SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Inslee’s State of the State blames you, not the Democrats in power

Jan 15, 2019, 5:34 PM

Jay Inslee...

Governor Jay Inslee gave his State of the State address on Tuesday. (AP)

(AP)

Governor Jay Inslee’s 2019 State of the State address was little more than a 2020 presidential campaign speech. And of course, to be a viable candidate for the Democratic Party nomination, you have to be not just far-left, you have to be wild-eyed, wing-nut loony left.

Once again, Inslee brought up those wildfires that made our air smoky last summer. Of course, just as he did over the summer, he blamed the poor air quality on his favorite issue,  climate change.

Historic wildfires blackened our air so much that we had the worst air quality in the world — not China, not India, Washington state.

First of all, the reason we had the worst air quality last summer was because of wildfires in British Columbia. The air-stream was blowing to the south and blew their smoke down here. What does British Columbia have that we don’t have? A carbon tax. What did the carbon tax do to stop wildfires? Clearly, nothing.

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Second, Democrats have been in control of this state and of the Governor’s mansion pretty much my entire life. Why hasn’t your party fixed environmental issues here? Why haven’t you fixed it in your two terms? How do you blame the skies and say politics are the solution if your party has been in power for decades? Have you thought that maybe it’s not a climate change problem, but a Democratic Party problem?

Inslee also called climate change the biggest concern for our futures.

I don’t know of any other issue that touches the heart of so many of the things we all care about — our jobs, our health, our safety, and our children’s future. But this doesn’t have to be our future.

I don’t know — we have a lot of murderers around here right now. I talked on Tuesday about how Yakima County has the highest homicide rate in 38 years. We have vagrants in downtown Seattle attacking people. We have women being sexually assaulted by homeless people while out on a jog. So no, I would rather be touched by climate change than by the extension of violent crime that’s going around our city, our county, our state. If it’s going to be 84 degrees on an average summer day, two degrees higher than it used to be, I’ll deal with it. I’d rather deal with that than with women being attacked by homeless people from other states who come here because of our lax drug policies.

These policies will steeply cut emissions, the equivalent of taking about 3 million cars off our roads.

How many car equivalents are all of your flights around the country as you begin to campaign for president? What about your trips to Switzerland and Germany to attend conferences? How many car equivalents allow your climate change adviser to commute from Morocco to Washington state after his wife got a teaching job in Marrakesh? But no — climate change reform only applies to the taxpayers. We’re the ones who have got to pay billions of dollars.

Additionally, Inslee used his State of the State address to tout his sanctuary policies.

All of the other places close their borders and fear the unfamiliar. We are the state that opens our communities to immigrants and refugees seeking safety, shelter, and sanctuary.

In other words, we open our communities to illegal immigrants. We pay billions of dollars a year to feed, house, and provide all kinds of services to illegal immigrants. We have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants here in King County. That’s my estimate — we’re not allowed to have any access to data because we’re a sanctuary county.

If we could somehow find a way to reduce the number of illegal immigrants who are here, we could take care of gridlock, cut housing costs, and raise wages for citizens and legal immigrants. I am a full endorser of supporting people who come to this country legally, as my grandparents did through Ellis Island, to find a better life for their families.

And then there was our lieutenant governor, who refused to attend the State of the State address. It is his job to preside at the governor’s State of the State. He does nothing else — the lieutenant governorship is maybe the most useless position. But Lieutenant Governor Cyrus Habib, who is blind, said that he felt vulnerable in the House gallery, since you’re allowed to bring concealed weapons into it. To ban them would be a violation of the state Constitution. As lieutenant governor, Cyrus Habib swore to uphold the Constitution, but now he has refused to do his job because he doesn’t like that one part of the Constitution.

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Dori: Inslee’s State of the State blames you, not the Democrats in power