Thinking of escaping Deep Blue Oregon?

 Where would you go?

That is the question we struggle with every time our dear leaders come up with new ways to tax and control us.  My daughter and her husband recently retreated to Alaska where he grew up.  Plenty of realists and freedom-loving individuals there to be able to breathe and not feel like someone is constantly chipping away at your ability to live a free life, unmolested by government.  You know, the way our founders envisioned for us and our future with limited government power over our lives.  

Then I heard this podcast from InfluenceWatch. It appears the Soros type folks who donate to the dark money fund Arabella, have decided to flip Alaska.  They can buy Senate seats there more cheaply than in a populous state by setting up their own press (propaganda) machine and spin their progressive candidates as Independents rather than Socialist-Democrats.  

A couple of years ago the same group was able to change the election system in the state that watered down the Republican primary votes and added a weighted system of vote counting that allows a victor to win with less than a majority of votes.  These are changes that a well-organized and stealth political machine can easily capitalize on leaving the public scratching their heads about how they got such bad political representation.  It MAY not be too late for Alaskans to stop the slide into the socialist pit, but awareness of how they are being manipulated and shoring up their elections better happen soon! 

                                Be aware!  

Speak up and let others know what’s going on.

                               Fight back! 

This is a short podcast but important to listen to. See how insidious the tactics are as the left builds their base of influence and propaganda.  

https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/

InfluenceWatch Podcast

Episode 215: States Newsroom's Latest Frontier

 April 22nd, 2022  |   20 mins 13 secs

“Must Read Alaska” writer, Suzanne Downing, joins host Michael Watson on a discussion about Arabella's latest venture with the States Newsroom in the Last Frontier State. Just a reminder to our listeners that as a 501(c)(3), our mission is to investigate those working to influence the public policy process, not weigh in on election outcomes or support or oppose individual candidates

Socialism takes..

 …Capitalism creates.

Here is a terrific website with videos of people who experienced socialism and warn what could, and is happening in America, plus articles explaining how capitalism and socialism differ.  Liberty is tied to free enterprise and private property - concepts that are being deified by today’s woke, progressive and twisted minority.  Seductive propaganda that glorifies socialism appears to be gaining traction with people who take for granted the benefits of our economic system and Constitutional freedoms.  

Capitalism Creates website is a project of the Job Creators Network and Job Creators Network Foundation.  

The free-market system has been the biggest creator of wealth and prosperity the world has ever known—lifting billions of people out of poverty and far more superior than any government program ever could be.

But socialism is on the rise in America—notably growing in popularity among the younger generations. In fact, according to a recent Harris poll, half of American Millennials and those belonging to Generation Z say they would prefer to live in a socialist country. Even more concerning, the growing general support around the ideology is fueling concrete policy proposals—including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

That’s why the Job Creators Network, America’s leading small business advocacy organization, is launching a campaign to tell the truth about socialism. Too many people don’t understand that the American dream cannot exist in a socialist country. While some may say socialism is well intentioned, the fact is it robs people of their independence, their dignity and their finances. Socialism leads to government dependence, suppression of ideas, and lower standards of living for those under its thumb. Few Millennials and those who are younger understand what socialism really is, and why short-term gains like free education or free healthcare will lead to long-term consequences like loss of freedoms, and loss of opportunity.

Know the opposition

Check this website to see who NOT to vote for.  When someone advertises themselves as”progressive “. think woke, socialist Democrat.  There’s someone from Lake Oswego listed here. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. 

Run For Something

OREGON CANDIDATES

Run for Something is working with hundreds of young diverse progressives running for local office for the first time. Find one in your community and support their campaign.

Equal in slavery

 What Vonnegut understood in 1961 was known to our country’s founders and admirers of freedom.  

The following article from The American Thinker is worth reading.

November 22, 2020

Equality in Freedom or Equality in Slavery?

The American Thinker

By Anthony J. DeBlasi

It was Alexis de Tocqueville saying this in the 1830s.  He also said, "Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."  (Tocqueville laid out his thinking on democracy in Democracy in America.)

