Life, such as it is, with the Trumpandemic

Our Dear Leader

With the coronavirus not going away anytime soon and with the economy cratering to Great Depression levels, we might as well call this age the Trumpandemic era.

Since Trump and FOX News have blamed President Obama for COVID-19, it's quite obvious that their deception by projection has failed spectacularly.

Most Americans agree with Obama that the Trump administration's response to the pandemic is an "absolute chaotic disaster."

Well said.

Under Trump's "leadership," many Americans won't wear protective masks because Trump won't don one.

Well, two men attacked a Target security worker and broke his arm because he asked them to wear a mask. 

There are stories across the country where people wearing a mask in public are harassed by others not wearing masks.

So much for a national calamity to bring us together. We can thank Trump for that.

He thrives on divisiveness no matter the cost to anyone or anything but his bottom line.

So far, on the evening of May 13, 2020, there are more than 85,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. and nearly 1.5 million cases. We're No. 1 by a mile.

The unemployment rate is nearly 15 percent.

Schools may not re-open until late autumn.

Sheltering-in-place orders could last through summer.

From the beginning, the U.S. acted like a Third World nation unable to provide personal protective equipment to nurses and doctors dealing with COVID-19 patients.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration rejected an offer to manufacture millions of N95 masks in America.

That's because they never believed what was happening in China or Italy would ever affect the U.S.

This is what we get when Americans elect anti-government Republicans to run the government. They run it into the ground.

Trump dismissed COVID-19 well into March. 

In January he said: "we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

On February 27 he said, “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

Trump referred to the coronavirus as the Democrats' "new hoax," after he was acquitted in the Senate of being a traitor to his country.

And, who could forget the classic Trump musing about injecting disinfectant into humans to combat the virus.

But, he has so many unforgettable lines.

With his administration failing to ramp up testing for COVID-19, Trump said, "I don't take responsibility at all."

To be fair, Trump did say in late March, "I'm a cheerleader for the country."

Trump won't wear a mask, but he apparently will wave pom-poms at the sick and dying.

Rah-rah, it's the Trumpandemic.

Hey COVIDiots, vote by mail

LA Times

Wisconsin voters in the time of COVID-19

That includes you, Wisconsin, you Trump-loving cheese-heads.

And, every other shit-hole state practicing voter suppression to maintain Republican control of the country.

In this pandemic age, it makes zero sense to force voters to stand in line for hours to possibly infect scores of other citizens with the dreaded COVID-19 virus.

That's exactly what you get from Republicans: no sense.

They continually throw up roadblocks to enfranchisement because they know that when more people vote the less they like Republican ideas or candidates.

In Oregon, the first state to enact statewide vote-by-mail more than 20 years ago, the results rock the vote. We have more citizens participating in democracy and consistently have some of the highest voter turnout numbers in the country. Also, there is nearly zero voter fraud, which is a canard conjured up by the GOP. In fact, the only widespread voter fraud occurred in 2018 with absentee ballots in North Carolina by Republicans.

Washington, Colorado, Hawaii and Utah eventually followed Oregon's lead in statewide vote-by-mail. At least another 21 states have a hodgepodge of absentee balloting.

This confusing patchwork of voting options demands a federal response to provide guidance and consistency in voting for president.

Yet, we have Oregon's lone Republican representative, Greg Walden - 2nd Dist., claiming that it would be "a recipe for disaster" to have all states vote by mail.

What a goddamn liar.

He knows that in the 1990s, Oregon struggled to get out timely results because about half of voters requested absentee ballots while the other half voted in person. (Wisconsin won't know its results from Tuesday's primary until next week because of this type of setup.)

Naturally, Republicans still had some clout in the Oregon Legislature last millennium and resisted attempts to allow statewide vote-by-mail. Thankfully, voters overwhelmingly (69 percent to 31 percent) approved vote-by-mail in 1998, which ended the absentee/vote-in-person ballot chaos.

Since then, Democrats have won super-majorities in the state Legislature and only two Republicans have won statewide office because voters know they're out of touch with reality.

In that time, Oregon moved away from its longtime timber-based economy to a more diversified one that yielded its lowest unemployment rate ever during President Obama's era. That rate improved marginally under Trump, but those numbers are now gone with the broken wind thanks to the Mango Mussolini's initial dismissal of the coronavirus.

If we ever expect this country to rise above its white-supremacist origins and its current representation by a minority of racists, we must expand voting access to all citizens old enough to vote.

Hey, America, vote by mail. You'll be glad you did.

The 'Great Wall' of America

Monoliths to fear, vanity and racism

In 2,500 years, will visitors to North America take trips to the border with Mexico to marvel at the mighty "wall" built there in the early 21st Century?

Not likely.

The Great Wall of China can be viewed from space. People can walk on top of it. They can take picture postcards from it.

The current U.S. barrier with Mexico is a hodgepodge of slats, walls and wires that has all the architectural bearing of a junkyard fence.

Trump's "national emergency" declaration to continue building a barrier along the border with Mexico will not stop illegal immigration and isn't even necessary. So, let's spend billions we don't have on something we don't need. Or as humorist Andy Borowitz wrote: "Nation with Crumbling Bridges and Roads Excited to Build Giant Wall."

Despite Trump's repeated assurances, Mexico won't pay for the wall.

It's likely, though, that illegal immigrants will do the actual work because almost all "legal" Americans don't want to work that hard.

Also, we don't believe in permanence in the USA. We build things and tear them down when they're about 40 years old. We know that nothing lasts forever, so why even try. That's the American spirit.

