Observations on the news

It didn’t take long.   Once the county commissioners opened the “new” jail it decided to spend more taxpayer money and look at building itself a new home – – a new Thurston County courthouse.  A hired consultant said it would cost nearly $200 million to bring the courthouse site up to modern standards.   I wonder – – what constitutes “modern.”   Included in that cost is a new parking garage.   Keep an eye on these commissioners.   I see another boondoggle ahead.

Speaking of county commissioners.   Already people are lining up to step into the job.   Cathy Wolfe is not running for re-election – the story goes – – and its possible that Sandra Romero may not seek re-election either.  Bear in mind, that they are still responsible for the $10 million dollar law suit and a half-a-decade empty jail, built after taxpayers said no.  The loss of Karen Valenzuela last year has to have the remaining two thinking about retiring.   Several current local elected officials are eyeing their chances.

The Marine Corps recent study on women in combat concluded that women can’t perform as well as men and that mixed gender combat units found that romantic entanglements often resulted in mission distraction.  Those of us who had been in the military could have told them that.   While women play a vital role in our military, they can’t do all the physical work that combat requires.  In addition, combat is a matter of life and death.   Distractions could result in death.

Seven of our Washington State Supreme Court Justices took substantial amounts of money from the Washington Education Association in their last election or re-election bid.  It was this same group of justices which recently declared the non-union charter schools – – illegal.   This same group of judges declared that the legislature had to come up with billions of dollars of new taxpayer money for schools – – and that they would determine when the amount was right.   When will voters rein in the abuses of the teacher’s unions and the judges they bought?