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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...   

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

  

 


  

 

Friday
Aug142020

THE AVIATION INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IN OREGON

Oregon Aviation Policies – Special Privilege for the Few 

By Oregon Aviation Watch - by Miki Barnes...  Miki is a friend and fellow advocate who knows more about this issue than anyone in Oregon.  

As Oregonians engage in the difficult but necessary task of identifying and rooting out longstanding institutional biases that concentrate power in the hands of a privileged few at the expense of the many, a good place to begin is with the state's aviation policies. The Oregon Legislature has a reputation for favoring programs that benefit the wealthy while underfunding and/or eliminating those that protect the environment, public health, human services, education and the arts.
 
As reported in a 4-part award winning series by Rob Davis Polluted by Money: How Corporate Cash Corrupted one of the Greenest States in America,
 
"Oregon's failure to regulate campaign cash has made it one of the biggest money states in American politics. The flood of money created an easy regulatory climate where industry gets what it wants, again and again."[1]
 
This unsavory situation has contributed to an increase in corporate control with a corresponding weakening of environmental regulations and a commensurate degradation of livability and quality of life. "On a long list of environmental protections, Oregon is dead last among West Coast states."[2]
 
Though not directly addressed in the Polluted by Money series, the aviation industry, one of the biggest polluters in the state, is a frequent recipient of lavish government funding. Some legislators exhibit a pattern of using public office to promote their own personal agenda and financial gain while others are beholden to aviation business interests and wealthy donors.
 
Since Oregon's aviation policy reflects, in large part, the skewed values of the federal government, this posting will start with a review of national aviation statistics before focusing more specifically on Oregon.

Glut of Airports in the U.S.  

The U.S. has more than 21,000 airports, including 500 commercial passenger facilities and 20,000 general aviation airports.[3] Europe, by contrast, with a population more than twice that of the U.S., has 2,323,[4] one-tenth as many as the U.S. As is the case with Oregon, many U.S. general aviation airports are publicly subsidized. General aviation, which includes instructional training, corporate and recreational jets and aircraft, air taxis, and private recreational pilots, refers to all non-military and non-commercial aviation
 
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) statistics reveal that in 2019 there were 624,065 certified pilots nationwide.[5] This figure, which includes flight instructors and student pilots (many recruited from overseas), represents less than one-quarter of one percent of the entire population.[6] The 20,000 general aviation airports in this country exist primarily to serve this privileged, self-entitled few, a small minority that is responsible for pumping 456 or more tons of lead, a pernicious neurotoxin that disproportionately impacts children, minorities, and lower socioeconomic groups, into the environment each year.[7] 

Like the Port of Portland and the Oregon Department of Aviation, the FAA uses public funds to promote private, for-profit aviation business interests. These agencies set policies that essentially enable the aviation sector to profit by exploiting U.S. citizens, compromising national security, degrading livability, and ruthlessly poisoning local communities with lead, PM2.5 and a host of other toxins. There is now such an over-abundance of airports in this country that many flight training schools, such as Hillsboro Aero Academy (HAA), which is owned by out of state investors, heavily recruit students from overseas. HAA's website lays claim to being "one of the largest combined helicopter and airplane flight training schools in the U.S., with students from over 75 countries…"[8] "We’re even approved by the Chinese government for airplane and helicopter training."[9]
 
The U.S. Congress has historically demonstrated its loyalty to aviation business profiteers by gutting the EPA Noise office, weakening environmental laws pertaining to aviation, and denying local communities a democratic voice in the process. In so doing, federal legislators have intentionally and systematically disempowered their own constituents, choosing instead to promote a small group of predominantly affluent white people. Even with the increase of women and minorities in elected office, no significant legislation has emerged to address this unfair, unjust, abusive, and toxic assault on democracy.
 
The funding of U.S. airports is an example of the top down approach the U.S. and many state governments, including Oregon, practice in disbursing public funds. Instead of investing prudently, wisely and humanely in programs that serve the greater good, all too many elected officials routinely use their positions to funnel money into the hands of their aviation business cronies.

Oregon Pilots – Less than One-Quarter of One Percent of the Population

Oregon's aviation policies in many ways mirror those promoted on a federal level by generations of predominantly white, privileged senators and congressional representatives who equate airports with status.
 
