ITEM — A White House fact sheet released to coincide with the state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao announced the signing by him of a $19 billion order from China for 200 Boeing airplanes. Not only is this not a new order as implied, declared the Seattle Times Truth Needle, the actual cost is only $11 billion. Contracts for the planes were signed four years ago with Chinese airlines but approval by the president was done here to highlight his visit and give our president something to dull criticism of his honoring Hu with a state dinner despite China’s poor human rights record and currency policy.
COMMENT — Rush Limbaugh, when asked what he would have done, said he would have talked with Hu, told him what we want and if he didn’t like the answer, send him to McDonald’s and back on the plane.
ITEM — Legislation is expected to be introduced in Olympia that seeks to collect a 1 percent fee on the wholesale value of hazardous substances that are significant contaminates of the state’s waterways. Petroleum products, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that foul the 18 major waterways in the Puget Sound region would help pay to clean up the mess and prevent more harm.
COMMENT — What’s to guarantee the revenue will go where it is intended? I remember when the cigarette tax was raised with clean-up of Puget Sound the goal, but by the time they bought the votes for it they had to include a bunch of other waters too.
ITEM — When Somali pirates hijacked the South Korean cargo ship Samho Jewelry in the Arabian Sea, South Korean commandos, accompanied by a destroyer and a helicopter went on the attack, boarded the ship, killed eight pirates, captured five and rescued 21 hostages. “We will not tolerate any behavior that threatens the lives and safety of our people in the future,” said South Korea President Lee.
COMMENT — Well, that’s the way to discourage the pirates, who still hold 29 vessels and 703 hostages. Keep killing them until they get the message that blackmail isn’t working any more.
ITEM — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called a halt to the building of a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border to control illegal immigration. It was not cost effective, she said, because of bureaucracy, environmental reviews, construction delays, cost overruns, technology glitches and political wrangling that brought it to $19 million a mile.
COMMENT — I hate to be so suspicious but I can’t help thinking that it’s possible bureaucracy, construction delays, cost overruns, technology glitches and political wrangling are deliberate in an administration that isn’t all that hot to do anything about illegal immigration anyway.
ITEM — A statement by President Obama a year ago is being quoted as just as true today as it was then: “While the financial system is far stronger today than it was a year ago, it is still operating under the exact same rules that led to its near collapse.”
COMMENT — What do you expect when the same congressmen who generated the economic collapse by requiring home loans to buyers who couldn’t afford them were put in charge of the bail-out, Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank. Fortunately Dodd decided to get out of town ahead of the sheriff; he retired but Frank is still up to his elbows despite the assessment by federal regulators that the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to reform Wall Street has already failed.
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Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa. 98340.
