MaxRedline

Oregonians Got Attitude

According to pollster Adam Davis, Oregonians are increasingly negative, insular, ill-informed, skeptical of the media, anxious about the economy and worried about national and world events from disease to war.  Speaking yesterday at the Portland City Club, Davis wielded a broad brush, claiming that Oregonians don't know basic things, such as that the state has three branches of government and sends two Senators to serve in D.C.

This may or may not be the case, as the state has bent over backwards to chase good jobs out of the area while hoping to attract a "creative class" of 20-something baristas to live in condo studios while taking fixed rail or bicycles to get around.  These kids don't care about politics, and they don't need to know anything in order to vote for Democrats and higher taxes.

The rest of us are, in fact, rightly skeptical of the media because some 90% of them are registered Democrats and they long ago dropped any pretense of journalistic values.  As The Oregonian's own Jonathan Nicholas stated during an interview, he got into journalism in order to make a difference.  In other words, journalism in this state is largely leftist propaganda.

In other times, journalists objectively reported - or at least they tried to be as objective as possible.  The new crop has tossed objectivity into the toilet - they want to influence.  This means that they aren't actually practicing journalism at all, and so it's really no wonder that many Oregonians are skeptical of anything emanating from print or broadcast media.

That doesn't mean that long-time Oregonians are ill-informed; we simply garner news from a wider variety of sources.  Davis's claim  reflects the views of the new arrivals that the state has actively sought.  His polling underscores the idiocy of Oregon "leaders":  they have been successful in attracting hipsters who will automatically vote to keep Democrats in office, but the result of winning in that arena amounts to capitulation in the other arena - that of funding. 

Bringing in under-employed and under-involved hipsters by the truckload won't pay the bills.

Bill, Butt Out

A week or so after announcing a run for the job of Oregon governor, Bill Sizemore and his wife have been indicted for criminal tax evasion.  What is it with this guy, anyway?  Heck, they could have taken advantage of the recently-ended tax amnesty program, but they couldn't be bothered even with that.  Bill's just a pig for attention. The carpet salesman had some good points a few years ago, but he ran off track long ago.

The best thing this guy can do for the state is to sit down and shut up.  He's got no credibility in any quarter of the state.

Blagovich at least had some skills in the area of cronyism; Sizemore's inept in every respect.

Oregon: Jail For "Environmental Noncompliance"?

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger has assembled a new bureau, the Environmental Crimes Enforcement Unit.  This bureau will meet each week with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in order to determine who will be charged with environmental crimes.

Rather than facing civil penalties, as has been the case in the past, those charged by the agencies will face criminal prosecution.

All individuals falling into one (or more) of the following three categories are therefore subject to prosecution, regardless of their business’s size:

Those who are responsible for releases that cause potential public health risks;
Repeat violators, no matter the severity of the violations; and
Those who commit intentional or egregious violations of environmental laws.
In other words, a small-scale violation that may have previously resulted in only a civil penalty may now result in criminal prosecution.

One Year In, The Death Knell Sounds

With the possible exception of Nanny Pelosi and a very few others, Democrats are quaking in their collectivist boots.  With good reason:  one year into a "new Washington" born of optimism and ambition, the mantra of "hope'n'change" has been clearly shown for what it was - just words.  The "transparent" administration has not only failed to materialize as advertised, quite the opposite has occurred.  There have been unprecedented numbers of closed-door meetings in the White House, while Congress votes in the dead of night on huge bills that nobody has read.  Meanwhile, record amounts of debt pile up, with no apparent results to show for it all.

The blinders have fallen off, and Americans are well and truly ticked.  Howard Dean, of all people, demands that we stop ObamaCare now, while Saturday Night Live performs the formerly unthinkable: delivering hard-hitting body blows to Messiah Obama on nationwide television.

DEAN: You know, what this is is a giant bail-out. This is a bail-out that makes AIG look cheap. Sixty billion dollars a year go to the insurance companies under this bill.

Avowed liberals are sitting up and taking notice of the fact that while Republican and Independent voters are energized, Democrat voters have fallen into malaise.  As one commenter notes:

It's absolutely true that those who worked so hard to get President Obama elected are totally disillusioned and burned out.

