Lew Renders Judgement

There's a couple of ways of parsing Lew's latest grousing.  Charitably, if one is innocent, then one is unaware of worldly or complex things, ignorant of the dark side of life.  If we are to take Lew's comments this way, then he's rendering a compliment, saying, in effect, that his fellow conservatives are seasoned veterans who are aware of the ins and outs of politics.

Does anyone here really think Lew meant it that way?  No?  Me neither.

No, I'm pretty sure Lew means we are not innocent, as in the opposite of guilty.  If his named culprits aren't innocent, then they must be. . . GUILTY! 

Guilty of what? One may very well ask.  Given that Lew has yet to answer a single question brought forward in this venue to substantiate the accusations he's leveled at his detractors, he has no evidential case to present except his own rhetoric, wildly inaccurate assumptions and empty accusations of unethical behavior. His entire case collapses like a house of cards at the slightest cross-examination, which is why he's not answered any questions posed to him by those he accuses.

The interesting thing is that Lew encourages people to review the posts to see the history.   Do those posts include the comments and threads that were deleted by Lew that he had no answer to and showed how much hot air he was full of?  Of course not! 

So the verdict is guilty!  And the crime is. . . .Well, disagreeing with THE Clark County Conservative, apparently. 

Ah, I love the sound of a good debate in the morning!  It reminds me of. . .. Freedom.

Lew Weighs in on the Importance of Energy

Lew Waters reposted an article from 2011 on Energy, and knocked it out of the park.  Jump over there and give it a good read.  It's worth your time.

Brown Shirts and Paulbots and Liberals, oh my!

Lew Waters continues to grouse about the fact that people have the right to challenge his foolishness in public:

We at Lew Waters Watch aren't interested in get Lew to align with us.  And calling a public speaker to task on factually incorrect things he says is not berating, smearing or lying. No one has called Lew Waters a Shit-smearer like he called Frank Decker, nor has anyone suggested that Lew sleeps around, like he suggested that one of the candidates for State legislature does.

No one is smearing Lew.  He's perfectly capable of doing that without our help.  We're just calling attention to it when he does.

Is Lew feeling a little paranoid?  It seems so:

We're scratching our heads over how a public repudiation and disavowal of violence constitutes a threat.  Oh, perhaps the advice we gave made Lew think we were suggesting something.  Let's put this in context:

Don't play in the freeway.  You might get hit by a car.  Just some friendly advice that everyone should heed.

Don't wash your face in sulphuric acid.  It's not really good for your complexion.  Just some friendly advice that everyone should heed.

These are not threats, they're just practical advice for avoiding trouble. Maybe Lew's upbringing didn't school him on what constitutes acceptable public behavior.

I'm not aware of any "Department" of the sheriff.  I know there's a Sheriff's Office.

Seriously folks, if you're contemplating violence or vandalism or any sort of overt display, don't. Just don't.

Lew then indulges in flights of fancy, twisting simple truths to fit his  strange world view, and making up outright lies.

No one "enlisted" Lisa Ross.  It is our understanding at LWW that Lisa made the decision to run on her own, without anyone in the office of the party encouraging her to do so. Has Lew actually interviewed Lisa and discovered the actual decision process she went through to choose to run?  Of course not!  Why bother with journalistic integrity and objectivity when you can create the news to fit your agenda?

We at LWW are familiar with the canvassing efforts and grass-roots door knocking.  We are absolutely sure that no one suggested that Carolyn is not a conservative, nor was there a suggestion that signs be replaced. There is nothing unethical about discussing the relative merits of one candidate over another with one's neighbors. This is politics at its most basic level. For someone who screams "brownshirts!" at the drop of a pin, Lew seems to be awfully quick to try to silence people who disagree with him, and to impugn the motives of those who publicly support their favored candidates.  Lew's insinuations here are an out and out lie, and evidence that his blog has nothing to do with journalism, but is just biased gossip based on wild speculation fueled by conspiracy theory paranoia.

To recap:
First of all, we have to understand that Lew Waters has a visceral, incoherent hatred for Ron Paul and anyone who endorses him. While it's perfectly rational to debate some of the more strange ideas of this group, Lew doesn't do debate, and insists that members of this group are minions of the Antichrist, dead-set on destroying America. 

First question that Lew assiduously fails to answer as he paints everyone who disagrees with him as Nazis and brownshirts:

1.   How does adhering to the letter of the Constitution, as Ron Paul supporters do, represent a threat to the nation?

This public push-back against Lew began when he manufactured a tempest in a teapot about normal political activity, spun it so it sounded like he was breaking a scoop about corruption in the Clark County Republican party, and his byline was picked up by a blogger for the Columbian newspaper.  What had Lew so worked up was that *gasp* people were actually contacting other like-minded people and encouraging them to become active in the local Republican party.

Oh, the horror.

Lew spun this to say that the Party was  trying to "secretly" stack the deck in favor of their agenda, using inflammatory insinuations to make it sound as if this was something entirely unethical, and borderline illegal.  Next thing you know he will be accusing the party of matriculating with thespians!

So a few more questions for Mr. Waters to address in his next blog:

2. Why is recruiting like-minded citizens to become active is not acceptable?

3. If we're not allowed to recruit like-minded individuals, who, then, are we allowed to recruit?

4. Please explain the charge that anything was done in secret. Can Lew Waters produce a legal requirement or party by-law that states that he be notified of all activities of any group of politically active people?

5. If you were to recruit someone in your neighborhood to be a precinct officer, would you not first try someone who most closely reflected your values and beliefs?

6. In 2012,  CCRP Chairman Ryan Hart was actively recruiting PCO candidates to try to counter the growing influence of Ron Paul supporters in the local Republican Party.  Why was this an acceptable act, but not if the PCO Liberty Alliance does the exact same thing?

The interesting thing is that while Lew was trying to manufacture a scandal out of thin air, an actual scandal was unfolding.  A WSRP operative from the Puget Sound area, Richard ‘Apollo’ Fuhriman, was taking PCO recruitment in Clark county seriously, to the point of actually filing for candidates without their knowledge or approval! In spite of smoking gun evidence of unethical malfeasance, Lew not only ignored it, but airily dismissed it.  He was too busy hunting "Paul-bots" to be concerned about what anyone was doing. The fact that his witch-hunt got noticed by the Columbian, who gleefully printed his conspiracy theory because it made the Republican party look bad and furthered the objective of the left-leaning newspaper, just validated Lew's vendetta.

Lew has labeled the caucus that currently controls the CCRP as "Radicals." More questions for Lew:

7.  How is working for a smaller, constitutional government by the people and for the people radical? 

8. Why is a dedication to fiscal responsibility radical?

9. Why is choosing our leadership rather than having it chosen for us by people who are not even part of our community radical?

10. Lew Waters has called the CCRP leadership "extremist."  Exactly what policies have been promoted at a local county level by ANYONE identified as a conservative that can be deemed "extremist"?

11. Lew has asserted that Ron Paul Libertarians have "snuck" [sic] into the party as PCO's. PCO is an elected position. How does one "sneak" into a party as a PCO?

12. Where are the requirements enumerated that Lew seems to think are necessary to be a member of the Republican party?

And one final question for the Clark County Conservative, if we may:

13. Will Lew Waters have the class to publicly apologize for insinuating in a moment of unbridled anger that Lisa Ross sleeps around, both to Mrs. Ross and to her male campaign workers who were implicated?

There we have thirteen questions for the Clark County Conservative which will promote a healthy discussion and hopefully clear away the fog of lies and obfuscation cast by someone with a vendetta and a blog.  Will these questions be answered, or will the answer be further accusations that someone is trying to silence Lew Waters?  How can asking pointed questions be construed as a nazi-like tactic to silence someone? 

The answers - or lack thereof - will show the measure of the man, and demonstrate the depth - or lack thereof - of his ability to discuss his ideas in an objective public forum. Can Lew Waters remain relevant without directly answering his critics on the merits of their arguments?

Who in the Hell is Lew Waters to Try to Dictate What is Posted on This Blog?