That anything recorded nearly two hundred years ago regarding equality, democracy, and socialism could be hitting the nail on the head today may surprise the "woke."  But the awakehave always been aware to some degree that equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are mutually exclusive.  The difference between them was clearly understood by our first activists who undertook to found a new country, America.  These were men who had fought dictatorial rule and dedicated their lives and their fortunes to establishing a country where equality with libertymay thrive — not just for themselves, but for future generations (us, for example).  And to that purpose they bequeathed us an instrument for remaining equally free instead of equally enslaved: our Constitution.  

Kurt Vonnegut’s foray into the absurdity of Wokeism

 Perhaps today’s Woksters got their ideas from Kurt Vonnegut, not realizing his stories were dystopian satire and not a blueprint for the New WorldOrder.  

Kurt Vonnegut's Short Story "Harrison Bergeron"

It is the year 2081, and all people have been made 'equal' through the use of physical and mental handicaps. The United States Constitution mandates this equality in the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments, and the law is enforced by Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General.

From Wikipedia:

"Harrison Bergeron" is a dystopian science-fiction short story by American writer  Kurt Vonnegut, first published in October 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was republished in the author's Welcome to the Monkey House collection in 1968.

Listen to this story on the NPR podcast Selected Shorts:  

APRIL 7, 2022

The World According To Vonnegut

Water - our limits to growth

 So, Tigard has options, but not Lake Oswego.  Thanks Jack.  

Nobody made LO share its water rights.  Given the slow growth rate of our city with very little land available for development, the old water treatment plant could have been upgraded and used for years.  At the very least, LO did not need the added capacity of the new water treatment plant unless there was an expectation that new development would come from annexation of rural land.  That was the plan that no one wanted to talk about. The City Council at the time loved growth and development to a fault.   More than they loved their constituents.  So they sold our water rights to Tigard because Tigard had money for expansion of our infrastructure, and it’s citizens were squeamish about drinking Willamette River water.  

I drive over the Clackamas River on the Hwy 99E bridge a lot.  If you have ever seen the trickle of water that is left in the river bed by mid to late summer, you would wonder how fish or humans have enough water to survive anymore. Lots of people are using up the Clackamas  River.  

The fact that our ACTUAL water resources are maxed out - even if there is more capacity included in our paper water rights - should tell our current City Council, neighboring cities and Metro that intense development of the Stanford Triangle needs a new source of water  (Where?) and sewer, and increases to all our overtaxed infrastructure.  

Legal challenge against Lake Oswego Tigard Water Partnership remains alive

By

 Josh Kulla

 - 

August 4, 2021

.. TigardLife

A legal challenge was initially undertaken back in 2008 by conservation group WaterWatch, which sought to limit the amount of water the Lake Oswego-Tigard Water Partnership and two other water districts could siphon from the river during times of low water flow. The lawsuit said that water rights to the Clackamas River held by the Partnership, the South Fork Water Board and the North Clackamas County Water Commission are a direct threat to native fish species that inhabit the river.

“It’s a problem all across Oregon,” said WaterWatch Executive Director John DeVoe. “The state has given away more rights on paper than it should have. And when these municipal rights spring up, they upset the apple cart and cause uncertainty for fish and for other users who may have more recent water rights.” 

The latest challenge was finally heard in January of this year by a three-judge panel. WaterWatch says that the WRD did not follow fish persistence rules because it did not consider all undeveloped water rights on the Clackamas River instead of just Lake Oswego’s. 

This could lead to limits on how much water Lake Oswego could pull from the river at certain times under certain conditions, she added. 

[Tigard City Councilor, Liz Newton] noted that the City’s participation in the separate Willamette Water Supply Program, which is intended to serve Hillsboro, Beaverton, Sherwood, Tigard and other westside cities in the future, is entirely unrelated to the legal issues surrounding Clackamas River water rights. 

“It’s just the idea that Tigard is in a unique position to be able to avail itself of several options in order to make sure we’ve got them available,” Newton said, “We have options, and it just seems like the prudent thing to do.” 

Canada is very sick and America has the chills.

 No time to waste if our country is to survive.  I love Canada - did Canadians know they were voting for an authoritarian, World Economic Forum globalist when they elected Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister?  How much damage can he do during his term that can’t be undone?  What about Biden and the puppet masters who control him?  The thought that this could (or IS) happening here is chilling!  

