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"Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless, tempest-toss'd to me

I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door."

Hundreds of Oregon Corporations Escape the Minimum Tax

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Half of the US Is Broke

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The myth of the Christian country

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“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

FDR, 2nd Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1937

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Middle East friendship chart

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Corporations enriching shareholders

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Facts not fiction on universal gun background checks

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"Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere"

Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The GOP - Not One of US.

Wall Street, our new criminal class...       

   Business in the USA is sitting on $2 trillion dollars refusing to invest their own funds in expanding and hiring workers.  

   When one adds to this the reserves that banks, equity firms and hedge funds have - the picture is clear - "capitalism in the USA is on strike." 

   The engine of our economy - the spirit of entrepreneurship is not in evidence today.  So much for business being dynamic and risk taking. 

   They hire K- Street lobbyists and their ilk at the state level because they are averse to risk taking - pleading for tax breaks, tax credits and endless loopholes. 

   The "business of business" in America today is not about job creation, it's about wealth hoarding and redistribution from the middle class to the top 1%. 

   So for those who claim government doesn't create jobs, my response is that business doesn't either until given "corporate welfare" by government.  The fact is that the private and public sector are highly integrated, something the anti-tax, anti-government Tea Party types don't understand. 

   Job creation requires public/private partnerships but the benefits of such collaboration should go to the 99% not just the 1%.  

 

RAD'S

WEBSITE PICKS: 


 

  • A Middle East View      

Rami G. Khouri

  • RealClearPolitics:

Realclearpolitics

  • Jim Hightower:   

Jimhightower.com

  • Robert Reich:

Robert Reich

  • Thomas Friedman: 

Friedman Column

  • Nicholas Kristof: 

Kristof Column

Oregon's Motto: 

She flies with her own wings! 


Hard Times in Oregon: 

Hardtimes

The Oregon story - the rich get richer, the poor and middle class lose ground.  Check this front page Oregonian article out. 

Oregon wage gap widens

Homelessness in Oregon - a call to action

Chuck Currie The crisis of homelessness


  

      Oregon's coming 34th out of 41 states in the Obama "Race to the Top" illustrates the failure of leadership from Governor Kitzhaber and his predecessors as they have built an educational bridge to nowhere called high stakes testing.

   Instead of being in a race to the top we seem to be dumpster diving to the bottom despite doing education reform since 1991.  Insanity is termed doing the same thing over and over again.  When can we put a fork in this stupidity? 

   To confuse matters more the Oregonian's editorial board has pontificated that this was a lost opportunity to get federal funding for innovation.  How firing principals and teachers equals innovation is a mystery to me.   

   The way to reform schools is to reduce class sizes, to encourage teacher collaboration and to support their continued education.  High stakes testing and performance based assessment of teachers are NOT the answer!    

   If you want students to succeed you first have to resolve the issues they confront before they come to school.  Children who face poverty, hunger, homelessness, health care issues and family instability require wrap around services for them and their families, 24/7.   

   Every child needs a safe home of their own and parents who know how to be good parents.   

There is only one way to address this impending crisis.  Schools must have a stable source of funding. Until that happens - we will limp from crisis to crisis.   

 

 

    

    Why does the richest nation in the world have the moral blight of homeless people?

Invisible People

http://www.npr.org


 Homelessness

    Connecting the dots between homelessness & hunger in Oregon and Washington County: 

Homelessness:  

•    The faces of the homeless are families with children, single men and women, vets, and many who are impaired. It is estimated that in Washington County up to 56% of homelessness occurs to families.

Hunger:

•    Hunger is highest among single mother households (10%) and poor families (15%) as well as renters, unemployed workers and minority households. 

     In Washington County, Oregon's "economic engine," the divide between the affluent and the working poor continues.  We have a 19,000 unit gap in affordable low income rental housing.  County political and business leaders are indifferent to this crisis...   

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If you want to e-mail me "comments" use my Yahoo back up e-mail address russdondero@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAD Lines

See my FACEBOOK @ Russ

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Trump & The Mob

http-//www.politico.com#13C5A6C


Trump's role models are Vladmir Putin and Benito Mussolini.  He has contempt for our checks and balances system.  He wants to "rule" not govern like a strong man, a despot.  He will shredd the Constitution anytime he feels the urge to do so and like all despots he only listens to his inner circle.  And he is paranoid and narcissistic. 