In Lew's latest offering, he spent an amazing amount of effort defending himself.  Let's break down his invective piece by piece and see if it holds any water:

"As you all know, this blog and its author have been under anonymous assault" 

Lew Waters has never been under assault.  If someone disagrees with your public statements and challenges them in a public forum, that is not an assault, that is a debate.  A debate, we might add, that Lew has bee spectacularly unwilling to engage in, maybe because he knows his point of view is rubbish.  The fact that Lew continually thinks that public calls to set the record straight equate to an assault on him just shows the depth of the man's inability to distinguish reality.

" operatives of the Clark County R3publican Party"

Nope! This screed is starting to be comical. Lew Waters Watch operates without the sanction, approval or guidance of any party or candidate.  Just one independent citizen calling BS on another independent citizen's BS. If Lew thinks that this is part of some greater dark conspiracy, then I suggest his tinfoil hat is wound a bit too tight.

". . .disapprove of my calling myself a conservative, even to naming this blog as conservative. . ."

Not the case at all.  What we at LWW disapprove of is you, in your guise as a Conservative, trying to define what a conservative is, and publicly deriding other conservatives in Clark county who don't fit your myopic definition to the detriment of the conservative movement and the betterment of the Liberals.  The Democrat party is having a field day with Lew's public paranoid nonsense, to the point of citing his specious accusations in the Columbian to try to drive an unnecessary rift in the Republican party. Basically, Lew's not doing anyone any favors,  hurting his own cause.

"Contrary to what they may think, they neither own rights to conservatism nor do they sit in any position of authority to define or dictate who is and is not conservative by their narrow, disillusioned views."

Contrary to what Lew may think, he neither owns rights to conservatism nor does he sit in any position of authority to define or dictate who is and is not conservative by his narrow, disillusioned views.

"Since these people proclaim they are the true defenders of liberty, where do they get off establishing a smear site aimed at one person that disagrees with their “in your face” tactics and refuses to support their hand-picked candidates?"

If Lew claims to support liberty, then why is he complaining when a fellow citizen exercises their liberty to comment on his public offerings?  Lew certainly has a right to have his blog and say any damn thing he wants to on it.  And we at Lew Water's watch have the right to have our blog and say any damn thing we want to.  And if what we have to say is commentary on his paranoid, ill-conceived and ill-informed nonsense, then where does he get off saying that we can't speak our opinion in a public forum and have it heard? 

Lew's first amendment rights guarantee his right to free speech, but it does not mean that his free speech can be used without consequences. By what stretch of logic does Lew assert that his public offerings are immune to counter-argument, fact-checking and reality checks? Where does his right to exempt himself from derision, scorn, satire and embarrassment come from, a right that not even presidents have?

"They are fond of throwing out the invective “establishment” in a pejorative manner, parroting the 1960’s long haired, dope smoking Liberal Hippies, unaware that now that they have seized control of the local party, they are “the establishment.”

Perhaps so, and if so, we're quite proud of the changes the new management has brought to the local party.  Decisions are made at a lower level, by the quorum of elected party representatives, and not handed down by a select group of a few central committee members who are working under direction from a state or national party level. Nevertheless, the changes wrought in Clark county which have promoted the cause of conservatism and grass-roots politics are the exception, not the norm in the National Republican Party, which is still in control of a small group of people who do not share the rank and file conservatism that we in Clark County do.  These are the ones we identify as the "Establishment," and there is an element of this establishment in Clark County that's pretty cheesed that they have lost power.  The fractious PCO races this cycle show the lengths to which the establishment is willing to go to try to regain power, apparently so they can hand it back to Olympia and Washington DC.  If you feel that political power bests rests at the lowest level possible, as close to the communities it affects as possible, then you should be supporting the currently elected Republican party of Clark County, instead of standing on the sidelines inventing libelous stories to try to discredit them.

" this latest flare-up seems to be on behalf of RLC candidate Lisa Ross and my not supporting her."

Not at all.  Again, Lew's paranoia inhibits his ability to see cause and effect, and to distinguish the truth. This later flare-up is a result of lies posted under the guise of journalism aimed at directly discrediting a conservative candidate.  To quote:

"And we see it when a strong Republican candidate is undermined behind the scenes by party operatives in favor of an inexperienced novice because someone carries a personal grudge against the stronger candidate."

Fact: There is no evidence that Ms. Crain is or was a "strong" candidate.  That is entirely a subjective opinion, and not an opinion shared by 59.42% of the Republican votes cast in the Aug 5th election.

Fact: No "party operatives" had anything to do with the election outcome.  "Party Operatives" implies that someone is operating with the approval, support, endorsement and assistance of the party. Yes, members of the party publicly campaigned for Lisa Ross.  That is their right to do as individuals, and I guarantee that anyone who did so was very careful to convey that their endorsement was a personal endorsement, and not a party endorsement (As if anyone really cares who the party endorses anyway.  From my experience talking to people, they're so sick of the Republican brand, thanks to Boehner and friends, that a party endorsement is a kiss of death).  I should point out that members of the party also campaigned for Carolyn, in exactly the same fashion. Where is the outrage that "party operatives" were undermining Lisa's campaign?  It's politics, Lew. 

Fact: No one undermined Carolyn's campaign, except perhaps herself. The mark of an adult is someone who can take responsibility for success or failure and deal with it realistically, instead of casting around for someone to blame.  We at LWW are willing to bet that the majority of votes cast in the election had been subjected to no influence from either campaign, and simply chose what they saw as the better candidate. Lisa ran a better, smarter, more effective campaign, and was a more qualified, more electable candidate. The elections results definitively confirm this. Get over it, and support the Conservative in November.  You certainly have the right to disagree with that and say so publicly, and we at LWW have the right to publicly challenge you when you do so.  The only thing Lew has his panties in a wad over is that he's used to being able to silence dissenting opinions and control the dialog, which is why he's so worked up about this blog and throws such a temper tantrum every time we say something that calls his opinions into question.

Fact: No one carries a personal grudge against any candidate - at least not on the part of Lew's mysterious "party operatives."  Carolyn Crain is a passionate conservative with an encyclopedic knowledge of issues who could be very very useful to any campaign or political cause to which she lent her abilities.  Just because some people chose to support a different candidate does not reflect a personal grudge.  We can look through the PDC records, and many of the people castigated in Lew's blog are on record financially supporting Carolyn's campaign of 2012. Nor are we aware of any action on the part of any candidate that would foster any sort of grudge.  It seems the only people holding grudges are the ones who failed to achieve their election goals. 

So this latest flare-up has nothing to do with who Lew supports or doesn't support. We have just identified four factually incorrect assumptions from a single sentence of the Clark County Conservative blog, which were made with malicious intent to discredit the Republican nominee for the state legislature.  The escalation of this flare-up is the further result of the original author throwing a temper tantrum that someone would challenge him in a forum he doesn't control to the point of publicly slandering the candidate by suggesting she sleeps around - a suggestion that will buy you a knuckle sandwich in many social circles.

"Lisa Ross has remained completely silent throughout the entire smear / attack campaign on her behalf which indicates to me she is even more unqualified to hold public office than previously believed."

That or she has more class than to get down and roll around in the mud with an irrelevant troll with a blog who has publicly repudiated the Republican party . . .

"How silly that not supporting her is considered “attacking” her."

Lew's memory seems to be failing.  How is calling the elected candidate "an inexperienced novice" not an attack? 

"endorsing incumbent Republican 3rd Congressional District Representative, Jaime Herrera Beutler was “spurned,""

Factually incorrect.  The issue never came to the floor, not for Jaime and not for any candidate. There were no motions to endorse of withhold the endorsement of any candidate.  Any PCO can bring a motion to the floor. Is it Lew's position that not one of the more than 90 PCO's present supported Jaime?  Preposterous.  Again, Lew needs to do better research before throwing insinuations around.

"Yet, it is DEMANDED of Independent voters to get behind Lisa Ross?"

Nope.  That also never came to the floor.  No one has demanded Lew or anyone else does anything.  When Lew publicly makes factually incorrect statements that undermine the conservative movement of Clark County, under the guise of "Clark County Conservative", those statements deserve to be challenged. We don't even demand that Lew refrain from making factually incorrect statements, although we find it astonishingly funny that he would demand that we quit pointing it out when he does.  Nor do we demand that Lew quit acting like a spoiled child when he stands corrected, instead of discussing his specious statements on their merits. The readership is quite capable of discerning that Lew has yet to actually challenge what's said here at LWW on its merits.