According to Federal Aviation Administration Airman Statistics, there were a total of 9,997 certified pilots in Oregon in 2019, roughly one quarter of one percent of the population. 885 (approximately 9 percent) were women, the remaining 91 percent (9,112) were men. Of the total number of Oregon pilots, 29% (2,876) were student pilots and 17% (1,728) were flight instructors. These numbers reveal that based on a statewide population count of 4.218 million, the number of certified pilots in Oregon translates into approximately one-quarter of one percent of the population.[10]
 
Both the FAA and the State of Oregon spend millions of dollars on airports that serve this exceedingly small minority. Significantly, both of these government institutions invest next to nothing into protecting Oregon residents from the negative effects -- noise, pollution, lead emissions, global warming, property devaluation, safety and national security risks, etc. -- generated by these facilities.

420 Airports in Oregon – One for Every 24 Certified Pilots 

Oregon has 420 airports[11] in place to cater to the select few, an average of one airport for every 24 certified pilots. By contrast there are 7 commercial airports in the state, a ratio of 602,571 residents per airport.  It is important to bear in mind that some of the airports included in the commercial category, such as Roberts Field in Redmond, log far more general aviation operations annually than commercial flights. A review of the FAA Terminal Area Forecast revealed that in 2018, more than 80% of the annual operations at this facility were categorized as general aviation.[12] 

Like Hillsboro and Troutdale Airports, the Redmond Airport serves as yet another Hillsboro Aero Academy international flight training hub. Clearly this situation represents a huge economic and social disparity, one that largely enshrines and institutionalizes the values of white privilege and out-of-state corporations over the greater good.
 
In Oregon, student pilots training through Hillsboro Aero Academy have been given free rein to run roughshod over the rights of residents living in multiple jurisdictions including, but not limited to, Washington, Yamhill, Multnomah, Columbia, Deschutes and Crook Counties. Sadly, Oregon's legislators have proven all too willing to fling money at airports that pander to the flight training industry while ignoring the legitimate concerns of everyone else.

Oregon Has More Airports than Every European Country 

It is noteworthy that not a single country in Europe has as many airports as Oregon does.

Though the population in each of these countries exceeds that of Oregon anywhere from 11 to 21 times over, they all manage to get by on far fewer airports.
 
What many of these countries do have are high speed rail options, a mode of transportation that serves the broader population and is far less polluting than aviation. Oregon, by contrast, lacks vision and leadership when it comes to investing in this more egalitarian and environmentally sustainable mode of transportation.

Senator Betsy Johnson – Vocal Advocate for One Quarter of One Percent 

Oregon State Senator Betsy Johnson, along with her husband John Helm, owns Transwestern Aviation Inc. This business, which operates out of the Scappoose Airpark and attracts Hillsboro Aero Academy flight instructors and student pilots, profits from the sale of leaded aviation fuel. Senator Johnson has long been an advocate for the less than one-quarter of one percent that comprise the pilot community in Oregon.  In 1999, while serving as Vice-President for Legislative Affairs for the Oregon Pilot's Association, she and her husband successfully championed the establishment of the Department of Aviation (ODA) as separate from the Department of Transportation,[14] thereby insuring that this privileged few had their own government board to promote their agenda.
 
The Oregon Department of Aviation funnels public money into the hands of affluent airport owners and operators while conveniently ignoring the noise disruptions and environmental pollutants released by aviation activity. Not surprisingly the Scappoose Airpark, where Senator Johnson does business, benefits from federal and state handouts, including a 2017-2018 Critical Oregon Airport Relief (COAR) grant awarded by the Department of Aviation for a taxiway relocation project - $3.7 Million from the FAA and another $150,000 from the state.[15] It is important to bear in mind that Oregon aviation businesses often label government cash infusions that increase their profit margin as "critical."
 
Not a single grant disbursement listed on the ODA site addresses noise mitigation, lead monitoring, global warming impacts, or decreasing PM2.5 and other pollutants.[16]
 
Johnson and her colleagues have also been instrumental in passing legislation specifically designed to disempower local communities in an effort to clear the way for the aviation sector to exploit the entire area.  
 
Senator Johnson is one of the Co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means subcommittee. In the recent budget cuts put forward by this committee for the second special 2020 legislative session, convened to address budget shortfalls due to the COVID-19 pandemic, aviation programs did not even warrant a mention. Instead the proposed cuts were aimed at human service programs affecting the elderly, people with disabilities, family support, rental assistance, housing, and the environment.[17]
 
Other than noise, pollution and self-serving arrogance, the aviation community has little to offer. The tax money brought in through aviation fuel taxes is invested back into various airport programs. Meanwhile, impacted communities are subjected to excess pollution and frequent noise disruptions – the sound of the aviation industry's pervasive disdain for livability, the environment, public health, quality of life and democratic values.