     

Hundreds of Oregon Corporations Escape the Minimum Tax

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Half of the US Is Broke

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The myth of the Christian country

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Housing Needs in Oregon 

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"There are men who believe that democracy... is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate [and that] tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future..." 

FDR, 3rd Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1940

  • "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Rothschild


  • Miguel de Cervantes, from The Duke - "I accuse you of being an idealist, a bad poet and an honest man."  Cervantes' response - "Guilty as charged, I have never had the courage to believe in nothing."   from Man of La Mancha  


Professor Kingfield, from the Paper Chase

   "I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you." 

- George Bernard Shaw

 

BLOGS:

From the Left Wing:

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman - The New York Times

Democracy Now
democracynow.org

The Daily Kos

dailykos.com

Blue Oregon

blueoregon.com

 

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." 

- Emilie Buchwald 

 


    "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." 

- Justice John Paul Stevens, Bush v. Gore, 2001

    The state of our union - check out the map, it's a reality check for those who can't figure out why people are so ticked off... 

americanobserver

 



"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war"

- John Adams

"Loyalty to country always.  Loyalty to government when it deserves it."  

- Mark Twain  

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  

- George Santayana 

"The love of one's country is a natural thing.  But why should love stop at the border?" 

- Pablo Casals

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." 

- William Butler Yeats  

 

"You see things; and you say, 'Why?' 

But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"  

- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" (1921) 

"...the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society...  The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government..."  

- James Madison, Federalist Papers #11 

"Why … should we have government? Why not each individual take to himself the whole fruit of his labor, without having any of it taxed away?”   

The legitimate object of government, is to do for the people whatever they need to have done, but which they can not do, at all, or can not do, so well, for themselves – in their separate and individual capacities … There are many such things … roads, bridges and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools … the criminal and civil [justice] departments."    

- Abraham Lincoln 

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society  

- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates, but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole..." 

- Edmund Burke  

“It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.  These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions.”  

- Jonathan Swift 

A RAD rhetorical question - Were Madison & Marx "Marxists"?  

 

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments."   

- James Madison

 

FYI:  

Squareapace has closed the "comments" section on my blog as a way around this contact me via my Yahoo e-mail address posted on the left sidebar...   

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

  

 


  

 

Tuesday
Jul052005

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...  

    On the day after July 4th, it is instructive to read the Declaration of Independence, especially the bill of abuses Jefferson highlights as the rationale for our rebellion against the British Empire, in light of the current American invasion and occupation of Iraq.  
    While the bill of particulars does not have a one to one relationship to the current state of affairs in Iraq, some of Jefferson's language should haunt us.  Such a listing provides food for thought about why the 'insurgency' is so strong despite the West Wing's vision of it being a bunch thugs, terrorists, and/or religious zealots practicing horrific violence on friend or foe and in its "last throes". 
    "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."  
    "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended Legislation; "
    "For quartering large bodies of armed troops, among us; for protecting them, by mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States;"
    "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world;
    "For Imposing Taxes on us without our Consent;"  
    "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury;
    "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses;"  
    "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government;"  
    "For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;"  
    "He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging war against us;"  
    "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the Lives of our people;"  
    "He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbaric ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation;" 
    Again, the parallel is NOT exact, but these Jeffersonian condemnations of British colonialism have a certain familiar ring today to the American Raj in Iraq. 
    Saddham Hussein was clearly a vicious dictator who practiced evil upon it's people and threatened its neighbors.  But to conflate a dictator with institutions of governance in Iraq which pre-existed him and which he regularly ignored in many instances is to confuse our reasons for being in Iraq.  Rather than make Iraq in our image, the task at hand - if it ever was our task - should have been to liberate Iraq from this thug and his henchmen and then leave not to bring about regime change. 
    Of course, the historical record shows President George Bush (senior) et al. thought better of 'the road to Baghdad option' and simply pulled back from an invasion and regime change.  He opted for containment.  Humm, it worked with the Soviets.  Too bad we didn't keep with this bi-partisan policy applied out under Bush I and Clinton.  
    We are now well past that demarcation line.  Under the rhetoric of the war on terrorism we have defeated a tyrant and now have sown the seeds of a geo-political quagmire, the consequences of which we never thought about before going to war.  Too bad.  
    Now, how do WE put Humpty Dumpty, i.e. Iraq, back together again?  Good question!  The history of our Vietnam War experience suggests we can't.  Our timeliest exit from Iraq may be the best first foot forward to mitigate further disaster.  To paraphrase Henry Kissinger - we need to negotiate a decent interval for an honorable exit.  Historians will determine how 'honorable' it was. 
    Come to think of it - during the Bosnia conflict the GOP spin machine harped constantly about an 'exit strategy'.  Good idea.  Now in Bosnia we didn't go it alone and we are not bogged down there as we are in Iraq.  So Mr. President - what is our exit strategy? 
    George III should have thought about that too.  