The other American spirit is a fear and/or disrespect of people who don't look white.

Well, we like them only if they pick the fruit in the fields, clean the hotel rooms at the resorts and make Mexican food in the restaurants and then go out of sight and out of mind.

Coincidentally, some Trump-backing farmers are struggling because they can't get enough migrant workers to tend to their fields and crops.

It appears that those farthest from the southern border are most in favor of a wall. In other words, those areas that are the whitest fear the brown ones the most.

But, for all intents and purposes, the wall was built years ago.

With the the help of Fox News, Republicans erected walls between Americans over things like reason and reality; science and truth; fact and fiction.

It doesn't really matter if more slats get erected along the southern border with Mexico.

The wall is already built. We are divided from each other.

And no one will be able to see a trace of any of it in 2,000 years.

Oregon stays true blue

All the national stories about how Democrat Kate Brown was in trouble of losing to a generic Republican in the progressive state of Oregon were dead wrong.

Less than a minute after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Brown had cruised to re-election according to numbers on the state's election website.

Even the state's largest daily newspaper, The Oregonian, which hammered away at Brown for the last three-plus years and did not endorse her, was forced to call the race shortly after 8 p.m.

In fact, most of the newspapers endorsed her main rival, Republican Knute Buehler of Bend. Obviously, no one pays attention to what a newspaper says these days because so few citizens subscribe to a daily paper.

Even cable TV ads are having less influence than they once had.

All the millions spent on negative advertising failed to persuade voters to Buehler's side. This article may help to explain why.

Buehler, who campaigned as a pro-choice centrist, raised $18.5 million to Brown's $17 million. At least $2.5 million of Buehler's haul came from Phil Knight. And yet all that money given to Buehler's campaign was like pissing into the wind. Evidently, Oregon Republicans like the sensation.

Brown flushed Buehler down, 50 percent to 44 percent.

Hey, Oregon Republicans, until you ditch the anti-government rhetoric and your neanderthal policies, you will always lose the governorship and most of the seats in Congress. Stop wasting money on losers.

Oregon is a true-blue state.

From land-use to bottle redemption to Death with Dignity laws, Oregon has led the nation. Hopefully, the Democrats will gain super majorities in the Legislature so that more progressive policies will be enacted.

The common-sense voters in the Beaver State also rejected draconian statewide measures by sizable margins.

In spite of the millions spent by Coke and Pepsi to cloak their measure as a "no tax on groceries" proposal, Oregonians clearly saw it was a "no tax on soda" initiative. It was getting crushed by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin.

The anti-abortion crowd tried again with a measure of "no public funds for abortion" and, as expected, were clobbered again by a 64 percent to 36 percent margin.

The anti-immigrant rhetoric from Trump and most Republicans was totally repudiated in this state. Oregon became a sanctuary state 30 years ago and voters rejected an attempt to end that status by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin.

The anti-government crowd in this state tried to limit the Legislature's ability to raise revenue. That measure was whipped by a 65 percent to 35 percent margin.

After this election, maybe more Republicans will move out of state to regressive areas of the country. Wouldn't that be nice.

The sun also powers

Solar fields on eastern edge of Bend

With recent news that California will mandate all new homes include solar power, it's worth noting how affordable solar power has become.

Solar energy is now 50 percent cheaper than coal, the former gold standard of cheap energy.

Also, the solar industry employs more workers than coal, wind or nuclear energy combined.

Across the globe, from Australia to India to Germany, solar is causing headaches for the entrenched fossil fuel industries.

With China leading the solar revolution, the Trump administration is doubling down on coal and offshore drilling, even though more Republicans back renewable energy than coal.

With Tesla Powerwall batteries, which are designed to store solar energy and are coming soon to Home Depot, this country isn't counting on Trump to lead anyone anywhere.

Even in Central Oregon, solar fields have proliferated in the last couple of years.

It's about time.

This region brags about all the sunshine it gets, in comparison to western Oregon, but, until now has done little to capitalize on this solar energy revolution.

Central Oregon cities should join California in mandating that new homes be solar energy self-sufficient.

In fact, the whole state should flex its progressive street cred and mandate it by 2025.

Not only is it good for the planet, it's good for the pocketbook.

Also, the less reliant we are on natural gas or oil, the less likely we are to fund fracking-induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, or terrorism from the Middle East or election meddling from Russia.

City of Bend's septic-sewer extortion

The Bend City Council is expected this summer to pass a motion to smack 599 southeast Bend homes with a $50,000 sewer bill - each.

It's expected to cost every homeowner a minimum of $500 per month.

As a result, many southeast Bend residents in Desert Woods or Kings Forest subdivisions will be forced out of their homes. They'll likely have to sell their homes at a reduced price. Call it a gift to the real estate cartel in Bend.

Of course, nowhere else in Bend has the city added $50,000 to the cost of an existing home.

The city says it is forced to do so for a variety of reasons. The state mandates that any home with a septic system within 300 feet of a sewer line must connect to the sewer if their septic system fails.

The city recently completed the Southeast Interceptor sewer line that runs through Kings Forest and Orion Greens. By doing so, any home within 300 feet of this sewer line much connect to it if their septic system fails. This could result in someone, living 290 feet away, having to pay the exorbitant cost - more than $100,000, of running a sewer line down the street to their home.

So, in order to avoid one house close to the sewer line paying a much smaller price than one house farther away, the city wants all households to agree to a more equitable solution. The city wants the 599 houses to share, 50-50, the public cost of the sewer installation. The private costs of each home to connect from the house to the sewer line is all on the homeowner.

