||| FROM STEVE BERNHEIM, theORCASONIAN REPORTER |||
More than 25 local members of the Republican party gathered at the VFW Hall in Eastsound Sunday, March 20, to welcome and be inspired by Pasco-raised candidate Tiffany Smiley at the party’s annual Lincoln Day Luncheon. Following a prayer from the master of ceremonies in Jesus’s name, Tiffany Smiley took the podium in her latest step to un-seat long-time US Senator and democrat Patty Murray.
Smiley engaged the audience with her courageous autobiography: as a nurse just out of college she married a young West Point soldier who soon afterward was injured and blinded by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2005. Instead of accepting the inevitability of her then-disabled husband’s medical discharge, Tiffany championed his cause and with her love, advocacy and voice, Major Smiley retired in 2014 after
service as our country’s first blind active-duty military officer. With a grin she jokes of moving eight times in ten years with a blind husband and three toddlers. Then, encountering hardships and roadblocks from the outset of Major Sweeney’s military retirement, and seeing the depressing encounters of other veterans first-hand, Tiffany became an influential activist for improving Veterans’ Administration services and promoting positive patient-based reforms at the VA.
Her private and public achievements assure the audience she can take on Patty Murray who, reminds Smiley, ran on grass roots issues as a former school board member in 1992. “We have the grass roots movement this year.”
Smiley’s highlighted grass-roots issues include crime, homelessness, mental health, inflation and the open border. She said China-pumped fentanyl-induced young adult deaths are a tragic and widespread problem. She also listed illegal weapons coming across the border, crime in the U District, funding the police, gas tax relief, tax and spend, stop the spending, energy independence, the dark stain of Afghanistan, and no reason why we are dependent on Putin for 16% of our oil. She concluded Biden and Murray have left us vulnerable and emboldened the evils of this world to act out in aggression.
In reply to questions, she said she favored US Senator Rick Scott’s plan in all respects except raising taxes. She supports vaccines, opposes injection mandates and observed that in Washington State “we have more deaths from despair than COVID.”
Voter integrity? “The worst thing you can do is not vote” and she already retained one of the strongest election integrity lawyers in the nation.
How to fight back against Romney, Graham, Murkowski, Collins and other frauds (also a question asked by Democrats)? “Elect real people,” pledged term limits, warned that Putin began maneuvering right after our showing of weakness in Afghanistan, said we should get MIGS into Ukraine, and called Patty Murray China’s favorite senator. Then she agreed we need a full investigation of Dr. Fauci.
The climate outlook? “We have great resources here in Washington State. We’re actually the most climate friendly state, so why are we not energy independent, why are we letting China and Russia who, are they being climate, you know, do they care? No. And where do the winds blow? Right? Over back to us. So, I think being energy independent and addressing the climate issue right here in Washington State, we have that ability. Yes, I’m for all of it, all of the above.”
As Smiley leaves for the ferry, her life story and campaign enthusiasm inspire a supporter’s “thank you for stepping up and being counted” and applause all round. For more campaign information: www.Smileyforwashington.com.
Oh golly, I have so many questions.