Tuesday
Jul052005

TO BORK OR NOT TO BORK?  

    The announced retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has every pundit and political junkie in the land abuzz.  However, before the neo-cons assume their ideological ship has come into port, it's important to remember that Justice O'Connor will not be retiring until her successor has been nominated by President Bush AND confirmed by the US Senate. 
    In that regard, it gives the Democrats every political incentive to stall a nomination, if as many suspect, Bush nominates a cultural conservative.  A nominee who meets the cultural conservative litmus test of being opposed to abortion, affirmative action and/or for school prayer will not be a consensus candidate but will light the political fires of partisanship on both sides.  
    One can only assume that Karl Rove will use this nomination to shore up the President's standing with his neo-con base by igniting the culture war focusing on issues like abortion, quotas and prayer.  Given the President's slip in the polls on the war, on social security and his management of the nation - this is a time to regroup around basic GOP values, i.e. family values.  And with the Senate leadership threatening the nuclear option on cloture in case the Ds get uppity - the stakes are high indeed. 
    The names vetted so far in the press are in most cases judges with excellent academic backgrounds, judicial experience and in all but a few cases - have indicated an opposition to Roe v. Wade.  So NARAL, Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way - all liberal organizations who successfully stopped the nomination of Robert Bork - can be expected to storm Capitol Hill against a Bush nominee. 
    Pressure will be strong for the President to nominate a woman or a Latino.  Given the recent spate of ultra conservative Bush nominees who have been confirmed, one might expect the short list to include Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and nominees along the lines of recent nominees.  And with values of ideological conservatism and loyalty to fellow true believers in play, the possible choices may narrow quickly. 
    But with this nomination likely to be only the first step in a two step process - followed by the likely resignation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist - who knows what tricky political twists and turns lay ahead for the White House crew.   If one is given the slight of hand (not in evidence these days in the West Wing) - the President might nominate a solid mainstream conservative for the O'Connor seat to avoid a battle royal, only to slip in a Scalia type for Chief Justice.  
    Since the President is a former baseball guy, one could imagine a political triple play.  Nominate a moderate neo-con with solid credentials judicial credentials for the O'Connor seat (what the Ds term as a mainstream neo-con), then nominate Scalia for Chief Justice (a home run for the President and his right wing) and then another cultural neo-con to replace Scalia.  How could the Ds oppose a sitting justice like Scalia?  They would then be marginalized by a fight over the third slot. 
    The problem with this scenario is that it presumes a level of intellectual sophistication not much in evidence in a Dubya White House.  The White House gang is good a ideology, not a nuance.  Bottom line, anyone who claims to know what will happen over the next weeks, let alone months is on very powerful drugs.  And when it's all done, Dubya and crew may wake up like IKE did being mad as hell that he got Earl Warren the top job at the head of the Supremes!  
    As they say "one never knows, does one".  
    Now the terms for the emerging great debate over judicial nominations will revolve around such terms like 1) judicial temperament or experience, 2) cultural or mainstream conservative; 3) judicial activism or original intent; 4) interpreting the law or legislating from the bench.  The assumption on both sides of the argument is that judges should not act as legislators but merely interpret 'the' law.  This is an oxymoron.  
    The fact is that the law is a political construct - whether emanating from the legislative process or an act of the people via ballot measures.  So the arcane debate over these issues obscures the fact that whether one is liberal or conservative judicial interpretation is a political act.  To steal a line from David Easton's seminal work The Political System, politics is "the authoritative allocation of values".   Through their decisions Judges allocate values, hence they are engaged in politics. 
    If you doubt judges are politicians in robes, then explain Korematsu vs. US, Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Nixon v. US, or Bush v. Gore.  The Founding Fathers didn't create a judiciary of political eunuchs, they created a separate and independent judiciary as part of a delicate tripartite division of power, a checks and balances system.  The Constitution is not written in stone or in a time warp (contrary to 'original intent' theorists) but is a living breathing document which is ever changing with the evolution of our democratic polity.  
    A lot has changed since 1789.  But what has not changed is that despite all of the historical scar tissue of American history, the Supreme Court and the judiciary stand for a fundamental belief in the rule of law, not the rule of men.  The court is part of that delicate balance where "ambition checks ambition." 
    Does that mean judges rulings are political?  You bet they are!  But the mythology of the judiciary - that the rule of law trumps the rule of men - is the noble lie that makes our system work.  Without that myth - there is no law but brute force in some form.  
    So before the partisans get too exercised, it would be well to realize that if they tear down the noble lie of the law - what Rawls terms that "veil of ignorance" - they put at risk the very foundations of our polity - a belief in toleration, comity, compromise and essential fairness.  The courts are like umpires in a baseball game.  The players and the fans may boo them on a particular call, but they are a necessary part of the game! 
    Ultimately, if you don't like the current judicial umpires - then get cracking on winning the next election.  But don't eviscerate the system by denying us the referees we need to make it work.  While the GOP used a scorched earth political strategy to stifle Clinton judicial appointments it would backfire on the Ds to adopt this tactic.  As RFK once said, "don't get mad, get even".  As a former Senate staffer, manager of JFK's '60 campaign and the US Senator - RFK  "walked the talk." 
    Thankfully, there is always another election over the horizon.  2006/2008 are on the horizon and the good news is that judges read the polls.  