Cut Aviation, Protect the Environment and Public Health

In light of major financial losses due to COVID 19, a good place for the state to start making substantial budget cuts is to aviation. General aviation airports, in particular, exemplify the systematic, oppressive and unjust social disparities that permeate national and state funding policies.

Concluding Remarks

In many ways, general aviation airports, especially those that pander to flight training schools, act as colonial oppressors. They invade local communities, engage in widespread exploitation, and contribute to environmental destruction while ignoring and dismissing the degradation to livability and public health caused by these activities. This needs to stop!
 
Allowing a privileged few to foist their self-dealing values onto others is a glaring example of institutionally sanctioned aggression and abuse, essentially an orchestrated assault on the rights of impacted residents. The time has come for Oregon's political leaders to establish a just and equitable approach – one that demonstrates respect for the constituents they were elected to serve.

End Notes:  

[1] Davis, Rob. Polluted by Money. Oregonian/OregonLive. (2/22/2019). Last accessed on-line on 08-10-2020 at https://projects.oregonlive.com/polluted-by-money/part-1.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Model-Extrapolated Estimates of Airborne Lead Concentrations at U.S. Airports.  EPA.  (February 2020). Pg. 6.  Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100YG52.pdf.

[4] General Aviation Manufacturer's Association 2019 Databook. Pg. 41. Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://gama.aero/wp-content/uploads/GAMA_2019Databook_ForWebFinal-2020-02-19.pdf.

[5] U.S. Civil Airmen 2019 Statistics. FAA website. Last accessed on-line on 8-06-20 at https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Model-Extrapolated Estimates of Airborne Lead Concentrations at U.S. Airports.  EPA.. (February 2020). Pg. 6.  Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100YG52.pdf.

[8] History.  Hillsboro Aero Academy website. Last accessed on-line on 8/11/2020 at https://flyhaa.com/about/history/.

[9] About. Hillsboro Aero Academy website. Last accessed on-line on 8/11/2020 at https://flyhaa.com/about/.

[10] U.S. Civil Airmen 2019 Statistics. FAA website. Last accessed on-line on 8-06-20 at https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/.

[11] General Aviation Manufacturer's Association 2019 Databook. Pg. 37. Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://gama.aero/wp-content/uploads/GAMA_2019Databook_ForWebFinal-2020-02-19.pdf.

[12] Roberts Field. FAA Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) Detail Report . (January 2020). Last accessed on-line on 8/12/2020 at https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/taf/.

[13] General Aviation Manufacturer's Association 2019 Databook. Pg. 41. Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://gama.aero/wp-content/uploads/GAMA_2019Databook_ForWebFinal-2020-02-19.pdf.

[14] About Senator Johnson. State Senator Betsy Johnson website.  Last accessed on-line on  06/05/20 at https://www.betsyjohnson.com/phone/about.html.

[15] 2017-2018 COAR Grant Cycle. Oregon Department of Aviation. Last accessed on-line on 8/10/2020 at https://www.oregon.gov/aviation/plans-and-programs/ASAP/Pages/COAR.aspx.

[16] Aviation System Action Plan. Oregon Department of Aviation. Last accessed on-line on 8/11/2020 at https://www.oregon.gov/aviation/plans-and-programs/ASAP/Pages/ASAP.aspx..

[17] Ways and Means Co-Chair Principles for the Second Special Session of 2020. Oregon Legislature. Last accessed on-line on 8/12/2020 at https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/lfo/JWM%20Documents/2020-Co-Chair-Rebalance-Plan.pdf.

Friday
Jul312020

THE POLITICS OF MORAL HAZARD


Clinton lost the moral authority to govern, Trump never had it! 

I watched the PBS 4 hour American Experience video over the two past weeks on Bill Clinton's presidency.  As one who voted for Clinton twice including attending his first inauguration it reminded me of the chance he squandered in being a truly great president by his affiar with Monika Lewinsky. 

I was reluctant to join the march to impeachment because I felt and still feel being unfaithful to one's marriage vows does not rise to high crimes and misdeameanors. But Clinton clearly perjured himself in his testimony when he tried to parce his words "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is."      

