Toadies Galore, with Bloodhounds
In the Oregon governor’s race, all could come down to the abortion question. In 2017, Oregon lawmakers made the right to access an abortion a state law but every year since has seen efforts to chip away at that law.
Tina Kotek, the Democrat, would protect access to abortion options. So would the independent, Betsy Johnson. The Republican, Christine Drazan, considers Oregon abortion laws to be extreme and would sponsor legislation to limit third trimester abortions, for starters.
Kotek would keep in place the current policies which include helping women from other states to come to Oregon for the procedure. Johnson would end that help, feeling that Oregon tax dollars should only be spent on Oregonians. Drazan would likely limit state funding of abortions that aid either.
In a state with a sharp divide between urban and rural voters, this is a race to watch. The four largest cities are Democratic and they outnumber the rural voters. Most of Oregon’s land area is Republican but they’re thinly populated. Voters in several Eastern Oregon counties would like to secede from the state and become part of Republican Idaho.
Oregon Republicans have been the minority party for the past three decades. Before that, many notable Republican lawmakers here were quite moderate on key issues. Longtime US Senator Mark Hatfield is a good example as he was known for vetoing war efforts. Former Senator Bob Packwood was pro-choice on the abortion question.
In recent years, Republican legislators have been using the tactic of fleeing the legislative chambers to prevent a quorum so no bills can be voted on in their absence. Betsy Johnson - previously a Democratic legislator - is giving the hard sell that only she can bridge the party divide. It’s possible that she’ll split the votes of Democrats, which could hand the election to Drazan.
While I can’t well define the accuracy of the pollsters who’ve been gauging this race, the current trends indicate it favors the Republican, though all three are within 5 points of each other.
My take: GOP funders, tired of losing by wide margins, are helping fund Johnson’s campaign. Their hope is the Dem vote will be split so Drazan can win.
But Drazan does not follow in the footsteps of past Republican moderates. As the minority leader of the Oregon House of Reps, she led the efforts at quorum denial, leaving the state and hiding with her fellow Republicans. She has a lifetime score of 20% from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and is endorsed by Oregon Right to Life. She favors lowering taxes (note: we have no sales tax here), eliminating business regulations, increasing funding for police and eliminating the policies of the current governor that were designed to limit global warming.
To my fellow Oregonians: this is your red alert race.
Also, be aware of the new Cedar Creek Fire. It was caused by lightning, covers about 500 acres, and is located 18 miles east of Oakridge. We’re seeing patches of smoke drift from it today in the Eugene-Springfield metro area.
The US Senate voted 95-1 to add Sweden and Finland to NATO. Their desire to join grew markedly precisely because of the war against Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin, as he seeks to rebuild the USSR empire.
Who was the lone Senator voting against? Why, it’s that Missouri Senator hightailing-it-away from the Capitol insurrectionists that he was fist-pumping in solidarity with moments before. Josh Hawley is still running away … from basically everyone.
Be sure to buy his forthcoming book about manliness. No, I’m not kidding about the book he wrote. It’s called ‘Manhood: The Masculine Virtues Americans Need’. But you might have to run for months to catch up to him at the book signing.
Meanwhile WNBA star Britney Greiner (who made the seriously stupid mistake of forgetting to unpack her THC vape cartridges before flying into Russia as it was ramping up for war) has now been sentenced to 9 years in a Russian prison.
However, rather than over-emphasizing a mistake which lacked any criminal intent, it’s far more important to recognize this reality: any country in the world, any state in the US that is still criminalizing cannabis is stupider. The War on Marijuana has been a costly error, a waste of energy for police and the courts, but useful for authoritarians to marginalize and disenfranchise groups of people. Cannabis has many medical uses, especially for pain management since it lacks the negatives of almost every other pain management treatment.
Tobacco is far worse. Alcohol beverages are far worse. Greiner faces such a long sentence because Putin is a brute and an asshole, not because her vape cartridges endangered anyone.
And every governor or legislature in the US who still jails people for cannabis are brutes and assholes too. They do it to control and marginalize people not to protect public safety.