Well, the city's extortion attempt is wrong.

Twenty years ago, Bend residents brought this problem on themselves when they forcibly annexed these southeast subdivisions. The residents in these subdivisions voted against annexation but were overwhelmed by the vast majority of Bend residents at the time.

The city knew then that it would eventually have to face this problem of adding these homes to the sewer system. Yet, the city set aside no money until last July to help pay for the forced sewer expansion in southeast Bend.

In addition, the city chose to run the Southeast Interceptor through these subdivisions. It did so largely to relieve a stressed system caused by NorthWest Crossing and other westside developments.

The city also wants to decommission many of the sewer-pumping stations that now exist and occasionally fail throughout the city.

Because of decades of poor planning, Bend has far more sewer-pumping stations than any city in Oregon.

The city also notes that there are no federal or state grants available for this southeast sewer project.

Those types of funds dried up in the early 1980s, they said.

Coincidentally, there was a huge federal tax cut for the rich in the early 1980s followed by two more this century. As a result, there will never be any federal money available for any public infrastructure projects again unless Congress passes legislation to do so.

If all else fails, the city should be like the federal government and just borrow the roughly $30 million cost of the project. The city can get better rates than individual citizens, particularly through the Dept. of Environmental Quality.

Bend appointed an advisory committee to come up with solutions of how to pay for the sewer project in southeast Bend.

Naturally, the city mayor and other councilors said from the beginning that the city would not pay more than 50 percent of the public cost.

Well, the advisory committee is likely to recommend to council that residents not be saddled with more than $25,000 each in total debt for public and private sewer costs. The committee will likely recommend that the monthly cost to a homeowner be about $250 per month.

In order to make up the difference, the advisory panel will likely recommend a $5 monthly fee to all sewer users in Bend, both business and residential. It seems like a modest amount considering that the residents in the affected subdivisions didn't vote to join the city and had no choice in where the Southeast Interceptor was installed.

But, advisory committees are just that. They have no clout and really no say in the outcome. They exist primarily as political cover for the council, which can turn around and say, "hey, we engaged the public and gave them their due."

Well, it's another reason why residents sour on local government. They don't listen to their citizens.

'Thoughts and prayers' save the day again

This cartoon was prompted by Sandy Hook massacre in 2012

Or do they?

After yet another mass shooting at a school, NRA-backed Republicans showed how much they cared about the massacre by offering their "thoughts and prayers" for the victims.

But, does it depend on what thoughts, what prayers?

If the prayers are to Allah, Buddha or Ra, do they count?

Or, do the prayers have to be only to Jesus or God?

And, what thoughts are allowable?

Can someone have thoughts that this country finally join the developed world in curbing access to military-grade armaments?

Or, are the only "thoughts" that count are the ones that hope this anti-gun outrage blows over like in all the other mass shootings?

Well, I think we know the answer to these questions. It doesn't matter.

"Thoughts and prayers" mean "tough luck." Wrong place. Wrong Time. Keep Calm and Carry On.

The GOP/NRA knows there is one right that is above all others: It is the right to kill schoolchildren with an assault rifle.

All those who support the GOP/NRA are complicit in all these mass killings.

The GOP/NRA response to this latest outrage will likely call for more gun ownership, not less. They'll say that if those high-school victims had their own AR-15s, they wouldn't be dead today.

It wouldn't be surprising if the GOP/NRA introduced legislation similar to "motor-voter" registration laws that Democrats pass to enfranchise more potential voters.

The GOP/NRA version, let's call it the motor-revolver law, would require all those who apply for a driver's license must show proof of gun ownership before getting approved to drive a car.

Nevermind that you can't even rent a car in this country until you turn 25.

The alleged shooter in Florida on Ash Wednesday/Valentine's Day was all of 19 and bought his AR-15 legally last year.

I once had a discussion with a gun-fetishist who claimed that the murder of 20 first-graders in Sandy Hook was a small price to pay to enshrine the 2nd Amendment and its right to bear arms.

This is where we are as a nation. We now tolerate a school shooting every 60 hours.

Even the Supreme Court denied the District of Columbia, and by extension all jurisdictions, the ability to regulate gun ownership. In other words, the Supreme Court said that the right to kill with a gun supersedes the right not to be killed by a gun.

This is called American "exceptionalism."

No developed nation, except the U.S., allows the relentless carnage caused by men firing assault rifles or handguns.

And, no "thoughts" or "prayers" will ever change that.

Oregon votes for healthcare tax increase

Oregonians this week voted overwhelmingly, by a 62 percent to 38 percent margin, to increase taxes for Medicaid.

In the era of Trump, where it's fashionable to spit on those less fortunate, Oregonians emphatically said bullshit to that by backing Measure 101.

Over that past 40 years, Americans have been conditioned to believe that tax cuts cure all ills. We're told that a giant tax cut like the corporate one that Congress barely passed in December, boosts the economy, reduces the deficit, decreases income inequality and reverses male pattern baldness.

We now know, thanks to Reagan's slash-and-burn tax cut of the 1980s, that the opposite actually occurs. Yes, bald men still roam the streets of this land.

The so-called "trickle-down" economics leaves us with a national deficit so impossibly large that it will eventually ruin the country. China owns us now.

Because we pay less federal taxes, we have crumbling infrastructure, unaffordable college education and income inequality the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Just three Americans, Bezos, Buffett and Gates, are worth more than the combined assets of 50 percent of their countrymen and women.

Worldwide, just 42 people own the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the population.