After that point 2 years away from the 2000 election I said on Portland's KPTV that Clinton had lost the "moral authority" to govern and he should resign turning the rest of his term to VP Al Gore. The series vindicates my conclusion finding that little of consequence happened in his final 2 years in office. But more importantly Clinton's private behavior sullied his presidency and with it the presidency itself.

I find myself upon reflection understanding why Trump's base has such a hard time recognizing the perils to our democracy of the contradictions of his private and public behavior that we are constantly being reminded of on a daily basis with the worst economy since the Great Depression, the pandemic or the abuse of power that is all too apparent as the House managers argued in his impeachment procedings. The only thing that saved Trump was the slavish loyalty of the Senate majority.  

Yes Trump like Clinton is not a good role model of a president-husband.  But Trump's moral and ethical depravity far exceeds Clinton. While Clinton opened the door of presidential misconduct, Trump blew it wide open. Trump's repeated "public" lies, narcissim, racism, sexism, refusal to make his tax returns public and abuse of power far exceeds Clinton's private misbehavior.  

It's ironic that Clinton despite all the noise about Whitewatergate (that vast Right Wing conspiracy against Clinton) was impeached by the House for his affair and perjury, while Trump was impeached for abuse power and obstruction of Congress.  

Trump's lies, disinfomation, rule by chaos and boorish personal behavior far exeed Clinton's flaws. His public and prviate behavior has brought the issue of "moral hazard" to an all time high. He has corrupted the moral fabric of the presidency far beyond Clinton's infidelity. As Aristotle noted one's personal behavior and governace are inextricably linked - the private person is a mirror of the public person.  .  

There is also an important distinction between Clinton and Trump. Clinton believed in government and its power to achieve a more perfect union, despite his personal flaws.  Trump by contrast from the beginning of his campaign to now clearly doesn't believe in the purpose of democratic government, in fact he's profoundly ignorant of it and has done everything to undermine our ability to meet the challenges of our democacy in foriegn or domestic policy. 

In that sense he is as I've noted before a "clear and present danger" to our democracy which his tweets, public statements and actions to reduce govenment to nothing more than a pittance or as some of his minions say to make government "so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub" That dark vision contrasts with Clinton's boyent mantra that "I still believe in a place called Hope."  And this is the difference that makes a difference between Clinton's and Trump's visions of government and their presidencies.  

Their personal flaws offend the conscience but it's their manner of governance that strikes the difference in their presidencies.  

Clinton despite his flaws ended his presidency with high public approval, brought peace to Nothern Ireland and Bosnia, while creating an historic budget surplus and a middle class on the rise across all democraphic lines including race.  By contrast Trump has an economy in the dumpster, an out of control pandemic and America's internatioal standing in tatters. So at the end of the day, the differences between Clinton and Trump are huge. Clinton left us with a legacy of economic and international good will while Trump has shattered both.  

But sadly without Bill Clinton's sullying his personal reputation to pursue a sordid affair with a college student, Clinton unwitingly allowed the public to lower its standards of presidential behavior to a point that enabled Trump to not only win his party's nomination but to steal the election from ironically enough Hillary Clinton despite his moral debauchery and using his presidency to line his pockets.  

The stakes in 2020 are very high.  If we don't learn our lesson this time, we may end what some regard as "American exceptionalism" - a government of, by and for the people or as President Obama so eloquently framed it in his personal and public behavior over his 8 years in office - our quest for a "more perfect union." We deserve a second chance but there may be no thrid chances.  

Vice Preisdent Biden has framed the 2020 election as a battle for the “soul of the nation" - nothing could be further from the truth. It's the only way to have a president who does not sow seeds of moral hazard and who can be a "repairer of the breach" (Isaiah, 58:9-12). This is why Vice President Biden's campaign which promises us a government which will rise above the moral hazards of Clinton and Trump is so important.

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PS:  Moral hazard is the risk that a party has not entered into a contract in good faith or has provided misleading information about its assets. The Constitution is a contract with the American people "to faithfully excute the law." Trump has repeatedly broken that contract with America. Clinton did not. This why Trump's eggregious misbehavior is so worrisome!   

Tuesday
Jul282020

ANTIFA IS COMING?  

When Antifa Hysteria Sweeps America

The panic is a measure of how deluded public discourse has become.

Nicholas Kristof

By 

Opinion Columnist

  • June 17, 2020
Residents gathered this month on a corner in Coquille, Ore., in anticipation of rumored (nonexistent) busloads of antifa activists.Credit...Amy Moss Strong/The World
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What can we possibly make of the crisis that unfolded in the remote Oregon seaside town of Coquille?

