THE AVIATION INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IN OREGON
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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."
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If you want to e-mail me "comments" use my Yahoo back up e-mail address russdondero@yahoo.com Facts not fiction on universal gun background checks
"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
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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"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.orgThe Daily Kos
dailykos.com
Blue Oregon
blueoregon.com
americanobserver
"Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government when it deserves it."
- Mark Twain
A RAD rhetorical question - Were Madison & Marx "Marxists"?
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...
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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!
The panic is a measure of how deluded public discourse has become.
Opinion Columnist
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 country. I 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 Instagram. His latest book is "Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope." @NickKristof • Facebook
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.
Steven T. Wax
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.
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!
-- 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.
-- 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.----------------------------------
-- 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.
-- 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.”
-- “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.