Seattle Times guest op-ed: Only lawlessness can save our democracy

I wouldn’t waste my time writing this if a functioning, investigative press was not vital to our way of life. Despite what Melissa Santos, a well respected, well-liked editorial writer at The Seattle Times said on Twitter, I care deeply about a functioning press.

Further, as I say often on the show, The Seattle Times’ investigative journalists have kept power in check for many years; I honor that. Sadly, their editorial board is making worse a situation it would like to believe it is addressing.

The op-ed team at the Times featured a guest editorial that it must believe called out the Trump Administration for abuse of authority and for recklessly attacking our institutions. What I contend the editorial board simply cannot see is that they have sacrificed their credibility with a vast number of people and are losing an even larger number due to their selective outrage.

Today’s editorial is a tipping point for me and, I predict for others.

Where is The Seattle Times editorial on the attacks against the rule of law in our own State?

Has this guest editorialist ever been here or is he selectively ignorant?

Of course the Times should run guest voices. Of course they should feature opinions of a wide variety. That’s not the issue. What makes it a tipping point is the Times will run this piece on how the West Coast can save “Democracy” when Washington state is becoming utterly lawless. Instead of addressing that, the Times is running yet another piece of hysterical Trump panic material when, as I show below, they have blithely ignored eight years of lawlessness from D.C. Worse, they appear to be ignoring lawlessness here.

I passed my tipping point because we need The Seattle Times in our state. The paper has near to zero national power and, given its current case of Trump-derangement, it cannot be credible in matters related to D.C. But, the Times does have the local credibility necessary to call to account the criminal lawlessness in our state, they have actual power in Olympia. Yet, it does not appear that the Seattle Times editorial team has any concern about our State’s attack on the rule of law. I illustrated as much in tweets to the Times this morning about this guest editorial which caused me to question whether the author has ever been here.

It is not just The Seattle Times seems to put more energy into Trump-panic and issues it cannot really effective. It’s not just that it seems to ignore lawlessness here. It is also that the Times’ editorial board spent eight years ignoring what they are now running multiple editorial condemning.

The Seattle Times featured guest editorial of the day: contrast and compare

It’s up to Western states to rescue our democracy

We in the West did not vote for an impudent man who disdains scientific evidence — and thinks the “truth” is whatever he happens to tweet each morning.

In Washington state, we are supposed to pretend that “science” proves that private jets deserve a waiver to so-called carbon taxes, but moms driving kids to school do not. We are told to believe that a man is a woman and a boy is a girl; these are official positions of the Washington State government. I haven’t seen an editorial in the Times calling this out.

By any measure, the Pacific edge of the United States did not vote for Donald Trump in November 2016. We voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton — and thus for continuing the policies of President Barack Obama.

And yet, our “Democracy” is actually a Republic and the “Pacific Edge” lost in the electoral college. Does saving “Democracy” now call for states upset with losing an election to act in rebellion against their countrymen — oh, I am sorry, I meant country-humans — and refusing to accept the results of a Democratic election?

The far western United States did not vote for the partisan train wreck gripping the nation’s capital. Nor did we vote for an authoritarian president ruling by decree who attempts to bar Muslims from entering the country and wants to waste billions of taxpayer dollars building a wall along our Mexican border.

The “Pacific Edge” twice voted for a partisan train wreck that gripped the capital for eight years. They voted twice for an authoritarian president who ruled by decree when he stole 6 million insurance plans, illegally refused to follow enforce the nation’s immigration laws, illegally sent pallets of cash in the middle of the night to a radical, Islamic regime called Iran. They voted twice for a man who added more to our debt than all previous presidents combined, but a West Coast state that spends $75 billion on a train that will move less than 3 percent of people will save our “Democracy?” I imagine that some at the Times op-ed board imagined that this guest editorial would hammer the President, but it will not change a single mind because the Times seems committed to sacrificing their credibility when they call they run multiple editorials calling out Trump on this, but seem to have ignored Obama.

The piece continues to self-immolate:

We did not vote for a racist president who calls Africa a “s—hole,” and some white supremacists “very fine people.” Nor did we vote for someone who denigrated women or belittled a Vietnam War hero.

Setting aside the fact that this is a lie — Trump did not call white supremacists “very fine people” — he very clumsily and ill-advisedly said there were some very fine people there protesting on both sides between the twin scum of Antifa and basement dwelling knuckle dragging Nazis; the sentence above merely digs the deeper into the hole of credibility sacrificed. The West voted twice for a president who called the founding documents “fatally flawed,” Christian voters “bitter clingers” cops he never met “stupid”, his grandmother a racist–a “typical white person” and “that’s just how ‘white folks’ will ‘do ya.'” You voted twice for a man who sat for twenty years and heard sermons about “Goddamn America”, smiled gleefully in pictures with an expressed racist, Louis Farhakahn. The West supported a man who referred to our troops being ambushed and killed while lawyers in D.C. dithered about whether they could fight back as “non-optimal.” You supported a man who ran on the message that our troops kill for oil money. You didn’t question a President who joked about disabled people in the Special Olympics. Did any of this raise the ire of the Times Op-Ed writers?

It appears it is not “Democracy” their guest editorialist aims to support but leftism. Again, it’s more than fine for the Times to run editorials like this, but is there any care for balance?

Now, we get to dictator worship:

We did not vote for a potentially treasonous tyrant who admires Vladimir Putin and other dictators, threatening democracy around the world. We reject much of what has happened this past year and is now being decided in the nation’s capital.

The illegal funding of an expressed enemy of America, Iran, is far more treasonous–I mean, it was actually done, not threatened in a potentially treasonous tweet–or whatever formed the ideas the author feels in his deepest and most feely-feelings. When Barack Obama decided to obstruct the FBI and DOJ from arresting Iranians who had been smuggling massive amounts of cocaine and heroin into America and actually made the active decision to allow that to continue, Barack Obama provided comfort, aid and funding to an enemy of America while also harming Americans. Did any of this bother the Times Editorial Board? How about any of their guest columnists?

On the topic of admiring tyrants. Obama’s iconic portrait was based upon a tyrant named Che Guevara, who murdered people for a tyrant named Fidel Castro, who Obama deeply admired. Obama’s Chief “Diversity” Officer at the FCC said in public that he admired how Huge Chavez handled the media–a note to the Times’ guest screed writer: Chavez nationalized the media.

One more time: We need a functioning, credible, investigative press

Melissa Santos, in our discussion on Twitter, asked if I was suggesting they not run pieces like this. Of course I don’t suggest that. Run lots of opinions, run more news. I beg The Seattle Times to ask themselves if they are acting upon principles, party loyalty or personality. That is important because the evident lack of concern over local lawlessness and the lawlessness of Barack Obama will peel away and erode the credibility of the Seattle Times to call out real dangers to our society committed by a Republican if that is to happen. We need them to be able to warn us, right now, they cannot.