Coquille is a sleepy logging community of 3,800 people, almost all of them white. It is miles and miles from nowhere. Portland is 250 miles to the north. San Francisco is 500 miles to the south.

But Fox News is in a frenzy about rioters and looters, and President Trump warns about the anti-fascist movement known as antifa. So early this month as a small group of local residents planned a peaceful “Black Lives Matter” protest in Coquille, word raced around that three busloads of antifa activists were headed to Coquille to bust up the town.

The sheriff and his deputies donned bulletproof vests, prepared their MRAP armored vehicle and took up positions to fight off the invasion. Almost 200 local people, some shouldering rifles and others holding flags, gathered to protect their town (overshadowing the handful of people who had come to wave Black Lives Matter signs).

“I feel defensive and want to protect my home,” one man, Timothy Robinette, told the local newspaper, The World.

A sheriff from a nearby county, John Ward, warned citizens in a public Facebook post of rumors that the anti-fascists could rampage into his area as well..

“I was told they are looking for a fight,” he explained. Ward added that he had no problem with peaceful protests — a Black Lives Matter protest had been held peacefully in the local town of Brookings — but he hinted that citizens might want to help the police fend off any antifa attack.

“Without asking,” he said, “I am sure we have a lot of local boys, too, with guns that will protect our citizens.”

Of course, no rampaging anarchists ever showed up. The Battle of Coquille ended without beginning

Similar hysteria about antifa invasions has erupted across the countryI asked my followers on Facebook how earnest citizens could fall prey to such panics, and I was stunned by how many reported similar anxieties in their own towns — sometimes creating dangerous situations.

In Forks, Wash., which is overwhelmingly white, a mixed-race family from Spokane that was camping in the area was assumed to be part of a rumored antifa protest. The local newspaper, The Peninsula Daily News, reported that local people aggressively confronted the family — a mom, dad, 16-year-old daughter and grandmother — and accused the visitors of being part of antifa.

The family’s vehicle was tailed by four cars of vigilantes, some armed, and then trees were felled across the road to keep the visitors from leaving their campsite. (Four high school students rescued them by cutting the logs with a chain saw, and sheriff’s deputies escorted them to safety.)

Folks, this is insane. It’s a measure of how deluded public discourse has become, how untethered from reality, that a mob of gunmen can terrify campers apparently because of the color of their skin — and think themselves heroes who are defending their communities.

All this ugliness may also be a window into the unrest that could unfold this winter if Trump is defeated but claims that the election was stolen from him by immigrants who voted illegally.

I’ve occasionally encountered mass hysteria in other countries. In rural Indonesia, I once reported on a mob that was beheading people believed to be sorcerers, then carrying their heads on pikes. But I never imagined that the United States could plunge into such delirium.

Antifa, short for anti-fascists, hasn’t killed anyone and appears to have been only a marginal presence in Black Lives Matter protests. None of those arrested on serious federal charges related to the unrest have been linked to antifa.

Still, the movement has a mythic status in some right-wing narratives, and Trump and Fox News have hyped the threat. (The Seattle Times caught Fox faking photos to exaggerate unrest in Seattle.)

Race-baiting extremists have also tried to manipulate public fears. One Twitter account purportedly run by an antifa group, @Antifa_US, announced on May 31 that “tonight’s the night … we move into the residential areas … the white hoods … and we take what’s ours.” But Twitter said that the account was actually run by white supremacists posing as antifa.

These antifa panics are where racism and hysteria intersect, in a nation that has more guns than people. They arise when a lying president takes every opportunity not to heal our national divisions but to stoke them, when people live in a news ecosystem that provides no reality check but inflames prejudices and feeds fears.

You might think that this kind of hysteria would be self-correcting: Citizens would see that no antifa people show up and then realize that they had been manipulated by people who treat them as dummies. But the narrative actually gaining traction in some quarters is that guns forced the antifa to back off.

NBC News, which has published excellent accounts of this hysteria, quoted one armed “defender” of the remote town of Klamath Falls, Ore., as initially saying that antifa warriors were on the way “to burn everything and to kill white people.”