Saturday
Jul022005

LINE OF THE DAY

Can't write anything.    FOR ALL THOSE WHO THINK THE 4TH OF JULY IS ABOUT BASEBALL & APPLE PIE LET ME OFFER ANOTHER VIEW.  I'LL GET TO 'THE SUPREMES' NEXT WEEK. 
Saturday
Jul022005

A WOODY GUTHRIE & PETE SEEGER 4TH OF JULY 

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin'  -  I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side  .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

IF I HAD A HAMMER
words and music by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of  justice
It's the bell of  freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land


Thursday
Jun302005

BACK ON THE FUNNY FARM

    SALEM: In the continuing game of political chicken, the GOP controlled House is pushing through most of its budget bills which will not get Senate approval since the Ds control the Senate. So it's gridlock city in Salem town. But the House will complete its work, then recess for the July 4th holiday. The Senate will probably follow their lead. However, the big budget items K-12 and Human Resources have not been passed by either house. Additionally many bills passed by either house will require conference committees to meet to resolve differences between House/Senate bills. Many bills have simply died on the cutting room floor, aka in committee. Yet, many legislators firmly believe that this session will end soon. If they are right, it will NOT be because they are doing the people's business, but quite the opposite. They are institutionally AWOL and have been since January.
    RAD's conclusion: Oregon's legislature is proving that the theory of evolution is wrong! Not all species evolve. Darwin clearly missed something in his research. Or God has a mean streak we never imagined. The species 'Oregonis Legislativous Politicus'  has no discernable genotype. It appears to be a throwback species of some unidentified type. We have no idea where it came from, an ex deus machina? Could it be the long sought for 'missing link' evolutionists theorize about? Its characteristics include: cognitive dissonance, irritability, denial, lethargy, tunnel vision and the inability to get along with others. It also does not respond to adult supervision. But then again, this may be a mere tautology since there is no evidence of adult supervision being available inside the state capitol building.
    PS: Don't be fooled by Speaker Karen Minnis' educational stabilization plan which passed the House this week. It's not the operating budget for K-12 for 2005-07 but a bill setting a floor for K-12 spending for future legislators. First of all, as Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo points out, the benchmark would continue the disinvestment in K-12. Secondly, the endorsement of this concept by the co-chairs of the Portland school board and the school lobby, minus OEA, is more of a commentary the futility of dealing with the current legislature on BOTH sides of the ailes and chambers.  And finally, when it reaches the Senate it's DOA. 
    Lesson:  the politics of smoke and mirrors and cynicism prevails inside the Salem beltway.