No wonder the Doomsday Clock is now just two minutes 'til midnight, or the hour of reckoning.

In Oregon, a 2016 report showed that the state ranks 29th in income inequality, with the Bend-Redmond corridor the worst metro area in the state.

And yet, Deschutes County, home to Bend and Redmond, voted 54 percent to 46 percent for Measure 101 on Tuesday. That is a profound shift from historical patterns here.

Naturally, the local daily newspaper along with the state's largest newspaper repeatedly urged Oregonians to vote "no" on the measure. This just shows how out of touch they are with their readerships and why they are hemorrhaging subscribers.

This county narrowly voted for Trump (46 percent) over Clinton (43 percent) in 2016, although Bend went with Hillary.

Deschutes joins seven other counties in Oregon that favored Trump in 2016 and said yes to Measure 101.

Even southern Oregon's Jackson County, a conservative stronghold, backed the tax increase.

This could bode well for Democrats in the November election. Perhaps even Greg Walden, the GOP congressman who represents the huge, rural 2nd District in Oregon, could be vulnerable this time around.

Wouldn't that be sweet.

Let the anti-Trump movement flourish.

Good riddance 2017

A woman's pickup truck in Houston, Texas

The year of the rooster will go down as one of the worst, politically, in U.S. history.

If the rooster crows a wake-up call, let's hope that Americans were roused from their slumber over what constitutes a decent human being.

Donald Trump continues to debase the office of the presidency, not to mention manhood itself, on a daily basis. It should be enough to alarm most Americans.

Thankfully, Trump's approval ratings are the worst for a first-year president in modern American history.

Evidently, Americans don't credit Trump for the humming economy or the big jump in the stock market. President Obama handed Trump a rising economy and one of the longest sustained growths in the stock market's history.

With tweet after embarrassing tweet, along with his compulsive lying, Trump confounded most Americans. He obviously was pandering to his ever-shrinking base of sycophants who truly are deplorable. And, racist, too.

In a year of sexual harassment allegations that brought the firing of many high profile men, it's ironic that the worst sexual predator, "grab 'em-by-the-pussy" Trump, still prowls the Oval Office.

We can only hope that he ends up in jail by this time next year.

Robert Mueller's investigation so far paints a picture of collusion between Trump and Russia to subvert the American electoral process.

When Trump finally met the Russian despot, Vladimir Putin, it was considered his "six-month performance review," by Stephen Colbert.

That may be too kind.

Andrew Sullivan recently wrote a piece about Trump titled, "Putin's First Year in the White House."

Obviously, Trump is "Putin's Puppet."

Trump is also known as the "Mango Mussolini," "Commander in Tweet," and "Hair Fuhrer."

One thing he is definitely not: leader of the free world.

He's antagonized our allies to the point that they no longer look to the U.S. for any guidance or support.

The over-arching story, though, is Trump's ties to the gangsters running Russia.

Consider that Trump's former campaign chairman was indicted for "conspiracy against the United States," among other charges.

Other Trump associates have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and are cooperating with Mueller's investigation.

This hasn't stopped congressional Republicans from fawning over Trump like predators themselves.

It's one giant sleaze-fest.

This past year also brought us "alternative facts" from the Trump administration and its enablers at Fox News.

Ironically, the Republican-leaning Rasmussen Reports, revealed that the winner of Trump's "First Annual Fake News Trophy" was ... drum roll, please ... Fox News.

Of course, to anyone with a brain, Fox News is to news what Pravda is to truth.

In other words, we live in a world where wrong is right.

This year, thanks to Trump, "white supremacists" were given a platform to air their depraved grievances.

And, by claiming that he alone made it safe to say "Merry Christmas," Trump brought shame to the holiday season.

But, Trump's real first-year legacy was dismantling the progress the country made under President Obama.

Trump's Cabinet secretaries were tasked with destroying the departments they manage, from the environment to energy to education.

One bright spot of the year occurred when NBC was forced to clarify a report that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump "a moron."

NBC obliged and said Tillerson actually called Trump "a fucking moron."

Then, Trump's national security adviser referred to Trump as "an idiot" and "a dope."

This is what the Electoral College gave us.

Any country that puts an "idiot, dope and fucking moron" in the White House deserves whatever troubles it may face.

Trump is pining for a nuclear confrontation with North Korea.

He's provoking Muslims in the hopes that terrorists attack this country again.

Trump's contempt for Hispanics means that the most productive members of our society will be kicked out.

This year showed that what makes America "exceptional" is our tolerance for the lowest common denominator in Donald Trump.

Cock a doodle doo.

Totality eclipsed expectations

Climber at Smith Rock. Check out this video

2017, a year considered deplorable in many ways, had one brief shining moment.

The total eclipse of the sun revealed, in stunning fashion, the relative insignificance of life on earth.

Like many in Central Oregon, I viewed the total eclipse on Aug. 21 as more hype than substance.

Who wanted to deal with the traffic, the crowds, the heat and the smoke to see totality up near Madras, about 45 miles north of Bend.

If my brother Mike and his wife Margot hadn't decided to come up from California, we would've been content with our 99.4 percent eclipse of the sun in Bend.

But we made the early morning drive to Smith Rock State Park. Our only traffic being the signals on the north end of Bend.

Miraculously, the smoke from month-long fires, cleared substantially for the only time that week.

It was chilly, about mid-50s. We found a spot along the western rim overlooking the Phoenix Buttress.

As the sun rose, the temps climbed and we could take off our light coats.