After none showed up, a local bar owner said on Facebook that he was proud of the armed turnout and boasted that antifa activists had been repelled because they “walked into a hornet’s nest.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The Times since 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. You can sign up for his free, twice-weekly email newsletter and follow him on InstagramHis latest book is "Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope." @NickKristof  Facebook

Wednesday
Jul222020

RULE OF LAW MUST APPLY TO FEDERAL POLICE AS WELL

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This ed piece was in Wednesday's Oregonian.  

I concur with the author that federal police must abide by the law rather than abuse it by tactics one associates with Hitler's Gestapo. Trump's "law and order" politics reminds one of Richard Nixon's mind set that led to his impeachment.  But that train is out of the station so the voters in 2020 must pronounce Trump and his goon squads as being out of bounds with any semblance of demorcracy.  

Trump's "law and order" proactive arrest (?) strategy is an attempt to deflect attention from his failure of leadership on the Covid-19 front.     

I remember vividly when Nixon's attorney general John Mitchell rounded up hundeds of demonstrators in the last big anti-war demonstration in DC in 1973 and carted them to RFK statidum for the night. Months later the Supreme Court ruled against the administation and rewaded the incarceted protesters $20K for their trouble.  I don't think the curent court wil act on this so the American public must rise to the occassion to end official lawlessness by Trump and his goons.   

Wax is the legal director of the Oregon Innocence Project and former head of the Federal Public Defender office in Oregon for 31 years. He started his career as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and lives in Portland.

The rule of law is the foundation of a free and just society. Though laws are not enough. Even handed application of just laws is a necessity if a society is to be truly free. So, too, is an understanding that power and force are not the same as law.

Following the police killings, pandemic and protest that have roiled our nation this spring, there was cause for some hope as the U.S. Supreme Court wound up its term. In backing prosecutors’ subpoena of President Trump’s financial records, the court reminded all Americans that no one is above the law.

But recent events in Portland have dimmed my hope — reminding me of my work with detainees in Guantanamo. While the rule of law lives in America, it is fragile and under attack. The use of force by police, brought into high relief by the killing of George Floyd, is continuing to test our country’s commitment to the law, as demonstrated by the police response to Portland protests.

Federal law enforcers in Portland and around the country are acting as if they are an occupying army, applying tactics more in line with the Savak in Iran and KGB in Soviet Union than with the democratic principles of the U.S.

Donavan La Bella recently suffered facial and skull fractures when shot in the head by a federal law enforcement officer with an impact munition. Video of the shooting shows La Bella standing across the street from the federal courthouse in Portland holding a speaker above his head. He then moves a tear gas grenade away from himself and steps back,raising his hands above his head again. Seconds later, he was shot in the head.

In the past several days, video has emerged of a new tactic in Portland — federal agents in camouflage seizing people off the street, throwing them into unmarked cars and detaining them.

Following La Bella’s shooting, condemnations from Oregon’s congressional delegation and state and local officials were swift.

An internal investigation was announced by the U.S. Marshal’s Service. Similar condemnations have followed the recent detentions. While laudable, those statements are insufficient.

The Multnomah County district attorney and U.S. Attorney need to convene state and federal grand juries to explore the possibility of criminal charges. Shooting a person in the head may well be a crime. A person can commit attempted murder and assault under both federal and state law if he acts intentionally or with reckless indifference. The detentions may also be criminal. Seizing and detaining a person who is not engaged in criminal activity fits the definition of kidnapping. This is true whether or not the seizure is intended only to intimidate protesters.

RAD:  Such detention reminds one of Pinochet's thugs in Chile back in the '70s or more recently those rounded up in Iraq and put in unlimited detetion.   

Let’s be clear: The fact that the president has directed federal law enforcement officers to protect federal property and given them weapons to do so does not give them free rein under the rule of law. While dealing with protesters can be emotional and difficult for law enforcement, that does not excuse or justify unlawful actions against protesters.

As with the law enforcement officers who killed George Floyd, nothing in the law immunizes federal agents in Portland from criminal prosecution.

The U.S. attorney for Oregon and the Multnomah County district attorney have an obligation to act.

Federal law enforcement officers stand as protesters gather during a demonstration Thursday in Portland. A protester was critically injured earlier this month when he was hit in the head with an impact munition fired by a U.S. marshal.