"He may even issue another call for me to be visited to be “spoken to in no uncertain terms.”"

Lew's mouth seems to have a habit of writing checks his ass isn't prepared to cash. Lew Waters Watch does not endorse, condone or encourage any sort of violence.  Let it be known henceforth that if anyone takes umbrage at Lew's slander and cold-cocks him, that they did so on their own recognizance, and have no association or endorsement by Lew Waters Watch.  For Lew's own safety, I would strongly advise he refrain in the future from speculating about who candidates sleep with. Especially if they have very large husbands.

Lew Waters Watch also maintains its public call for Lew to retract that statement, and issue a public apology to Lisa Ross and all her male campaign workers.  To do any less shows that Lew Waters has no integrity and is unwilling to take responsibility when he crosses the line of propriety.

This blog will continue to exercise its freedom and liberty to point out factual errors and omissions made by a public blogger who claims to speak for Conservatives.  No one is asking anyone to "toe" any line.  Just be sure, for your own peace of mind, that any public offerings can be justified on their merits, and please be prepared to make such justification if challenged, instead of crying like a spoiled brat because someone had the temerity to say "Hey!  Wait a minute!  That's not right!"

So far Lew has yet to actually answer any of the criticisms made here on this blog, except to cry that he's persecuted, and invent fantastic conspiracy theories to try to explain the simple fact that someone finally got tired of his unnecessarily divisive BS and decided to call him on it.  If you think about it, when the Columbian uses your blog as the source for a story to discredit the Republican party, somewhere along the lines you may have detoured from the path of conservatism.

It's really quite hilarious the lengths to which Lew has gone, and the energy he has expended trying to discover the identity of the "cabal" behind Lew Waters Watch.  Effort and energy that would have been much better spent trying to ensure his public offerings were objective and factually correct.

Again, it is our sincerest hope that the level of objectivity and journalistic dedication to reporting the facts increases so as to make this blog irrelevant.  Such an outcome would be a credit to Lew Waters, a service to all conservatives of Clark County, and win-win for all concerned. 

Lew feels stalked

In an attempt to suppress the free expression of dissent and deny the second amendment rights of free citizens of Clark County, Lew waves a cyberstalking law.  Apparently, publicly pointing out when someone makes an absurd public statement constitutes cyber-stalking in Lew's world.  We fail to understand why Lew feels he has the right to throw criticism and libelous and scandalous insinuations around with impunity, but when someone calls him on it and holds his feet to the fire, suddenly it's cyber-stalking.  How does this law apply to Lew's previous public statements, where he called one reader a "shit-smearer" and publicly slandered a political hopeful by suggesting she sleeps around?

No one is trying to harass, intimidate, torment, or embarrass Lew.  We are simply answering his publicly inaccurate statements when he makes them.  He has made himself a public figure with his writing.  He has been quoted by the local news source, the Columbian. It's incumbent on the people to identify when someone makes an inaccurate statement and respond with the truth.  This is the stuff that political discourse is made of, to allow the public to see multiple viewpoints, the better to make their decisions.  When called on his inaccuracies, Lew has never once substantiated his libelous claims with facts or evidence, but instead has embarked on a scorched earth campaign to silence his critics at all costs.  This is just more of the same.

"lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language, or suggesting the commission of any lewd or lascivious act"

Oh, like calling a private citizen a "shit-smearer," (obscene) or suggesting a candidate sleeps around (lewd or lascivious)?  Seriously. People in glass houses. . . . We at Lew Waters watch have never publicly impugned Lew Waters personally, on the contrary, we have repeatedly acknowledged the valuable service he has done for the conservative community in the past and called for him to return to the fold.  There is a significant difference between an attack on an idea and an attack on the person. When you put your ideas into the public conversation, don't get offended when people publicly disagree with them and ridicule them if they deserve it.

We at Lew Waters Watch have never gone out of our way to infringe on the privacy of Mr. Waters.  We respect his privacy, and quite frankly, we have no interest in tormenting or harassing him.  We have always confined The Watch to responding to his public commentary, and we have done so publicly.  We have never sent private messages to Mr. Waters, or attempted to disrupt his private life, which we respect.

Lew Waters Watch has never threatened Lew Waters in any way, nor has it made public any private information about Mr. Waters that is not freely available from any number of public sources.  If Mr. Waters feels physically threatened, we at the Watch suggest that perhaps he realized that he has made some statements which would result in an immediate violent physical reaction in many face to face venues, and he fears his words may have landed him in hot water. If I were him, I would certainly fear a meeting with the husband of the candidate whom he slandered. We at Lew Waters watch do not condone or encourage violence of any sort.

No communication has been made directly to Lew Waters.  All commentary has been confined to comments on his public blog forum (which have for the most part been moderated and refused, since Lew doesn't like to debate on a level playing field), or in this public forum. As private citizens, we at Lew Waters watch have the right to publicly ridicule our government or any other public figure. Lew Waters has made himself a public figure with his public journal, and has no basis to claim immunity from criticism when he makes factually incorrect statements or slanders people who have done nothing to him but disagree.

If Lew can't take such criticism, if he can't debate a public position or defend a public statement on its merits, we at Lew Waters Watch suggest that another endeavor might be in order. To suggest that an invitation to justify his public statements amounts to cyberstalking is simply absurd. We at the Watch have no personal animosity towards Mr. Waters, and it would delight us to no end if he would stop making ill-informed public insinuations and slander under the guise of journalism which leave us no choice but to answer his commentary with the truth.

De-Escalate? Not in Lew's repertoire

Some of you gentle readers may have wondered what happened here on Lew Water's Watch over the weekend, when it went dark and silent and private.

When we last saw Lew's public offerings, he had pulled the offending post in which he criticized a conservative candidate for the state legislature, including the follow up comment in which he accused her of sleeping with her many supporters.  A comment which has apparently caused a number of people to publicly call for an apology, which is entirely appropriate.

Relax, Lew doesn't apologize.  When he says something stupid, he usually follows it up with something even more stupid to show you he really means it.

Anyway, we left Lew with the offending post removed, and assumed that cooler heads had prevailed upon him to pull the article and start acting like an adult.  Since we never wanted this conflict, we chose to meet his de-escalation with one of our own, and we set LWW to private.  Then we packed the car and headed to the coast with the mother-in-law.

Alas, Lew's return to sanity, even though lacking the public apology that is only appropriate, was short-lived.  We returned from the coast, the mother-in-law having sadly survived, to find that the egregious article including his highly offensive and sexist comments are back live.

So The Watch is back on, and I'm sure the tantrums from the Clark County Conservative over the rights of free citizens to publicly criticize his offensive nonsense will also resume.

I don't know if Lew thought that someone in power ordered The Watch to be shut down, and felt it was okay to repost his stupidity or what, but I assure you, Lew, no one has that power, and even if they did, no one knows who to contact to shut it down.

Multiple people on multiple forums have called for Lew Waters to publicly apologize for his offensive and sexist suggestion that a political candidate is sleeping with all her supporters. Please join your voice to call for this public buffoon to recant his statement. There are boundaries to what is acceptable discourse in politics, and Lew has far exceeded those bounds. Even a supporter of Lew should see that he has crossed the line, and should call for him to apologize.

Lew Crosses the Line of Acceptable Behavior.

Just when you think you've seen the depths of this man's psychosis and anger issues, he comes out and reveals that his problems are far worse than anyone imagined.



For the record (again), Lew Waters Watch is not endorsed by or affiliated with any candidate or group.  The sole purpose of this site is to offer a reality check and a counterpoint to a self-appointed bloviater who insists on being a divisive and disruptive force in local conservative politics.  Lew's paranoia informs him that this must be associated with the Lisa Ross campaign.  No, this is associated with Truth.  We here at LWW would be just as critical if the situation were reversed, if Lew was a supporter of Lisa Ross, and spoke badly about Carolyn Crain had she won.  It's not about candidates, you old fool, it's about so-called conservatives back-stabbing their fellow conservatives, and thereby handing a win to the left.