We chatted with a couple from London, Richard and Helen, who came specifically to Central Oregon to catch the eclipse. This was their third total eclipse, but the first one they could actually see because clouds obscured their other views of totality.

As the moon started to pass in front of the sun, we put on our special, welder's grade glasses and caught what looked like Pac-Man in the sky.

As totality neared, the temperature dropped dramatically and we had to put on our coats again.

It was getting dimmer by the minute.

Then, from atop Morning Glory Wall and Picnic Lunch Wall, hikers and climbers started a whooping sound and it echoed throughout the canyon.

Then we all whooped it up and it felt like a scene from Planet of the Apes.

The London couple laughed.

Richard told us to look west toward Mount Jefferson. When that goes dark, look back towards the sun and the total eclipse would be again.

Sure enough, that is exactly what happened.

It wasn't totally dark, but it was unlike anything I've seen. It was eerie, like a live sci-fi movie scene.

The totality, though, was spectacular. We had to take off our glasses to see it.

Unfortunately, no images I've seen captured what we saw. It looked like a multi-colored aurora borealis dancing around the corona. Even this YouTube video failed to capture our experience at Smith Rock.

When the sun peaked out again, we were nearly blinded by the light and rushed to put on our glasses. It also got warmer again and life slowly returned to normal.

It was sad to see the eclipse end as people started leaving immediately, to beat the traffic.

It didn't seem right to just dash off after witnessing such an astonishing celestial event, so we hung around and heard others say it was better than they thought it would be.

Exactly.

Some see what they want to in cosmic coincidences. Could recent disasters like hurricanes, fires, flooding, earthquakes and Trump be linked to the total eclipse of the sun?

Nah.

During totality, it was easy to see how inconsequential we all are. Our problems, no matter how big or small, don't amount to a hill of beans in this galaxy. Rather, this globe is just a speck of dust in the universe.

It's something worth pondering at Christmastime.

A rerun that's one too many

Now that Republicans have struggled to do the one thing that they're capable of doing, cut taxes for the rich, it is time for the rest of us to ignore the taxman, too.

We've seen this movie too many times before.

How does slashing your income while escalating your spending lead to financial solvency.

It doesn't. It leads to the massive deficits we enjoy today.

When Reagan cleaved income taxes for the rich in the early 80s, he also jacked up spending on the military to ridiculous levels.

It failed then to do much for the economy. Stable oil prices by the mid-80s resurrected the economy of the U.S. and much of the world. Still, we had the worst drop in the stock market's history under Reagan.

When George W. Bush hacked taxes for the rich earlier this millennium, while also starting two unfunded wars, the economy did not go through the roof.

In fact, it collapsed in 2008.

Now, Trump and congressional Republicans have rushed through another massive tax cut for the rich while increasing spending for never-ending wars.

The "tax holiday" granted to corporations who stash trillions overseas will likely do what the last tax holiday did in 2004. Corporations used their cash to buy out competitors, which resulted in 20,000 jobs lost.

Republicans do not care about jobs. They don't really give a damn about this country.

Republicans care about winning elections, cutting taxes, satisfying their donor base and enraging Democrats. That's it.

Oh, and contrary to their constant whining when Obama was president, Republicans do not give a shit about the deficit.

And, they want free stuff. They want constant war, Social Security and Medicare while not having to pay for them.

What Reagan, Bush, Trump and congressional Republicans have taught the average American is that you, too, can increase your spending beyond your ability to ever pay it back.

Who cares. Just declare bankruptcy like Trump did multiple times and everything will be good.

The lesson learned in 2017 is this: You're a fool to pay off your debts. Also, don't file your taxes unless you're getting money back.

The government has no intention of ever meeting its debt obligations. Why should you.

State has no money to sink into OSU-Cascades

The Residential District is housing for faculty

More than a year after it opened with three buildings on a 10-acre campus, OSU-Cascades finally released a master plan this month.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Or in this case, the dam before the beaver.

It's no wonder the state legislature rejected the OSU leadership's request for $69 million earlier this year. Instead it offered $9 million in bonds for the branch campus on Bend's westside. At this rate of funding, it will be decades before it is even partially built out.

Now, the OSU brain trust wants just $38 million to partially fill a pumice pit and turn a demolition dump into a full-fledged university.

The state doesn't have the money OSU-Cascades wants.

Like other states, Oregon is getting out of the business of funding higher education. It's been a long-time goal of conservatives to de-fund higher education because they few most schools as swamps of liberalism. 

Oregon, though, does offer free tuition to some community college students.

But, the state's flagship universities, Oregon and OSU, who already have their own boards of trustees, will likely become completely privately funded by 2025, if not sooner.

The University of Oregon and OSU are planning on becoming private institutions by seeking multi-billion dollar endowments. Of course, they're also raising tuition and accepting more out-of-state students who pay significantly more than in-state students.

Meanwhile, high rollers in Central Oregon have raised $10 million for OSU-Cascades. While impressive, that sum won't buy many buildings, let alone much-needed parking spaces.

As enumerated before, OSU-Cascades allowed no public vote on the location of the campus. It chose the most-congested and most expensive area of town in which to build the school. Students can't afford to live anywhere near the campus. In fact, the new master plan shows housing for faculty.

If professors can't afford to live near the school, how can students?

As we embrace the era of privatization, fewer in-state students will be able to attend in-state "public" colleges or universities.

In the 1980s, the state contributed more than 70 percent toward the cost of running the state's colleges and universities. Today, it is less than 7 percent, thanks in large part to tax-cutting measures voted by Oregonians.