Friday
Jun192020

THE RAPING, RAVAGING & PILLAGING OF OREGON'S FORESTS  


EDITOR'S COMMENT:  
I grew up in timber country in Oregon. I worked as a summer employee for the US Forest Service from 1960-63. I've witnessed clear cutting first hand and as a citizen lobbyist decades later I witnessed the shameful tax giveaways to big corporations from Democratic governors and legislators on the altar that it was good for the economy. Well this article proves otherwise!
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SPECIAL REPORT
The human cost of timber tax cut
Big-money firms profit, people in small communities pay

Tony Schick Oregon Public Broadcasting, Rob Davis The Oregonian/OregonLive, and Lylla Younes ProPublica

-- Penelope Kaczmarek spent her childhood smelling freshly cut wood at the family mill and the sulfury wafts of the distant pulp mill through her kitchen window in the coastal fishing town of Newport.
-- Now 65, she remembers watching floating logs await their turn at her father’s saw blade, mesmerized as men in hickory shirts, sawed-off jeans and hard hats rolled them across the water.
-- Kaczmarek’s father, W. Stan Ouderkirk, was a logger, small mill owner and Republican member of the Oregon House of Representatives in the 1960s and 1970s. He represented Lincoln County, home to the Siuslaw National Forest and a vibrant commercial fishing port.

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-- When a large, out-of-state corporation bought his mill in the mid-1970s, Ouderkirk told his daughter that a rise of corporate ownership and loss of local control would lead to worse outcomes for Oregon’s forests and the people who depended on them.
-- “I fear my father was right,” Kaczmarek said.
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-- Lincoln County lost an estimated $108 million in timber payments after the federal government restricted logging on public lands to protect the northern spotted owl. But the sharp drop in federal forestland revenue is only partly to blame for budget cuts that have led some counties to force-release inmates from jail or reduce sheriffs patrols to the point that 911 calls for
-- Penelope Kaczmarek says her father warned about rising corporate timber ownership. Beth Nakamura, staff
Timber break-ins and assaults went unanswered.

---------------------------------
-- Tax cuts for large timber companies that log on private lands cost the county an estimated $122 million over the same period, an investigation by OPB, The Oregonian/ OregonLive and ProPublica shows.
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-- Before lawmakers began chipping away at the tax through multiple measures, Lincoln County collected an average of $7.5 million a year in severance taxes, which were based on the value of the trees timber companies logged. But the tax, which helped fund schools and local governments, was eliminated in the 1990s by the Oregon Legislature for all but the smallest timber owners, who can choose to pay it as a means to further reduce annual property taxes.
-- Last year, the county received just under $25,000.
-- Now a psychiatric social worker, Kaczmarek sees people with mental illnesses filling local jails because the county doesn’t have the money to provide adequate health services. In therapy sessions, teachers tell her about overcrowded classrooms and school programs cut to the bare minimum. ---- County leaders blame the majority of the financial struggles on the decline in revenue from logging.
-- To avoid crushing cuts in services, communities that already struggle with high poverty and unemployment rates have had to raise taxes on residents and small businesses, said Jaime McGovern, an economist with the state’s Legislative Revenue Office.
-- “If they don’t get approved, then there’s no money there,” McGovern said. “And so, you’ve seen libraries closing, police stations closing.”
-- In the Marcola School District, about 15 miles northeast of Eugene, the elementary school was so dilapidated that voters in 2015 passed a bond to build a new one.
-- The additional funding helped, but it wasn’t enough. The new elementary school is already bursting with students.
“That hits home because I volunteer at the school district and I care about my taxes,” Helen Kennedy, a retired attorney, said. “I care about the kids.”
-- Kennedy, who lives on 3.5 acres in the district, saw her property taxes increase by more than 20% after she voted for the bond. Last year, Kennedy paid $1,443 in property taxes, or about $412 per acre. That’s a fraction of what she’d pay in a city like Portland, but nearly 100 times the rate of the district’s biggest landowner.
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-- Weyerhaeuser, the Seattle-based timber company that owns more than 49,000 acres in the district, paid about $226,000 in property taxes last year, according to county records. That amounts to about $4.60 per acre. At the rate Kennedy’s land is taxed, the company would have had to pay an additional $20 million.
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-- “Holy cannoli,” Kennedy, 64, said about the losses from timber tax cuts. “The old adage that ‘what is good for the timber industry is good for Oregon’ is no longer true.”