Lew insinuates that voters will leave Lisa because The Watch is critical of Lew's comments. Lew, in light of your earlier commentary about Lisa, this should thrill you to death, then!  But I think you vastly overestimate your meager and waning influence on politics in this area.  The present level of juvenile insanity you're exhibiting is just showing more people how toxic you really are. 

This last post just floored me.  Seriously, I didn't think even Lew Waters, Clark County Conservative, was stupid enough to insinuate that Lisa Ross sleeps around. Talk about a lack of class.  This sort of vile, ignorant, hateful, foul aspersion makes me just want to go take a shower, lest the stink cling to me.  Not content to fling dried up old shit in any direction, Lew pulls a fresh, steaming load right out of his ass and flings it with due intent at any target of opportunity that presents itself to assuage his bruised ego.

I fear this time Lew's hippopotamus mouth may have overloaded his hummingbird ass. Did Lew just sign his death warrant?

Now, we at Lew Waters watch do not advocate violence, but if anyone - like, say, Mr. Ross or Lisa Ross' father - would like to pay Lew a visit and explain very clearly to him in no uncertain terms what is and is not acceptable in the realm of public political discourse, Lew's home address is:

8803 NE 19th Ct.
Vancouver, WA 98665

Really, man, you have crossed the bounds of acceptability here, and sealed your position of irrelevancy in the public forum henceforth.  If you had a shred of decency you would issue a public and heartfelt apology to Lisa Ross for such a crass and indecent suggestion, and to Conservatives in general for being associated with anyone who would make such a disgusting accusation.

You should be ashamed.

No Fool like an Old Fool.

Nothing was stolen Lew.  You still have your property in your possession. You really need a lesson in semantics. You call yourself a "conservative" yet attack people for the sin of being more conservative than you.  That's worthy of a parody.  If you don't want to be the butt of a joke, then stop being so divisively absurd.

If anyone makes patently absurd statements in a public forum with the expectation of being taken seriously, they will be challenged.  By what logic do you claim immunity to having someone call bullshit on your absurdity?

LWW is not a Republican Party Operative.  But never let facts get in the way of a good old-fashioned paranoid rant, I always say.  That you're factually challenged when your opinions are questioned is obvious by your unwillingness to actually address the criticism, instead of the person doing the criticizing

And an old fool is still an old fool, as long as he insists on acting the part.

Lew Under Seige

Lew continues to bawl like a baby because someone disagrees with him on a forum he has no control over. . ..

Point by point:

LWW is not a "Clark County Republican Operative."  we are independent voters just like yourself, Lew, who happen to see that the Republican party - particularly the Grass roots conservative party of Clark county has a vision that closely aligns with our own.

We're not launching an all out assault on anyone. Sonny, you haven't seen an all out assault yet. You were called to task about one erroneous thing you said that helped no one but the liberal democrats. Act your age an grow a pair, ya big baby.

LWW has no affiliation to Lisa Ross, David Madore, or any other candidate. You need to pick your targets with more discernment, old man.  You make enough enemies by accident, quit doing it deliberately.

No one is questioning your right to dissent, Lew.  Nor is anyone trying to limit your freedom of speech.  You have the perfect right to say any sort of asinine thing you want - a right you seem dedicated to exercising.  But to listen to your plaintive bitching and whining, one would think you would like to limit MY right to point out when you make a patently idiotic statement.  Sorry, not gonna happen.  Free speech is a two-way street. 

No one has stolen anything, Lew.  There has been a parody of your facetious claim to be a conservative. The courts have ruled repeatedly that such is well within the fair use clause of the law. You are the one who made yourself a public figure. Quit being such a baby.

I certainly wouldn't support any party that lets itself be bullied around by an old fool with a soapbox. But LWW is not the Clark County Republican Party, so your final comment is pretty much irrelevant.

Keep bitching and grousing Lew.  LWW never sleeps, and we have just as much virtual ink as you do.  If you keep refusing to engage in any substantive way on the charges you've made, then your irrelevancy will be on display for the entire world to see.  You have the power to turn this off any time you choose to start acting your age and being responsible. 

Lew Continues to try to Find a Target

When we first started LWW, there was discussion of whether we should be up front with who we are or whether we should stay anonymous.   It was a difficult decision, but we went the way we did because Lew's prime weapon in his arsenal is to identify his critics, and then silence or marginalize them with heated ad hominem attacks.  Basically he uses his position as The Clark County Conservative to just bury his detractors in mud. So we made a tactical decision to not give him the target on which to use his favorite - and it turns out his only - weapon.

Not that Lew doesn't keep trying, God bless him. . .

Well, Lew since we obviously couldn't trust you to endorse or back Lisa in the first place, what exactly have we lost here?  Ummmmm. . . .nothing.  Need I remind you who it was who  disparagingly called Mrs. Ross, "an inexperienced novice?"  Once again, Lew demonstrates that he can dish it out, but can't take it.

You can trust ALL the candidates, Lew, because the cover on LWW is so deep, NONE of them have a clue. You're not the only Veteran in Clark County, old man, and some of us remember the basic lessons of OPSEC.

You also need to loosen the tinfoil hat.  No one is attacking you.  We here at LWW are merely heaping scorn and derision on patently silly statements and ideas.  If you are so closely associated with your silly statements and ideas that you can't discern the difference between an attack on your idea and an attack on your person, then you really should find another endeavor.  Public discourse doesn't seem to suit you.

Word of advice from an experienced troll to another:  quit fishing, and quit flailing trying to identify who your "attacker" is.  You won't do it, you can't do it, and all you will do is alienate everyone around you in your paranoia.  Man up and address the issues head on, and if you aren't able to do so then sit down and shut up.  It's really undignified watching you reacting to shadows.

You want some Cheese with that Whine?

Lew continues to grouse and gripe that someone made a parody of his blog headline.

No further commentary is necessary.

Hat-tip to Tread-not.org

Apparently I'm not the only one feeling a little dismayed at what a "Clark County Conservative" says about the Republican candidate for LD 49 seat 2.

http://www.tread-not.org/2014/08/local-politics/of-bullies-butt-kissers-and-boot-lickers/

Lew Waters goes to War!

Yesterday we took Lew to task about his divisive and disparaging words concerning the newly elected candidate for State Representative seat to district 49, Lisa Ross.  We briefly reviewed the history of the players in this drama, and analyzed why the results went the way they did.  Then we called to Lew to keep his mouth off fellow Republicans, and at least observe the basic manners his Mother apparently didn't teach him, that if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all.

A little more history, for those who don't want to read through the chain of discourse on this blog:  Lew is a bully.  He has a potentially very valuable voice in exposing the insanity that passes for the Democratic platform, but he has a couple of prejudicial blind spots as well.  He has his mouthpiece, through his blog, and is used to pontificating in an echo chamber, unwilling to engage someone in a debate on ideas. He routinely steers the discussion on his blog by editing or outright deleting dissenting opinions, and instead of engaging arguments on their merit, he very quickly turns to ad hominem attacks to try to bolster his case.

The reaction we got from Lew most recently is more of the same. Since he was unable to address our analysis of why Lisa prevailed over Carolyn, we assume that our analysis is stipulated. No, Lew can't debate an idea on its merits, IT'S TIME TO GO TO WAR!





Well, this is news.  So now you're a full-blown enemy? What's changed, Lew? With statements like you made against the candidate going forward in November, with friends like you, who needs enemies?  Don't you know the Columbian is just lapping up your rhetoric: "Conservative columnist Lew Waters publicly states that Candidate Lisa Ross is unqualified!"


Lew continues to have problems with targeting friend or foe.  This blog is not endorsed by, approved by or supported in any way by the Republican Party of Clark County.  We at LWW are just private citizens like Lew who are tired of seeing him use his pulpit to promote lies and misinformation under the guise of amateur journalism, and we've chosen to be a counterpoint voice to balance his rants. 

I'm still waiting for Lew to explain why Carolyn was more qualified, and why a nonviable candidate beat her so handily.  Given Lew's track record and inability to debate instead pontificate, I suspect we shouldn't hold our breath.