That's the spirit of our times: Cut taxes and expect money to still flow to public institutions. Having your cake and eating it, too.

It's like saying, "Okay, let's all take a pay cut and we'll all have more money at the end of the month!"

Isn't that insane?

Kansans destroyed their state with tax cuts and now Republicans are hell-bent on destroying the country with their current tax proposal.

Once it passes, and corporations get their big fat tax cuts, maybe they'll turn around and fund higher education. Uh, not really.

And yet, it won't be long before UO is re-named Nike University.

Maybe OSU in Corvallis can be called Reser Salsa University.

OSU-Cascades needs a local sugar daddy like Les Schwab Tires or Brooks Resources.

If it's Les Schwab, we can call OSU-Cascades, LSU.

The school's slogan could be: We Tread on You.

Trump won't be impeached

Trump greeted in Hawaii on his way to the Far East

Of course, I will always hope that Donald Trump is removed from office in total disgrace.

But, it's not likely to happen.

The Republican-dominated Congress will never impeach Trump no matter what he has done, may have done or will do that breaks any and all laws.

As Trump said during the presidential campaign last year, he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his poll numbers would go up.

In other words, no matter the outrage that Trump provokes, it simply does not matter.

Trump demonstrated during the campaign and continues to demonstrate in his Russian-tainted presidency that he is racist, immoral and the epitome of sleaze.

Oh, and Trump is a "fucking moron," according to his own secretary of state.

We're living in an upside-down world where there are alternative facts, constant lies and no leadership.

Reality, with its well-known liberal bias, is getting harder to grasp.

Yet, Trump's poll numbers continue to drop to unprecedented levels.

The infamous Steele dossier, with it's pee-pee tape revelations, has largely been corroborated.

Trump's cabinet is woefully inept. His political appointees are not interested in the departments they oversee.

At least nine of his associates have ties to Russia that they failed to disclose.

There are two indictments, one guilty plea and rumbles of more to come.

But, it will all be for naught.

Even if special counsel Robert Mueller proves that Trump himself colluded with the Russians to win the election, the GOP Congress will gnash its collective teeth and move on to raiding government coffers, destroying the environment and denying health care to millions.

Will it cause a constitutional crisis? Maybe, but Republicans do not care about the Constitution.

There is nothing anyone can do about it until the next presidential election. Next year's midterm elections aren't likely to give Democrats a working majority in Congress.

Unfortunately, even if Trump's approval rating is below 20 percent he could still win re-election, thanks to the Electoral College, the legacy from our slavery era.

Let's say the stock market crashes, the economy tanks and another major terrorist attack whacks the U.S.

Trump will just blame Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton and Trump's "deplorables" will nod in agreement like bobble-head dolls. Check out this story from Politico. The ending says it all.

In fact, Trump only caters to the "deplorables" in a rhetorical sense while shafting them through executive orders.

Trump is our "reality TV" president for a nation of streaming couch potatoes and video gamers.

Our only solace is that Trump will quit.

Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

The Price We Pay

If ...

... using an assault rifle to kill 58 and wound 500 concertgoers in Las Vegas, or using an assault rifle to kill 49 and injure 58 in a nightclub in Orlando, or using an assault rifle to murder 20 first graders and 6 educators in Newtown, or using any type of gun to kill a family in a domestic violence case is the price we pay for the right bear arms ...



Then ...

... isn't a football player kneeling for the national anthem, in a peaceful protest against police brutality, the price we pay for the right of free speech?

Which is worse?

What we learned from the Vietnam War

Apocalypse then ...

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."

-- George Bernard Shaw

That's not entirely true about the Vietnam War.

After our defeat, the military developed the ability to fight at night through night-vision goggles and infrared optics. 

The military also dramatically improved the accuracy of its bombs through satellite-guided missiles that turn unguided bombs

 ... Apocalypse now

into "smart" bombs.

We now have drones flying into battle.

In other words, we learned to kill much more efficiently and effectively.

Also, the advances in battlefield medical care during the Vietnam conflict substantially improved the rate of survival in subsequent conflicts. Granted, many of those lives are seriously compromised today.

After watching much of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick 10-day, 18-hour documentary, "The Vietnam War," it's clear that we learned little else from Vietnam.

In fact, we duplicated the fraudulent start of the Vietnam War in the Iraq War.

The Tonkin Gulf "attacks" gave President Johnson the pretext to dramatically escalate our involvement in Vietnam even though he and his advisers knew there were slim chances of ever winning the war. Our bombing in neighboring Cambodia helped destabilize the region and led to the murderous Khmer Rouge.

Likewise, George W. Bush used the mythical "weapons of mass destruction" to invade Iraq that ushered in unending war and destabilized the region further than it has been since World War II.

More importantly, we didn't care about the Vietnamese people then and we don't care about foreigners today.

Also, this country is as divided today as it was during the Vietnam War.

And, the Sixties were a tumultuous decade.

Predictably, the documentary has its detractors on the left and the right, from Americans and South Vietnamese.

This is what happens when you lose a war, particularly one where you won all the major battles.

The Vietnam War, though, was the culmination of our terribly misguided reaction to communism.

In the 1940s and '50s, Americans turned on each other over communism. We had so little faith in our own institutions that we jailed or ostracized people for having different points of view.

Now, communism needs no defense. It has failed as often as any corrupt, oppressive form of government.

The Korean War, the first test of the "domino theory," never truly ended and we're living with the consequences today. We had a chance to liberate the north, but we went too far and antagonized the Chinese who joined the conflict and pushed the UN forces back to the 38th parallel.