-- THE BILLION-DOLLAR TAX CUT ALMOST NOBODY REMEMBERS
-- Hans Radtke knew the loss for counties was coming.
Radtke, a member of a gubernatorial task force on timber taxes, sat in a hotel conference room near the state capitol in 1999 listening to lobbyists and timber executives argue that their industry was being unfairly taxed.
-- In the early 1990s, as Oregon voters passed reforms to limit their property taxes, large timber companies successfully lobbied to gradually cut the severance tax in half, lowering their own bills by $30 million a year.
But now they wanted to completely eliminate the severance tax.
-- Timber companies argued that since they’d already cut nearly all of the existing forests on their land, and state law required them to plant new trees, they were essentially farmers. And since Oregon didn’t tax crops, it shouldn’t tax trees.
-- As the owner of 100 acres of forestland, Radtke could have personally benefited from the tax cut. But as an economist advising John Kitzhaber, the governor at the time, he knew it would devastate rural communities.
-- After several failed attempts to offer changes that would lower industry taxes but avoid eliminating the severance tax altogether, Radtke knew the cut would pass. He turned to the industry lobbyist sitting next to him and said, “You’re (f------) us.”
-- “And he just smiled,” Radtke said.
-- The task force dissolved without advancing any recommendations. Months later, Lane Shetterly, a former Republican state representative whose district included Falls City, introduced a bill at the request of the timber industry to phase out the severance tax.
-- The bill contained an increase in forestland property taxes that many believed would lessen the impact of the cut.
The Association of Oregon Counties supported it. The school lobby didn’t fight it. The governor signed it.
-----------------------------------------------
-- Shetterly, now president of the Oregon Environmental Council, one of the state’s top environmental groups, remembers almost nothing about the bill.“ Yeah, man that’s a long time ago,” Shetterly said in a phone interview.
-- “I don’t question that I did,” Kitzhaber said, “but I can’t remember the context.”
-- Kitzhaber, who vetoed an earlier version before ultimately approving the measure, also doesn’t recall his support of the tax cut.
---------------------------------------------

-- Two decades later, Oregonians are still picking up the tab.
If Oregon hadn’t phased out its severance tax, timber production in 2018 would have generated an estimated $130 million.
-- The state would have received an estimated $59 million under California’s tax system and $91 million under Washington’s system, the investigation by OPB, The Oregonian/ OregonLive and ProPublica found.

-- Unlike Oregon, those states still tax large timber companies for the value of the trees they log.
-- Timber companies continue to pay state taxes that apply to all Oregon businesses, including income taxes and lowered property taxes, kept far below market value as an incentive for residents to own forestland.
-- The companies also pay a flat fee on the volume of logs they harvest. That fee, set in part by a board of timber company representatives, generates about $14 million annually. It funds state forestry agencies and university research instead of local governments.
-- Linc Cannon, former director of taxation for the Oregon Forest & Industries Council, defends the elimination of the severance tax.
-- In many cases, Cannon said, counties didn’t lose as much money because they simply shifted the tax burden to residents and small businesses.
-- Cannon said timber is a crop and should be treated like one. States that tax timber differently are simply wrong, he said.
-- “If you don’t believe timber is a crop, then you can tax it in other ways like Washington does,” Cannon said.

‘THIS IS EXPLOITATION’
-- A wisp of smoke from a burning pile of logging debris swirled into the fog drift above the jagged hills behind Falls City, home to some of the nation’s most productive timberlands.
-- At each bend in the rocky logging road, Jerry Franklin’s voice rose. Oregon has become a case study for what can happen when state leaders fail to regulate the logging style practiced by investment companies, said Franklin, who is one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-known forest scientists.
-- “This is not stewardship,” Franklin said, pointing to clear-cuts down to skinny stumps, sprayed over with herbicides, dessicated brown plants and streams without a single tree along the banks. “This is exploitation.”
-- Franklin doesn’t object to logging. He and Norm Johnson, another forest scientist with whom he works closely, have drawn the ire of environmental groups for supporting more logging on federal lands, including certain types of clear-cutting.
-- But this, Franklin said, is different.
-- Douglas fir trees, which can live for centuries, are cut after only about 40 years, resulting in lower-quality wood that is worth less. The shorter timetable forces cutting across more acres to produce the same volume, but fewer workers to log and process the wood.
-- At 83, Franklin is older than most of the Douglas firs now growing in Oregon

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-- “They’re wasting it,” Franklin said, his tone matching that of a Sunday preacher, as he looked at clear-cut Weyerhaeuser land. “The incredible capacity of these forests to produce incredible volumes of high-quality wood is wasted. It’s criminal.
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-- In reports to investors, Weyerhaeuser says Hans Radtke said he saw the loss for counties coming. . Weyerhaeuser clear-cuts