"Nazi tactics?"  That makes me giggle.  So telling the truth, providing a reasoned discourse and *gasp* having the audacity to disagree with the Lew Waters in a public forum that he has no control over makes one a "Nazi?"  Get a grip, Lew.  If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.  If you start flinging mud, don't cry when you get spattered.  We stopped last time because it looked like you were about to have an aneurysm. It's in your power this time to stop it any time you want.  Just quit giving us softballs that we can so easily swat out of the park.

So Lew makes the conscious and public decision to be a divisive force to damage the Republican party

Oh, and by the way, Maria, you should know that the Columbian piece on the PCO election was feeding off of the irrelevant lies that Lew promoted in his blog.  The Columbian is perfectly willing to have a circle jerk with Lew if it suits their agenda to discredit the Republican party.  And Lew is having so much fun getting jerked off he lost sight of the fact that it was the printed mouthpiece of the Democrat party doing it.  If you promote yourself as "The Clark County Conservative" and the Columbian picks up your byline, you know you've screwed up somewhere.

So I pop over to Lew's blog to see how things are shaping up, and Lew actually posted my comment!  He deleted the link to this site, which I guess made him feel like he was sort of in control.  Here's the exchange:

I really don't care what you need, old man.  You pop off in the market place of ideas, don't get your panties in a wad because someone takes you to task for saying something stupid in public.  What's pissing you off is that you're being engaged in a forum where you don't control the microphone, and you can't handle it.

Your ego is over-riding your common sense, and getting in the way of accomplishing your goal.  Act like an adult instead of petulant child for a change.

Madore is in no way affiliated with LWW.  Never even met the man, and I guarantee you he's as clueless as you are about The Watch, and has as little influence.  Keep fishing.

Copyright doesn't extend to satire.  Dial back your rhetoric against your allies, and we'll be glad to go back to sleep and return to pretty pictures of airplanes.  Keep bad-mouthing other Republicans under the guise of "Clark County Conservative"  and we''ll keep exposing you for the irrelevant loony you seem so determined to become.

Here's what you can expect:  Every time you shoot your mouth off about the Republican party in public, demonstrating your extreme ignorance and trying to be a divisive force, we will be there, we will be watching, and we'll correct you and the record and we won't do it gently.  People will be watching, and it will be plain to see who's thinking and engaging and who's reacting and mindlessly flailing for relevancy.

We at the watch care little for your friendship, we've never really been a fan. If you want to continue to be an irresponsible ass with a blog, we'll counterpoint your nonsense in detail.  If you want to start acting like a responsible journalist and contact people like Kenny Smith, Jack McClary, Lisa Ross and Anson Service and see what you can do to promote conservatism in Clark County, instead of impede it, and don't give us any stupidity that we feel needs to be countered, then we'll happily find other pursuits.

There's an old Indian saying that within each of us lives two wolves.  One is hatred and fear and anger.  The other is love and confidence and serenity.  Which wolf will control you?  The one you feed.

It's (Back) On. Lew Has his Knickers in a Bunch

Well, Lew has been reasonably civil the last couple of months, concentrating his vitriol for the most part on the proper target, the Democrats.  He has been rather snarky to fellow Republicans and conservatives on his facebook postings, but since that's hardly a journalistic forum, and frequented for the most part by his sycophants, we at the Watch have pretty much let that slide.  Everyone has the right to be an idiot, we just provide counterpoint when you do it under the guise of responsible journalism.

Two months ago, this website unilaterally disarmed, feeling our mission had been accomplished to highlight the disruptive and destructive "news" that was being promulgated by the "Clark County Conservative" blog site. We took no pleasure in chastising and correcting an old man in the one thing that fills his days with meaning, but the level of inappropriate vitriol coming from his pages was being picked up by the local Democratic News Network (a.k.a. The Columbian) and being promoted as real news/journalism when it was nothing of the sort.  It was destructive and counterproductive to the very goals that Lew himself sought. 

We felt that we had succeeded, because after the welts healed, Lew seemed to be publicly more responsible in his demeanor, and that was all we could hope to ask for.  Unfortunately, it appears that the lesson didn't stick.

In Lew's latest missive, he starts out with a very well written and highly appropriate chastisement of the electorate and the low voter turnout on Tuesday.  All of his points in the first 12 paragraphs were spot on and appropriate, and we applauded his sentiment. Then Lew went off the reservation with this one:

"And we see it when a strong Republican candidate is undermined behind the scenes by party operatives in favor of an inexperienced novice because someone carries a personal grudge against the stronger candidate. Waving pom poms to a High School cheer isn’t what is needed to stand up and defeat special interests."

A little background here.  Carolyn Crain and Lew Waters have been solid supporters of each other for the better part of a year, at least.  In 2012, the local Republican party with Establishmentarian Ryan Hart at the helm, gave Carolyn a perfunctory $500 from the party coffers - half of what they supported Liz Pike with.  Short of the max, it's unknown whether this was because they lacked funds or just didn't believe in Carolyn's candidacy.

When the Clark County Republican party reorganized under new, grass roots conservative management in 2012, Carolyn lost in her bid to sit on the party executive committee. She took this personally, and the word is that in the social gathering afterwards, she and her cadre sat away from the general group and loudly and rather obnoxiously disclaimed the lack of political aptitude displayed by the majority of PCO's for rejecting the bid of such an obviously qualified person as herself to sit on the committee.  It wasn't very graceful, or very pretty.  Since then, Carolyn has perceived a rift between her and the party leadership which has interfered with her ability to use her prodigious political acumen to the benefit of the party (I'm not being sarcastic here.  Carolyn Crain's knowledge of the political landscape can best be described as encyclopedic).  This inability to gracefully accept a defeat and continue working with fellow Republicans has soured the good will of many Precinct officers towards Carolyn. 

Lew, being the outsider, has a visceral hatred for Ron Paul, and incorrectly identified the realignment of the Clark County Republican Party as a nefarious plot by Ron Paul supporters to undermine the very fabric of American society. The fact that Ron Paul supporters are the minority caucus of the new party, and that none of Ron Paul's more loony ideas have anything to do with local government haven't influenced Lew's incoherent condemnation of the Clark County Conservative movement at all.  We at The Watch find it ironic that a blog entitled "Clark County Conservative" condemns fellow conservatives because they're too conservative.

So Lew and Carolyn became natural allies going into the 2014 election season. Carolyn's bid to challenge incumbent Jim Moeller in November was complicated by the entry of Lisa Ross into the race.  Carolyn and Lew were apparently confident that this wouldn't be a problem, until Tuesday night when Lisa Beat Carolyn handily by more than 8.5 percentage points.

Lew lacks the analytic skill to understand why this happened, so he incorrectly (as usual) came up with a conspiracy theory and blamed "the party" for "undermining" Carolyn.  Now, I'm looking at the public funding disclosures for the candidates, and I don't see a single financial donation from the Republican Party for Lisa Ross.

Carolyn's hubris was such that she scheduled a victory party for August 7.  Lew went, and his public comment was:



Come on, old man, how much class would it have shown to show up and rub Carolyn's face in her defeat?  You really need a social reality check.  Did it ever occur to you that there might be another victory party going on - a real one?  Had anyone of the group you condemn been there, no doubt you would have responded, "The new R3publican's showed up to rub her nose in her defeat.  No class."  So there really is no winning with you, is there?  Do you think people are really that stupid, that they can't see your nonsense? Please try to stay relevant in your dotage, Lew.

The challenge I pose to Lew and Carolyn Crain is to suck it up and have the grace to congratulate the victor and promise your support to help them win in November.  The kind of petty, childish bickering and panty wringing Lew is engaging in right now is why Conservatives regularly lose to liberals, who at least know how to get along with each other, no matter how out of touch with reality they are.

