2009 version of SB6900?

You remember SB6900. It was the bill proposed by a Seattle area liberal senator earlier this year that would have engine displacement and emission fees for motor vehicles according to a schedule tied to engine size in liters and CO2 emissions in grams per mile. That's just what area farmers need when the price of diesel is already at record levels.

Just tell Tyana, "No thanks." She can move out of the area when her husband finishes up at WSU. We don't need any more carpetbaggers around here.

BREAKING NEWS: Financial Irregularities at Whitman County Democrats Headquarters

Palousitics has learned from a highly reliable source that Janice Brown, the treasurer of the Whitman County Democrats has resigned from her position. The reason cited for this resignation was the many irregularities in the party's books combined with the party leadership's refusal to correct these problems.

According to the source, Ms. Brown said that the Whitman County Democratic Central Committee has no desire to play by the rules of the Public Disclosure Commission. Contributions are being deposited in the bank right away, without the proper completion of PDC reports, as required by state election law. Ms. Brown said that she could no longer participate in those activities and threatened to inform the Washington State Democratic Party of these violations.

As confirmation, the Whitman County Democrats website shows the Treasurer position as being currently vacant. However, the latest Whitman County Democratic Central Committee report to the PDC is dated July 10, 2008 and contains Ms. Brown's name as Treasurer.

Stay tuned for much, much more later.

"Compound fracture of fact"

The reason for the numerous PARD "compound fractures of fact" and the smear campaign they are currently waging which Terry Day referred to in a letter to the editor last Friday is obvious.

PARD desperately wants to distract public attention away from the outing of their three year long lie about not receiving any financial assistance from the UFCW. They fear, rightfully so, the wrath of Pullman citizens who have been cheated out of two million dollars in sales tax revenue and tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses as part of some futile nationwide union grudge match against Wal-Mart that has nothing to do with our town.

PARDner Chris Lupke, and PARD ally Matthew Root (remember, Root threatened to call the cops on Palousitics constributor Ray Lindquist for holding up a "Honk for Wal-Mart" sign downtown back in January 2006,) have been engaged in a systematic campaign of outrageous lies and distortions against Scotty ("The Seattle Transplant,") myself, and by inference, all who support Wal-Mart coming to Pullman in the printed pages of the Daily News and on Dnews.com.

For example, Lupke wrote in a unhinged rant published in the July 5-6 edition of the Daily News that, "Following it [this blog post made by me on June 29] are some comments, including this: 'This pig needs to be removed from the trough.'" That bordered on libel, as the clear implication was that I had made that statement. On Dnews.com, the online comments about this letter actually turned libelous, as I was accused by both Lupke and Root of having made it.

That is a complete and utter lie. If you look at the comments for this post, you can see it was Paul Zimmerman that wrote about the "pig," not me. What I said was this:

There was a story in the Daily News not too long ago stating that the average salary of professors at WSU was $92,000 a year.

Now, one can debate that number in terms of pay at other universities or whether the professors deserve such pay or not all day long.

What is not debatable, however, is the adolescent hippie fantasy that Lupke engages in that somehow the professors of PARD with their much-higher-than-average salaries (and education) represent the "working class" of Pullman. It's unseemly and it's silly.

My wife is a professor in the College of Liberal Arts. I have never impugned the pay of professors or the quality of professors in the College of Liberal Arts in general, only arrogant jerks in any college who suppress academic freedom and try to promote their own leftist agenda on the taxpayer's time or by pretending to be "experts" in things such as traffic, urban planning and economics.

I don't think Paul was making a broad statement aboout professors either, as he has been an instructor at WSU. He was just singling out Lupke. And I was merely rebutting Lupke's absurd assertion on Dnews.com that somehow only the "more wealthy people" in Pullman support Wal-Mart. I did this by using data available to those who pay his salary, the taxpayers of Washington,to show that members of prominent PARD households all make well above the average family income in Pullman. If Lupke doesn't like his pay being a matter of public record, he should move to a job in the private sector.

If any further letters or comments claiming that I said anything about "pigs in the trough" show up again anywhere, there will be legal consequences for all involved.

But false accusations and namecalling are nothing new to the tag team of Lupke and Root, both active members of the Whitman County Democrats. A few months back, after falsely accusing me of being the Dnews.com commenter "TJ Kong," Lupke said I was "homophobic" and "fascinated with Nazis." Root called "TJ Kong" a "suicide bomber."

From last Friday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Mark Twain spoke of lies and damned lies and labeled the aphorism that "Truth is mighty and will prevail" as "the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved ... a truth is not hard to kill, and ... a lie well told is immortal."

I take it this must be the bible of PARDites, who continue to spread lies about Pullman city officials regarding Wal-Mart's proposed Pullman super center. PARDites will take umbrage at this truth. They are unrestrained in misrepresenting the city's handling of the Wal-Mart application, but accuse those who criticize them of intimidation.

The only smear campaign in Pullman over Wal-Mart is being conducted by the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development or its supporters. They wage it against city officials who acted morally and legally and whose handling of the issues have repeatedly been upheld in the court of law. And that especially includes providing all citizens ample opportunity through public hearings to voice their concerns and opinions. Allegations to the contrary constitute a compound fracture of fact.

Terence L. Day, Pullman