No, a loudmouth hater who provokes hatred and violence doesn’t deserve much attention. Be that Father Coughlin, David Duke, Rush Limbaugh, or the current hate promoter who wields InfoWars.
After the families lost 6 and 7 year old children in the murderous Sandy Hook school shooting, this pile of mutant testosterone caused them to be terrorized by his hateful listeners with his claim that the murder of 26 people was faked.
They’ve sued in response and his trial is becoming more of a clown show than anyone expected. Among its features:
1) One of his attorneys flipped off an attorney for the parents.
2) He aired a segment that included a picture of his judge on fire.
3) One of his attorneys sent a database trove containing all of the loudmouths text messages over a 2 year period. And then neglected to have it set aside under attorney-client privilege. Those text messages prove that he committed perjury.
4) InfoWars has filed for bankruptcy in an effort to avoid paying for his crimes, since he is clearly going to lose his case.
Yesterday, the online mockery of this steroidal addict mess was global, if not interstellar. But I reserve my harsher criticism for his tens of thousands of listeners who buy into his retinue of obviously fake conspiracies. Were they fed paint chips as children or did their mothers drink rotgut wine throughout their pregnancies?
After direct observation of his courtroom behavior and his blatant perjury, I’m pretty sure most of his followers will continue to take his word for gospel.
That’s an amazing array of brain-damaged people but it finally proves to the non-believers that there is, in fact, a universal Lead. (In the name of the solder, the paint chip and the holy fishing sinkers. Amen.)
Which leads to the most important news, the ongoing investigation of the January 6th committee.
What’s not so visible to those not closely monitoring its work: they’ve already interviewed more than a thousand people. Under oath.
What is visible from all that testimony: The allegations of some of these witnesses. Donald Trump shredded and flushed documents down the toilet. His chief-of staff, Mark Meadows, burned documents in a White House fireplace. The Secret Service, NSA staff and Pentagon officials destroyed records of months or years of text messages. There appears to be a broad-scale cover-up going on.
But some witnesses have already testified about emails going back and forth between themselves and people at the White House around the date of the insurrection. And lots of this data has been passed on to the Justice Department and to at least one seated grand jury.
It is quite likely that text messages received from the Secret Service, Pentagon and NSA by some of the witnesses, or from attorneys like Giuliani (those who have had their phones seized) still have some of the important text messages that those entities have deleted at their end.
Add to that the 2 year database from Alex TestosterJones’ phone that his attorney sent to the Sandy Hook lawyer, as it’s very likely he’s sent a few texts to White House principals over the past two years.
The January 6 committee has issued fresh subpoenas to Cippolini and other legal advisers. They keep digging closer to Trump now. And the Dept of Justice is following up closely behind. As are state investigations.
If this coverup exists throughout these multiple intel and police and defense agencies, that shows the breadth of what Trump tried to do: putting in Trump toadies who will follow his orders - no matter what the laws are - and help deploy a massive coverup effort at the end. (I think this should include the Postmaster General whose actions gave the initial impression that the Post Office would be used to interfere with mailed in ballots. Might wanna grab his phone too.)
And it was only a little over a week ago that Trump said that if he runs and wins in 2024, he intends to fire thousands of federal employees and replace them with loyalists. For what purpose? It sure seems like ‘to cover-up way way more crimes.’
So when you hear Trump or any of his mooks and toadies mention the ‘Deep State’ recognize that his entire team practices projection all the time. If they say ‘Stop the Steal’ it means they are the ones trying to steal. If they say ‘Dems are pedophiles’ it means the Republicans are active pedophiles. So their claim of a Deep State is really their effort to create one.
Government agencies and cabinet departments typically practice neutrality so they can advise leaders of both parties after transfers of power. More and more, it looks like Trump appointments aren’t chosen to represent the best interests of the country. They’re chosen to protect Trump from having his crimes revealed.
And based on the visible actions of the committee and other investigators, their coverup efforts appear to be incompetent too.
The bloodhounds are closing in.
This seems apropos.