Dori: Democratic debate exposes hypocrisy, failure of Inslee campaign

I came away from the second Democratic Debate with “The End” by The Doors going through my head.

Why? I think Jay Inslee’s campaign is over. I don’t think he’ll get to the 2 percent he needs by September.

He did get double the speaking minutes he got in the first debate — all the way up to eight minutes. Of course, that means double the boredom and apathy from those who tuned in. Is it possible to drop below zero percent in the polls?

He started off with this dramatic statement.

The people in this room and the Democrats watching tonight are the last, best hope for humanity on this planet. If we make defeating the climate crisis the top priority of the United States, we will have a fighting chance to save ourselves and our children’s future.

He doesn’t believe one word that he says about the climate crisis. It is all theater for him. If he had any sincerity whatsoever about the “dire” climate crisis, he would not fly his entourage all over the country campaigning, using more jet fuel in six months than most Americans use in a lifetime. Jay, if you really believe this is the most existential threat, and you recognize that you have no shot in this race according to the polls, then you should drop out and stop needlessly emitting so much carbon.

Jay Inslee flubs his way through first Democratic debate

There was one particular quote from Inslee in the Democratic debate that just blew me away. What is the biggest issue in our region? Homelessness, of course. We’ve been talking ad nauseam about what to do about the homeless. I believe that every single person in a tent, on a bench, under a tarp, in a box, on our streets, or in a park must be told that we do not allow camping and must move along. However, we should also give them mental health treatment, housing, drug rehab, and job training, as long as they promise to get clean.

As we talked about earlier this week, repeat offender Francisco Calderon has 76 convictions and keeps getting put back out on the street. His sister was begging the justice system to keep him locked up. She said that he told her that he is assaulting people so he can be locked up, because he does not know how to live on his own. When you have a mind that is so far-gone, what if the next step for him is to say, “Well, they keep releasing me, but I want to be locked up, so the only way I can stay locked up is if I murder someone?”

This is the game we are playing in our state. We have got to have proper mental health treatment.

So when Jay Inslee said this in the debate last night, I truly could not believe my ears.

I’m also proud of this and I think we need to talk more about this as Democrats. It is time to give people adequate mental health care in this country. And we are having some success in integrating mental health with physical health.

If they’d had me on the post-debate panel, I would have explained that that was almost as big a lie as when Jay Inslee told me he would never raise taxes as governor. Our state’s biggest psychiatric facility is Western State Hospital, and in June of last year, it was de-certified because of horrible conditions due to years of neglect. It lost $53 million a year in federal funding because of that de-certification.

Jay Inslee has been governor for the entire time that Western State has been in crisis. For him to stand on that debate stage and suggest to the nation that we have made strides in mental health care in Washington when we have mentally ill people running around the streets, stabbing a guy at a bus stop in Auburn, threatening Westlake Park visitors, ripping sunroofs off cars and using them as weapons, when our largest psychiatric facility lost its certification and the federal funding that goes with it under his leadership … that was as big a lie as you could imagine.

And the people on the Democratic debate panel — they have so many researchers, and they couldn’t have one person figure out that Jay Inslee talking about mental health funding is extreme hypocrisy.

This next quote was the biggest applause line of the night.

We can no longer allow a white nationalist to be in the White House, number one. And number two, we have to make America what it’s always been — a place of refuge. We’ve got to boost the number of people we accept. I’m proud of being the first governor saying, ‘Send us your Syrian refugees.’

It had nothing to do with being accepting. You said it because you wanted an extra Congressional seat for your party. The family of a Kittitas County Deputy murdered by an illegal immigrant told you to stay away from their loved one’s funeral because you had blood on your hands. You never present the flip side of sanctuary state.

The other major cut from Inslee at the Democratic debate was when he pandered to the far left and broke this news:

I’ve never been a black teenager pulled over in a white neighborhood. I’ve never been a woman talked over in a meeting. I’ve never been an LGBTQ member subject to a slur.

The good news, if you were listening Wednesday, is that Jay Inslee announced that the state is adding a third gender option to our driver’s licenses. So Inslee will get to be a woman if he wants — he just needs to make a trip to the DMV.

Some think that Inslee is “Stayin’ Alive,” but other’s think that this is “The End.”

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @http://www.twitter.com/dorimonson