Carolyn Crain set a personal goal to knock on every door in the Legislative District in her candidacy.  Lisa Ross certainly didn't.  How did that "undermining" take place, Lew?  It sure is easy to cast insinuations and accusation. Now, old man, present your evidence or  shut the hell up and retract your slander.  What "undermining" took place?  Was anything done that was unethical or illegal? Are you saying that the precinct officers were supposed to support Carolyn, even after she so roundly condemned them for not giving her a seat on the committee?  People have the freedom to choose and support the candidates they want, Lew.  The Clark County Republican Party isn't the establishment any more, and we don't promote candidates because it's "their turn."

I'll tell you what happened, Lew, based on what I've heard just talking to people, and what has been reported to me by PCO's who have been canvassing their precincts.  People who knew neither Lisa or Carolyn voted overwhelmingly for Lisa.  She just pencils out better on paper with her education and experience.  Those who knew Carolyn broke 50-50.  One PCO reported that one voter said, "I know Carolyn, and she's crazy!"  Carolyn is brash and outspoken, lacks grace and comes across as a bull in a china shop. 

Please stop with the "more qualified candidate" bullstuff, Lew.  Carolyn has just as much legislative experience as does Lisa Ross - Zero. Lisa was elected three times in 2012, to our County convention, to the State Convention, and was one of our 3 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where she caucused for Rick Santorum.  I don't recall Carolyn being involved with any of these. On that basis alone, I would say Carolyn is the novice, not Lisa. It's unnecessary to label Lisa as an nonviable or marginal candidate just because you backed the loser.  Lisa's viability was determined by the only measure that counts on August 5th.  Get over it. You can take your marbles and go home to pout and be seen as a pissy old establishment has-been, or you can act like an adult and get behind the Conservative on the ticket and try to help us win in November.  Your choice.

He's Baaaaack!

Lew has recovered from licking his wounds and the Clark County Conservative Establishment website is once again public.  Lew is apparently unwilling to harbor the slightest hint of dissension, as his comments are set to fully moderated.and if you think you'll get past his filter unless you're agreeing with him 100%, think again.

For the record, we at the watch chose to dial back the rhetoric, since Lew had been reduced to repeating himself ad nauseum and it was clear he was stubbornly refusing to offer anything coherent to move the conversation forward.  It was our sincere hope that Lew would return a kinder, gentler blogger, more interested in getting his facts straight and being objective than he was in pounding his own drum and trying to sling mud at perceived opponents who actually share most of his values.  It would have made him a better journalist and would have served the community better.

Alas, you can't teach the old dog new tricks, and Lew persists in his mindless attacks.  His mind is made up, dammit, don't confuse him with facts.  The troll is back and continues his trolling.

Lew continues his journey into paranoid irrelevance with  a missive entitled "Prosper and Thrive?"  It starts out with a whine about being subjected to a smear campaign because he exposed "underhanded tactics" by the CCGOP. 

Did anyone here at LWW call Lew a shit-smearer?  No, that was what Lew called Frank Decker in a comment thread.  Did anyone here at LWW call Lew an asshole?  No, that was his epithet of choice that he flung at just about anyone in sight who dared to challenge his speculative grip on facts. No, we here at LWW watch just publicly ridiculed him for outright lying, selective outrage and presenting his biased, ignorant opinions as facts. To quote "Mr Dubois" from Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, we were merely ". . .heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice [we] shall always follow."  If Mr. Waters doesn't want to be the butt of satire and be made to look ridiculous, perhaps he should refrain from saying ridiculous things.


Lew didn't "expose" anything.  He manufactured a scandal and then rode it for all it's worth.  Lew has yet to demonstrate what bylaws were broken, what ethical code was challenged, what law was violated by politically active people recruiting like-minded citizens to step into the political arena and have their voices heard.  Does Lew think he has a smoking gun in the form of an e-mail that encouraged PCO candidates to discuss the race with their opponents (who are also their neighbors, and probably well known to them) to see if they were amenable to dropping out?  That such an e-mail was in dubious good taste is undisputed, but "underhanded?"  No lies were spread about anyone.  No one was subjected to any sort of coercion.  And in the long run this had exactly zero effect on any PCO races.  Not a single candidate withdrew after that e-mail had been sent as a result of being approached by their opponent.  Of those that did withdraw, many did so because their names were submitted as candidates without their knowledge or approval by Apollo Fuhriman, an operative for the WSRP.  Since we here at LWW aren't at the inside of the investigation of this scandal, we won't comment on what involvement that local establishment-oriented Republicans may have had, but we understand that there is some damning evidence to implicate at least two local people in this.  These facts suggest that there is far more to the story than Lew would like you to believe, but he ignores it because it's suggestive that his "scoop" was premature, and that he's not half the journalist he would like you to believe.

Of course the Columbian smelled blood in the water for Republicans and broke the story in their bird cage lining, citing Lew. It should bother a good conservative when the local mouthpiece for the Democrat party is salivating at your story. 

Then Lew goes on to label the local GOP leadership as "hotheads" and makes the rash and completely unsupportable charge that David Madore bankrolled the move to return the local GOP to the people.  He uses the rhetoric that "It is well known. . . " to open this charge, when it's nothing of the sort, but pure speculation on the part of one L. Waters, who is a respected blogger in Clark County, and if you don't know what he "knows," well that's why he's the Clark County Conservative and you're just an ignorant reader.

No, Lew, Mr. Madore has no clue who is behind LWW. I suggest you be sure of your target before you start making allegations.

The rest of this article of mostly tripe is a rambling collection of anecdotal "evidence" that tries to simultaneously show that there is a problem with a contract between Trimet and C-Tran and that Mr. Madore is doing something questionable without actually making the charge directly. Lew does some mumbling about feeling out of the loop because Mr. Madore chose not to elaborate with him about the latest details of the twice-dead but never gone CRC project, or about some media venture that Lew apparently had high hopes for.  It never occurs to Lew that perhaps his recent public and foul-mouthed melt-down because someone had the audacity to publicly correct him might have something to do with the fact that very few people want to be associated with him.

Near the end, he sympathizes with the 99%, observing that David Madore is rich and Lew is still poor.  News for you, Lew: Clark County is prospering.  You were invited to participate, but you apparently declined. 

Reposting about Paulbots

Lew gave us a June present by dusting off an old article he wrote in 2008.  This article is substantially correct, but is a classic case of editorialization being disguised as journalism.  We're going to take this apart and point out a few logical disconnects.

The article opens up with the assertion that Michael Delavar lost to Brian Baird by the largest margin in 20 years.  Yeah, Lew, that sort of thing happens when your party refuses to endorse or support you.  Whose fault is that?

Then he makes an innuendo about David Madore inadvertently using a video that Lew had produced that highlighted Tim Leavitt's absurdity. Newsflash, Lew: once you put something on the internet, it's out there, and may pop up just about anywhere.  If you wanted credit, you should have run a banner in the corner of the video. It's not incumbent on anyone to track down the source of everything they find on the internet just so they don't ruffle the feathers of an already overly ruffled old man. Madore, upon discovering that Lew had produced the video, apologized, but in the current state of Lew's high paranoia, that ain't good enough.

The article then delves into a flashback to 2008, and opens with the assertion that somehow Ron Paul Libertarians have "snuck" [sic] into the party as PCO's.  How does one "sneak" into a party as a PCO?  I must have missed the interview to make sure I was ideologically pure enough to be a Republican. I'm sure that in his dreams as King of the Clark County Republican Party, Lew will enact litmus tests and appoint himself as the filter for making sure that only people who agree with his political biases get to join the county government.

Lew goes on to make a brief but entirely correct criticism of Ron Paul's unrealistic and quite dangerous foreign policy.  This is appropriate, as many have discounted Dr. Paul for this very reason, and rightly so.

Then he stated that Michael Delavar did not receive the party endorsement before the primary.  WHAT THE HELL? That, right there, is the heart of what many local Republicans, whether they supported Paul or someone else, see as the problem with the Republican party.  The party should NOT be in the business of supporting one candidate over another before the primary.  The very idea that they would is so antithetical to the idea of a grass-roots organization that it leaves me spluttering.  This sort of thinking is why that idiot squish Rob McKenna was nominated in 2013 to lose to Inslee, instead of running a much better candidate like Shahram Hadian. McKenna had the party's endorsement going into the primary, I guess because it was "his turn."  And people like Lew can't understand why the rank and file conservative citizens are rising up against the establishment?