Another adds:

Many dems were brought to the dance under false pretenses. If your date reveals himself a radical idealogue, dismissive of a broad swath of our people and our laws, why are you then bound to leave with him, particularly when you know he will be in the center of a wreck on the way home.

It didn't take long for this honeymoon to end, but it comes as no great surprise.  Many Americans thought that politicians would actually begin to listen to them.  Their disappointment has turned to anger.

It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Mr. Rogers, a longtime fixture in Washington County politics, decided to do a little fixing up in his Tigard area accounting firm.  He thought he'd replace cubicles with small offices, and have a small bar-sink installed.  Then he ran into a bit of a surprise:  the fees that Rogers, a Washington County Commissioner since 1985, voted for.

$6700 for "traffic impact".  $700 for wastewater management associated with the tiny bar sink.  Wait, what?  He's just switching from cubicles to small offices - he's not hiring more people, nor generating additional traffic.  And he's only adding the bar sink so that he can easily dispose of coffee, water, or leftover soda that his clients leave behind.  The fee for the sink alone equals the cost of purchase and installation of the sink itself.

Mr. Rogers, welcome to the neighborhood that you helped to create.  If it's any consolation, know that your "traffic impact fee" will be put to good use - the county should be able to stripe another mile or two of bicycle lanes onto existing roadways with that kind of cash.

It Couldn't Have Come At A Better Time

The High Priest hath annointed his Disciple, yea and verily, and hath found him wanting not.  AlGore has endorsed Billy Bradbury for the Oregon governorship. Having built so much, and having worked so hard to stoke hysteria among governments and inDUHviduals alike, the annointment by the High Priest comes at the very moment wherein the evidence that many of us were certain was out there is finally exposed: Man-Made Global Warming Climate Change is clearly and undeniably a fraud.  Billy apparently didn't get the memo.

I will fight tooth and nail, as I have already done, to not allow Liqufied Natural Gas facilities in the Columbia River or anywhere in Oregon.  I will chain my Segway to a LNG tanker if I have to.

Thus spake the Disciple.

Good thing, too, as if that idiot toady were to get his way, there'd be no source of energy with which to charge his expensive little toy - so it might as well be used as a boat anchor.

Senator Jeff Merkley On Health Insurance Mandate

CNSNews.com asked Merkley: “Specifically where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health care?”
 
Merkley said: “The very first enumerated power gives the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare. So it’s right on, right on the front end.”

Obviously, Merkley isn't well-versed in the Constitution, and has no interest in improving his knowledge in this regard.  The federal government has no authority to require citizens to purchase any product or service, whether it be a car, auto insurance, a box of Pampers - or health insurance.  The federal government has no authority by which to issue fines and/or jail to any citizen for their failure to purchase any specific product or service.

Merkley thinks that the federal government has that authority.  But if it doesn't, then he wants to ensure that, eventually, it does.

It's likely that he also supports gun control, albeit not in the sense that gun control involves reliably shooting the target.

Guns kill people the way spoons made Rosie O’Donnell fat.

Fiddling While Oregon Burns

Here's a huge surprise: according to a Pew report released yesterday, Oregon is in deep economic trouble. 

Oregon was the worst or close to the worst of the 50 states on two key indicators in the Pew report. They were a drop in tax collections from first quarter 2008 to first quarter 2009, when Oregon's 19 percent plunge made it second only to Georgia, and the national-leading jump in the unemployment rate between second quarter 2008 and second quarter 2009.

And what's governor Kulonoscopy doing?  Why, he's opposed to timber harvesting - even in areas such as the old Tillamook Burn forestlands which were replanted specifically with an eye toward eventual harvest and replanting.  Jobs can be easily created, but the guv's against them.  He's too busy trying to position Oregon as "sustainable" and "green".

Here Comes The Parade!

And it's the usual suspects.  You have to vote for higher taxes!  It's For The Children!

Ted Tries To Defend The Indefensible

No, Oregon's governor isn't hoping to help the poor downtrodden.  He's trying to defend himself against the report printed in The Oregonian.  A politician never expects his pets to turn on him.  And generally, they don't.  That's what makes the report so surprising, as the state's largest newspaper has a consistent history of looking the other way while politicians from Portland to Salem to Washington, D.C. engage in conduct that'd get you fired in a heartbeat.