Free Speech!  

Viva La Liberte! 

Rebel News is suing Justin Trudeau

Trudeau’s hand-picked censors declare that only 1% of what Rebel News publishes is news and won’t give us a government news licence — we are fighting back, but we need your help.

• By Ezra Levant
 
• |
 
• April 07, 2022

• 
  

https://www.rebelnews.com/rebel_news_is_suing_justin_trudeau

Use link above to view article and video.  

Justin Trudeau’s hand-picked government censorship panel has just declared that Rebel News journalists are not “qualified” to be news media. We just learned, that over the past year, Trudeau has spent countless tax dollars on a hand-picked team of government censors who were “studying” Rebel News in secret — they never reached out to us or spoke with us or interviewed us.

And that secretive government censorship panel went through 276 of our news stories. They took nearly a year to do it. Imagine government censors looking through 276 Rebel News stories — many of which criticized those same government censors.

Now, you can like Rebel News or not; that’s your choice. If you don’t like us, unlike the CBC, you don’t still have to pay for us. But Trudeau’s government censorship panel made a ruling about us.

They declared — get this — that, quote “less than 1% of the content meets the criteria for original news content.”

Huh? That’s almost all we do. We’re Rebel News, not Rebel Sports or Rebel Weather.

So Trudeau's government censorship panel says, because of that, we are not legally a, quote, “qualified Canadian journalism organization” — or QCJO as they call it. That’s a special legal term they’ve come up with. As the words plainly mean, it’s government journalism accreditation. It’s a government journalism licence.

So, not only does that mean we’re not allowed to attend government press conferences, it also punishes us under Income Tax Act.

So Rebel News is fighting back. Because if we don’t fight back now they’re going to destroy us — like Trudeau is doing more and more to his peaceful political opponents. He wants to try to do to us what he did to the truckers — if he had his way he’d put us in jail and seize our bank accounts. This is a step in that direction — having a government panel declare, legally, that our journalists are not actually journalists.

Because if they can do this to us, their largest independent critic left, they’ll do this to anyone. They’ll censor you. Which is why we have to fight back now — not later, right now. There might not even be a later.

So we’re suing Trudeau. We filed the lawsuit today in the Federal Court of Canada. 

The “Rich” can’t fund more government spending

I’m going to skip to the end of this Wall Street Journal Editorial and go straight to the ending.  This explains it all:

Eat the Rich? They’re Not Even Filling

The latest billionaire list is peanuts next to what progressives want.

The Editorial BoardApril 10, 2022

Take everything the billionaires own and divvy it up. As of Tuesday the Census Bureau put the U.S. population at 332,601,166. Divide that into $4.7 trillion, and each budding bolshevik would get . . . about $14,000. If that sounds lower than you hoped, it’s because very large numbers are hard for humans to grasp intuitively.

But the math shows why a Scandinavian welfare state can’t be funded by raiding Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and pals. There aren’t enough rich to go around. That’s why Europe soaks the middle class to fund its welfare state. In the U.S. the top statutory tax rate on income kicks in at roughly nine times the average wage, according to the OECD. In Denmark the top rate begins at 1.3 times the average wage, and in Sweden it’s 1.1.

Democrats say they only want to tax the rich, but progressives would be back soon enough for the doctors, lawyers, small-business owners, and everyone else.

The American Dream was alive and well in the 50s

 When I was a kid…

The 50s was a great time to be a kid.  In recent interviews talking about his new book, David Mamet makes the case for the melting pot that America was and the patriotic belief we all had in the American Constitution and the American Dream.  

The 60s brought a disaffected youth revolt against authority which demonized American culture, starting with the bourgeois suburbs. And yet, most people today, as then, would choose to live in a single family home in the suburbs - if they could afford to do so. Who destroyed the dream and why?  It’s sad to see how thoroughly the destruction of our positive, optimistic society has progressed under the direction of successive generations of cynical, unhappy, angry, elitists and teachers and the waves of cynical, fearful and unhappy youngsters  they produced.  