Lew closed out the article with general imprecations about Ron Paul supporters, and how they weren't Republican.  I can understand Lew's position.  I've encountered the same sort of Ron Paul arguments, the slavish devotion to poorly understood principles, and the chanting that they do without apparently considering realistic consequences of the actions they propose.  Lew's reaction is to knock them on their asses, and since he can't do that, he dismissed them as some sort of religious cult.  The fact is that we are in a marketplace of ideas, and once you get the RP supporters to quit chanting and start justifying their more ridiculous policy positions, they become quite easy to disarm.  To do so you must have facts at hand and reasonable debating skills, and not allow them to start chanting again. 

The sad thing is that Lew lacks discernment.  Just because Ron Paul's foreign policy ideas come from Never-Never Land does not mean that everything he says is to be disregarded.  On domestic issues, Ron Paul Libertarians are spot-on - the government MUST live within its means, spending MUST be controlled, and the Keynesian nonsense the Federal Reserve is practicing MUST be halted. The Constitution must be observed, and as the servants of the people, legislators are obligated to vote against any legislation that is not specifically allowed under the constitution.  These are core principles of libertarians, and should be congruent with the values of anyone else who calls himself a conservative.  These values are pertinent to Clark County - the foreign policy fantasies Ron Paul are not.  Lew needs to understand this, and realize that there is no local issue that he's not likely to find agreement with the Ron Paul supporters on. 

What we've got here. . .

Time to De-escalate

I think everything that needed to be said has been said now.

Lew has done a lot of hard, good work for this county for years, and this passion has been an important part of his life.  We understand this, and we took no pleasure in rocking the passion of the man.  We didn’t go down this path out of hatred or spite or as a deliberate campaign to smear a man, no matter how it stung.

Lew is not the only person who is passionate in this county.  Thanks to the abuses of our recent federal government, a lot of people quit spectating and found their voice in the last few years.  This has fundamentally changed the landscape of politics in southwest Washington, by all accounts and metrics for the better. We found ourselves dismayed and surprised when the longtime voice of conservatism in Clark County repudiated these Conservatives who have stepped into the ring.  We did not then and still don’t understand the basis of this thinking.

David Madore has observed that we are family, and indeed we are.  Regardless of who you may have supported in the last presidential cycle, we all share a common core of principles.  To expand on Commissioner Madore’s metaphor, when one member or group on a family feels abused by another, they will take it for only so long before they retaliate.  That’s what’s happened here.

Lew, think about how you’ve felt over the last week – angry, betrayed, unwanted by people you thought supported you.  Divided, unappreciated, frustrated, beseiged.  People were talking and you felt you had lost control of the conversation.  This is exactly how many good, solid conservatives in Clark County have felt during your relentless, unwarranted attacks on people that you should have been allying with, because they share the same conservative values you do.  We tried to ignore it - everyone says things that are over the top from time to time. But instead of moderating over time, the rhetoric just got worse, until absurd charges of corruption and wrongdoing were leveled.

These are not fringe extremists who seek to fundamentally transform Clark County into something you wouldn’t recognize.  They are your neighbors, Lew, and I hope you get the opportunity in the weeks to come to engage with them, have a coffee or a beer or two and get to know them.  Listen to them, instead of telling them what you think they believe, and you’ll be surprised at how thoughtful and reasonable they are. I know I was. Believe it or not, I entered the political fray in 2012 for the first time specifically to lend my voice against the Ron Paul movement that had taken control of the convention in 2008. If you open a conversation with an attack, of course you’ll encounter resistance.  That’s human nature. We hope and encourage that our leaders – you know who you are - take the initiative to facilitate and moderate this dialog over the next few weeks.  We have too big a battle against the Democrats to continue this divisiveness among ourselves.  It’s time we quit reinforcing the Democrat stereotype of being intolerant right-wing extremists and learn to get along with people who share our core principles.

Now let’s get to work.  We have candidates to elect, and a County charter to deal with. This has unnecessarily sucked up far too much bandwidth. The game is afoot!

Some simple questions.

Well, Lew and his wife are reading the blog, anyway.  They're quoting bits and pieces on Lew's facebook page, apparently to try to regain control of the dialog and try to paint us evil, corrupt, underhanded conservatives in some sort of bad light. I guess he doesn't have the nads to just post the links, so people can see the entire context of what they're quoting.  This is standard for Lew, but unfortunately, he doesn't control the forum. 

Come on, Lew.  You've been wordsmithing for long enough, you should be able to craft a coherent response without resorting to vulgarity.

Lew's also dropping depth charges, slandering whoever comes to mind, like Mr. David Hedrick, in the hopes that something floats to the surface and he can ID those of us behind Lew Waters Watch. Mom always told me that you make enough enemies by accident, you shouldn't go out and try to make more.

And poor Lea still insists that it's those dirty Paulians behind it all.  *Sigh* I guess some people just can't be reached.  And yes, Lew, I'm calling out your wife.  Anyone wants to get in the ring here shouldn't get upset if they get spattered.

But we've pretty much said everything there is to say on our end, and Lew is just repeating his chant. We're not going to get into the playground sand-kicking contest that Lew wants to get into to try to make us look like the big, mean people he seems to think we are.  I just have a couple of questions for Mr. Waters, to try and steer this little mud-slinging fiasco onto firmer ground. 

#1.  Since the Clark County Republican Party control effectively shifted to a grass roots conservative movement about a year and a half ago, a number of things have happened.  I would like Mr. Waters to please explain which of these things he thinks is the work of his version of the antichrist New Conservatives, and why he thinks it's been a disaster for the Republican party and conservatism:
 a) Defeating the disastrous Columbia River Crossing boondoggle, with Lew's welcome help
 b) Implementation of a new County GOP website
 c) Improved get out the vote effort using a contract call center
 d) The adoption of new analytical tools to increase understanding of voters and trends
 e) Increased the number of active PCOs. 
 f) Implementation of bylaws to decentralize power in the local party and ensure that the chairman cannot act unilaterally. 
 g) Record-breaking fund-raising Lincoln day dinner that doubled the previous record
 h) Implementing cost control measures
 i) Ending 2013 with a positive bank balance
 j) Instrumental in promoting the election of key figures, including Commissioner Madore.

I dunno, standing here with the sun in my eyes, I'd say these new fellas did pretty durn good.

Okay, question #2:
Lew has claimed that a corrupt, underhanded, secret plot was developed to "stack" PCO slots with people who were sympathetic to the New Clark County Conservatives.
a) Please explain the basis for this charge of corruption. 
b) While you're at it, explain why it's acceptable for the establishment wing of the party to the exact same thing, and not the new conservatives.
c) Explain why it's unethical to encourage citizens who share your values to become active in the public arena.
d) And explain why your position is not trying to disenfranchise those you seem to disagree with.

We won't even touch on the Apollo Fuhriman scandal.

So there you go, Lew.  Care to sharpen your pencil and address these questions?  I think they're legitimate, they're not attacking you.  Just seeking clarity in your thinking.  Will you give us a cogent answer?

Or will you continue to chant? 

Your response will speak volumes about how you deal with people who disagree with you  - or who you think disagree with you.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Lew continues to self-destruct

Lew, calm down and take a breath and reflect for a moment on how you have been treating good, solid conservatives in Clark County for the last two years.  How long do you think you could do that before they started fighting back?  Sounds to me like the troll can't stand being trolled.

You think this just came out of nowhere?  You think one day people up and said, "Hey!  I know! Let's screw with Lew!"

A lot of people tolerated your insane hatred for a minority of conservatives for too long, and that apparently gave you the idea that you had carte blanche to slander anyone who got in your sights.  When you started accusing the people who are ideologically closest to you of corruption, when nothing of the sort is the case, some of us had enough.

If you have any doubt about where this originated, the answer is as close as your nearest mirror, friend.  All of your pain is self-inflicted.  We here have invited you to stop multiple times. The choice is yours.

No one has smeared your name, Lew.  Unless you feel that the truth is a smear.  Man up and quit whining just because someone is finally standing up to your bullying.