When Cuba, 90 miles from the USA, went communist, Americans started freaking out. Communism was going to take over the world!

Communism would take over in places that had no viable alternative.

North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh embraced communism because the U.S. didn't side with them in their war of independence from the French.

We picked the wrong side. We backed a corrupt regime in South Vietnam that did not have the full support of its people.

Vietnam War apologists claim that the military could have won if the politicians had let them.

Not exactly. Even the U.S. military has concluded that the defeat in Vietnam was substantially due to our military's mistakes. Add in the atrocities committed by American forces in My Lai and elsewhere, and you have the recipe for disaster.

The American military record speaks for itself. Since World War II, the U.S. military, in spite of the trillions spent and thousands of lives lost, has not had a clear-cut victory in any major conflict.

Some still maintain that the Vietnam War was a worthy cause.

No, it wasn't.

Vietnam, like Korea, was a proxy war that pitted the U.S. against the Soviets at first.

We fought in these far-flung places so that we, rather than the Soviets, could exploit these countries.

At the same time we were fighting totalitarian communism in Asia, we were supporting totalitarian dictatorships throughout the world.

The hypocrisy did not go unnoticed by many in this country or others abroad.

In the end, the dreaded communists won.

Did they treat the South Vietnamese people well? No, they didn't.

But, when two million people died in Cambodia under Pol Pot, it wasn't the Americans who came to their rescue, but the communist Vietnamese army that saved the day.

And, how do we treat Vietnam today? We get a lot of our clothes and shoes from there that are produced by their exploited workforce.

After the USSR imploded in 1989, China became the last major communist country. Naturally, we get most of our goods from China that are manufactured by ridiculously cheap labor.

If we truly detested communists, why do we import so much from them, which ends up supporting  their regimes?

Since at least the 1940s, the GOP has been the most strident anti-communist political party.

Ironically, due to the interference of the Russians and their despotic leader, Vladimir Putin,
we have the former KGB operative's hand-picked president, a Republican, in the White House today.

Rank-and-file Republicans do not care that former Soviets rigged our election. In fact, they are grateful to Putin that Hillary Clinton lost.

That's how far we have fallen from the days of the Vietnam War.

When will we ever learn

Sadly, we won't.

In took a little over a year for a new mass shooting to be crowned the worst ever in American history.

As always, the only voice that made any sense of the massacre in Las Vegas was The Onion, a satirical news website.

They trotted out their well-worn headline: 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

If fact, it occurs so frequently that it is astonishing that it attracts so much media coverage.

Guess it's a slow Monday.

This will be hot news for a few days and then it will die down as it always does, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

The White House says this is no time to talk about gun control in America. Obviously, to Republicans and the firearm-fetish crowd, there is no time to talk about gun control.

Not that it matters.

No laws on guns will pass unless it is to expand the use of firearms so that everyone has a gun at all times to thwart any other mass shooting. It wouldn't be surprising to see a motor-shooter law passed where, in order to get a driver's license, the applicant must show proof of gun ownership.

Evidently, more than 300 million guns in the hands of Americans are not enough.

The shooter in his Las Vegas hotel room "had at least 20 rifles, two on tripods at the windows, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition," an official told the New York Times.

Leave it to The Onion, again, to put this in perspective:

"NRA Says Mass Shootings Just The Unfortunate Price Of Protecting People's Freedom To Commit Mass Shootings"

In fact, the Supreme Court made such a ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. Of course, it wasn't worded that way but the end result is the same. The right to kill with guns supersedes the right to not be killed by guns.

For now, as they say, all we can do is pray for the victims.

And, count the days until the next mass shooting becomes the worst in American history.

Trump salutes Russian flag

Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. Nobody was fired. 

Okay, that headline is a bit of a stretch, but Donald Trump's foul words and disregard for the Constitution on display this past weekend mirrored a Russian tyrant rather than an American president.

Take a knee, Donald, you're obviously not in shape.

You were beaten badly over the weekend by NFL players, coaches, owners and fans.

Instead of one player kneeling during the National Anthem, hundreds did.

And, no player was fired.

You lost, bigly, Trump.

I haven't paid attention to the NFL for decades because I find the pro game boring, compared to college, and the games seem "fixed" much of the time because of all the gambling that goes on.

But, I tuned in Sunday to see what the response would be to Trump's trash-talking of NFL players and the NBA's Steph Curry.

Yes, there were some boos for players who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem, but overall, the fans showed up, cheered and the games went on as usual.

It was great, though, to see that Trump, the Great Divider, could actually unite black and white players along with the owners, who are mostly Republicans, against his tyrannical leadership.

Trump claims that race has nothing to do with it. Of course, like everything he says, that's a lie.

He's not just a white supremacist, as an ESPN personality said last week, he is a racist.

He's an equal opportunity offender, however, because he's also a sexist slob and goes out of his way to antagonize most Americans and people around the world.

Yes, Trump was playing to his dwindling base of mostly white supporters, many of whom are racist.

But, please media, this isn't populism, it's fascism. Call it what it is.

Some have suggested Trump was just trying to distract the press and public away from damaging disclosures from the Russia investigation.

I don't think he's that smart. He just likes to be the center of attention, no matter what is going on.

Puerto Rico is devastated by hurricane Maria. Trump says, what about me?

North Korea continues to threaten the world. Trump tweets insults that get headlines.

It's all about the Donald and no one else.

His so-called defense of the flag and National Anthem is as shallow as he is.

He doesn't give a damn about this country. That's why his campaign colluded with Russia. He's a traitor.

Sadly, many Americans don't care that he is.

Fear Ailes Trump

Trump and Ailes, a pair of sexual predators

It's mid-May and Donald Trump is still president in spite of his "bigly" efforts to get himself ousted.

If a Democrat acted as crazily as Trump has, he or she would have been jailed by now or dragged off to the funny farm in a strait-jacket.

Yet, thanks to Roger Ailes, the former Fox News fascist who croaked Thursday, Trump is still president.

Ailes' legacy is that Trump and other Republicans will always have staunch defenders at Fox News.

Ailes started Fox News in the mid-1990s for those intolerant, aging, white Americans who could no longer face the reality that the country was changing to something less white and more tolerant.

Fox News was created as the official channel of the Republican Party that felt all other media were biased against them.

Nevermind that most of this other media are owned by conservative corporations whose only goal is to make money. Many of the CEOs of these entities are Republicans themselves.

Fox News pitched their dubious narrative to older, white Americans that minorities, feminists, gays, Hollywood elites, non-Christians (who are all Democrats, by the way) were destroying their view of America.

Fox News peddles this political pornography and they have an audience addicted to it.

Trump tapped into that addiction to claim the electoral college victory in November.

Trump and Ailes had another thing in common: sexual predators. Ailes lost his job because of it, while Trump was elected in spite of it.

Ailes did such a masterful job in dividing this country that Trump supporters are completely blind to his outrageous behavior and actions of the past few weeks.

While listening to NPR shows that have Americans call in their opinions, it is absolutely astounding that so many of these people still defend Trump.

As Trump said during the presidential campaign, he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose any voters.

Fox News made it easy for many Americans to not believe the mainstream media. Yet, it's called mainstream because it represents a consensus of reality. But, as Stephen Colbert once noted, "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Fox News and Trump supporters don't buy the reality of his chaotic presidency because they consider it pushed by liberals.

Trump has lowered the bar of competency and decency so low that his supporters are willing to accept any behavior from him.

Well, that's not going to end well.

Ailes pathetic life ended in disgrace.

Trump faces the same fate.

Epic GOP fail: TrumpDon'tCare

Health care? Who needs it?

After winning the House, the Senate and the presidency, and, after whining for seven years about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), Republicans showed today how they would fix health care once and for all.

They did nothing.

Not even a floor vote.

No repeal. No replacement. No nothing.

Don "The Con" Trump, said last year that “from day one I’ve been talking about we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare from day one, we’re going to do it.”

Sixty-four days after "day one," he couldn't even get close to making a deal with fellow Republicans.

Call it "The Fart of the Deal."

What a stinker.

House Speaker Paul Ryan shoulders much of the blame, but Oregon's 2nd District congressman, Greg Walden, did his part to show how ineffective he can be.

The Republican House caucus is so diverse that it contains the tea-bagging faction and those slightly less extreme.

Such comity.

One side said the plan went too far and the other said it didn't go far enough.

In other words, the GOP bill didn't enrich the wealthy enough and it didn't screw over everyone else enough either.

Apparently, only 17 percent of Americans thought the GOP's R&R effort was worthwhile before Republicans decided not to vote on it.

What is truly shocking is that even with a huge tax cut for the rich included in the bill, Republicans still couldn't stomach it. They entered a Twilight Zone of their own creation.

Over the past half-dozen years, House Republicans spent their majority in Congress by voting more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare. They knew full well that their votes wouldn't matter because President Obama would never sign their bills.

Now that their votes matter, they said, "uh, nevermind, we were just kidding."

That is called Republican governance.

GOPers don't believe in the federal government and they run for office to prove it.

Meanwhile, they collect their paychecks and enjoy their deluxe health care coverage.

Don't throw money down OSU-Cascades' pits

OSU-Cascades aims to make its campus inaccessible to most students

Now that OSU-Cascades owns the former pumice pit next to its micro 10-acre campus and is on the verge of taking over a former demolition landfill, it now wants taxpayers to cough up $70 million to fill these holes in the ground.

That request doesn't include any buildings, professors or parking places.

The ex-pumice mine needs massive infill to make the land stable for building. The ex-landfill needs $50 million just for reclamation.

Oh, and the state budget deficit is approximately $1.6 billion for the current biennium, due mostly to health care and about 20 percent to the public employees retirement system.

Unlike the federal government, Oregon has to balance its budget every two years.

And, of course, raising taxes is impossible. There is no greater evil on the planet, according to Republicans.

So, most programs, agencies and services face varying degrees of cutbacks.

In this environment, of a booming state economy and the inability to raise taxes, the brain trust at OSU-C expects $70 million in non-existent state dollars to fill in holes in the ground.

Actually, they need to fill the holes in their heads first before begging others for money.

As noted before, OSU-C decided to build their campus without a master plan in the most expensive area of Bend, where there is no affordable housing for even OSU-C professors, let alone students.

The school was given land at Juniper Ridge where $70 million could go a long way towards fixing the traffic problems that a university would create on Bend's north end.

No, OSU-C wanted a 10-acre university where even students who are lucky enough to live on campus, can't park their cars on campus. The nearest the school wants students to park is about 3/4 miles away in an industrial area.

OSU-C better set aside a huge sum of money to build student housing on the edge of town and bus the students to school.

In essence, OSU-C doesn't really want students since they built the campus in the most inaccessible area of Bend and Central Oregon. Like most entities today, from Netflix to Amazon, they just want the student's, or their parent's, credit card number.

Stay home, just pay us, the university brain trust says. We want to live, work and play on the west side, and we want you to pay for it.