Veterans

The whining continues.  Eventually someone is going to realize that nothing is happening in the last week or so that hasn't been happening already for going on two years.  The only difference is that it's going the other direction.

Mr. Waters has been smearing the good names of staunch, solid conservatives who have stepped into the political arena over the last two years and demanded that control of the Clark County Republican Party be returned to the people.  He's been doing this for two years, with terms such as "Paul-bots," derisive commentary, insinuations of unethical and corrupt behavior.  None of which has been accurate or appropriate.

How many of the good people who have been the subject of Lew's jihad are veterans?  I can name a half dozen off the top of my head without even trying.  And I don't know most of them.

So, please, spare me.  Lew has made a minor hobby out of smearing his fellow neighbors without regard to whether they served or not.  Lew is certainly not the only one who served his country in this county.  That dog won't hunt. I just find it remarkable the amount of angst this is causing when someone finally does to Lew what he's been doing to other conservatives for two years. 

How long did you think you could smear people the way you have before they fought back?

David Madore Said it Best

For the record, those of us at Lew Waters Watch have also been sorry to see the deep division that has been caused in the Conservative Community of Clark County.  Mr. Madore is absolutely right, we do need to be united and standing together as comrades.  However, we've found it awfully difficult to do this when one of our own has been unceasingly critical of the very good work that has been done in this county by very good people, all because he has some sort of grievance about the national political preferences of a minority of the conservatives who have made their voices heard in the last few years.

For some time we have approached Mr. Waters in a variety of ways to stop the unnecessary and ill-informed rhetoric aimed at other conservative groups in this county, and for this effort people have been publicly ridiculed, called vile, disgusting things and inevitably banned from discourse with Mr. Waters altogether. It was with great regret that we decided that engaging Mr. Waters on his own turf was futile, and that the only way to counter his divisive attitude, unfounded insinuations and incorrect assumptions was to open our own counter-site to call him to account for his commentary. As we've stated before, all we ask is that Mr. Waters use a normal amount of social decorum when commenting on people who fundamentally agree with him on nearly every topic you care to imagine.  Mr. Waters has created an imaginary stalking horse based on a political prejudice, and assigned it to a group of people to which it's not even relevant.  Why he has done this baffles us, and we're at wits end trying to talk sense to him, because the moment the subject is broached he begins chanting and quits listening.

We look forward to restoring good will to Mr. Waters.  He has done exceptional work for the conservative movement in Clark County for years, and we hope to see him do so for many more.  We just don't understand how he can do this while he's diligently seeking to alienate the conservative base, just because he thinks they support a particular candidate who's no longer even relevant.

Lew goes on later in the comments to label this a smear site and wonders why no one has encouraged us to dial it back.  No one needs to encourage us, Mr. Waters. We have repeatedly stated that we want nothing more than to see this go away.  We will do so when you stop maligning and making false insinuations about corruption against people who are working for the very same things you are.  This is a smear site only in so much as you have used your soapbox to smear other good, solid Conservatives in Clark County.  Many people have offered to meet with you over the years and explain what is going on and why.  You have slapped the olive branches away and continued chanting.

Observe Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, and no one has a problem.  I would like to see your site go public again, and I would be very interested in your views on the Clark County charter.  I would be delighted to find nothing slanderous about the new conservatives who have made their voices heard in Clark County.  We're not evil, we're not brown shirts, we're not underhanded or secretive or unethical.  And we really don't understand where or how you got the idea that we were.

The Chant Continues. . .

It's shocking to watch a man descend into uncontrolled paranoia.  In Lew's current mental state, any time anyone so much as moves a photo or does some housekeeping on their social media site, it's perceived as a direct attack on Lew and further evidence of corruption in his fevered mind.

Those of us associated with this site to hold Lew publicly accountable for his public misrepresentations have absolutely no idea what he's going on about here.  Either more people are disgusted with Lew's shrill rhetoric than we suspected, or Lew is reacting to imaginary slights.  Given his recent behavior, I'm willing to go either way. It will be interesting to see Lew post his screenshots, so we at least know what he's talking about.  I doubt he will, though, because likely there's no "there" there, and it sounds more ominous to make insinuations than it does to reveal the actual extent of the perceived slight and show that you're really huffing and puffing about a tempest in a teapot.

". . . most corrupt. deceitful group. . . "

The only thing Lew puts forward as evidence of corruption is the recent campaign to recruit active PCOs, and then recommend that they see if they can negotiate with other candidates to avoid contested races.  There's nothing unethical about encouraging citizens who share your values to become active in the public arena, and nothing was done in secret.  Sorry, Lew, but you've really gone from the sublime to the ridiculous on this one.

"Ron Paulies."

Okay, Lew can't read.  We've addressed this many times.  No point in repeating it. The source of all of Lew's selective deafness is his inexplicable visceral hatred of anything associated with Ron Paul.

It's not possible to have a discussion with someone who only wants to chant.  No one has smeared you, Lew.  We've just called you out when you've misrepresented the facts.  We look forward to when you stop the paranoid knee-jerk reaction that *gasp* somebody disagrees with you publicly, and give us some clarity of thought on the proposed Clark County Charter.

Lew Ratchets up the Hysteria

In spite of numerous calls on this blog for Lew to dial the rhetoric back and reestablish contact with the concept of reality, poor old Lew just keeps the hits coming.  What surely should have been nothing more than a couple of passing shots to get him to recognize that the people he insists on demonizing are ideologically in step with him on most issues - all issues locally, in fact, has turned into a "scorched earth" campaign in Lew's agitated mind.

Here's the situation:  Lew has closed his blog to the public.  It's apparently by invitation only.  Not what we had hoped would happen, and surely not an optimal solution, but at least he's not publicly trying to divide the Republican conservative party in Southwest Washington for the moment.  We were considering closing down this blog in response, because there's just no class in spiking the football after this kind of result.  But then Lew posts this sort of nonsense on his facebook page:




*SIGH*

In spite of numerous times trying to explain to Lew, the Ron Paul supporters have nothing to do with this.  The Ron Paul supporters do not control the political scene in Southwest Washington.  They are a significant part of the conservatives who have restored control of the party to the people, but are in no way the Majority.  How many times do we have to say this before Lew wraps his head around it?  Or is he just going to keep chanting?  There are no brown shirts, and no one is trying to silence Lew.  We are just here to correct the misconceptions he promotes that something nefarious is going on in Clark County. We are here to push back when he continues to malign good, solid conservatives and claim that they are up to no good. 

We welcome Lew's Support of Commissioner Madore.  We welcome Lew's analysis of the County Charter Change and the discussions it will engender.  We welcome Lew's support of ALL of our candidates.  This is the truly bizarre feature of this entire fiasco, that the people that Lew habitually insists on deriding, insulting, demonizing and vilifying actually AGREE with him on just about every policy point in local politics! We really don't understand what the hell his problem is, except that he has a strange visceral hatred for Ron Paul, and it's developed into some sort of psychotic paranoia. Instead of seeking common grounds of agreement, Lew has chosen to try to push a wedge into local politics and ensure that there will NEVER be any sort of reconciliation.  Cooler heads have encouraged Lew repeatedly in more subtle ways to dial this down, and for their effort they have been insulted and castigated and publicly ridiculed on Lew's forum.  Finally some of us have had enough, and we opened a forum that Lew can't control, and this has driven him apoplectic.

We have never sought a scorched earth policy.  All we want is for the mindless chanting about how evil the New Conservative activists in Clark County are to stop, for Lew to quit burning bridges and causing dissension, and for everyone to start working towards a common understanding of where the County should be guided in the years to come.

This forum has repeatedly challenged Mr. Waters to tell us exactly what policies have been enacted in the last two years that he materially disagrees with, and he has refused to discuss the topic.  Because there aren't any.  We've asked him define what he means by "extremist" and he has not done so, because he doesn't know.  It's chanting.  It doesn't need to be rational.

The fact is clear that Lew has more invested in his personal biases and misinformed opinions than he does in promoting actual grass roots conservatism.  We wish it weren't so, because he has a tremendous amount to offer the conservative community of Clark County.

As for the graphic he posted. . . well, that doesn't even warrant comment, it's so patently absurd.