I just started reading Recessional and can recommend it as a thoughtful treatise on freedoms lost and why we need to fight for what is - was the America we all can love and be proud of.

Listen to the Federalist Radio Hour podcast with David Mamet - link available in a previous post. 

  

  

David Mamet Is a Defiant Scribe in the Age of Conformity

The playwright won’t play along with woke signaling, talismanic masking or deference to petty tyrants.

Wall Street Journal By Bryon Swaim,  April 8, 2022

Santa Monica, Calif.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, innumerable films, TV documentaries and history textbooks instructed us that the 1950s were years of conformity and conventionalism: “The Donna Reed Show,” McCarthyism, “The Organization Man,” TV dinners. In fact, the ’50s were a time of extraordinary artistic creativity, boundless technological innovation, original thinking in politics, intellectual diversity in journalism and higher education, new energy in religion, and enormous progress in race relations. What the ’80s and ’90s mistook for conformity was a naturally evolved cultural solidarity—something nearly everybody, on the left and the right, longs for now. 

An informed observer of present-day America might reasonably conclude that our own decade—at least among the educated and advantaged classes—is far more imbued with the spirit of conformism than the ’50s were. Corporate managers and military leaders parrot nostrums about diversity, inclusion and sustainability that few of them believe. Museums and orchestras studiously avoid programming that might offend ideologues. Reporters and producers in the mainstream press seize on stories—or ignore them—solely because that’s what everybody else in the press is doing. Large majorities in wealthy cities dutifully comply with public-health restrictions they know to be largely ineffective, mainly because refusing to do so would invite the ire of friends and neighbors complying with those restrictions for the same reason.

Maybe America’s deciders and describers (to use Nicholas Eberstadt’s phrase) aren’t the independent-minded lot they think themselves to be.

These and related ironies were on my mind in February when I received a galley copy of the playwright David Mamet’s “Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of Free Lunch,” published Tuesday. The book is a collection of essays written over the past two years on an array of cultural and political topics: pandemic zealotry, Donald Trump, terrorism, California’s punitive tax code, Christianity and Judaism, Broadway and the movies. The essays are by turns witty, insightful, affecting and cryptic. What struck me most about the book, though, was how superbly out of place its author must be in the eminent environs of his chosen industry.

He brings up the 1950s without prompting. “When I was a kid,” he says—Mr. Mamet was born in Chicago in 1947—“people went to different churches, they were from different ethnic backgrounds, their parents came from different countries, but somehow they managed to have a collective life. All of their self-worth didn’t come from belonging and staying connected to this one uber-group.”

YOUR Woke 401(k)

What’s the difference between Trump and Biden?  One put individuals first, making each person responsible for their own decisions  - the other puts the government’s agenda ahead of the desires and well being of the individual.  

How much of our lives is being quietly taken over by the state that we don’t know about yet?  How can we take our money and our lives back?  What part of “private property” don’t these greedy, controlling politicians and bureaucrats understand? 

Your New Woke 401(k) 

The Editorial BoardOct. 20, 2021 

Wall Street Journal 

An important Trump Labor rule last fall reinforced that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (Erisa) requires retirement plan fiduciaries to act “solely in the interest” of participants. The rule prevented pension plans and asset managers from considering ESG factors like climate, workforce diversity and political donations unless they had a “material effect on the return and risk of an investment.” The rule effectively barred plans from placing workers who don’t select a 401(k) fund option into a default ESG fund.

The Biden DOL plans to scrap the Trump rule while putting retirement sponsors and asset managers on notice that they have a fiduciary duty to include ESG in investment decisions. The proposed rule “makes clear that climate change and other ESG factors are often material” and thus in many instances should be considered “in the assessment of investment risks and returns.”

A fiduciary’s duty may “often require an evaluation of the effect of climate change and/or government policy changes” such as electric vehicle mandates on an investment, the rule-making says. Retirement plan sponsors won’t merely be allowed to prioritize climate and social factors in how they invest. They could be sued if they don’t. Workers won’t get much say because plans won’t be required “to solicit preferences” on ESG. 

The Biden DOL claims that ESG factors yield higher returns. “Many compelling studies show the material financial benefits of diverse and inclusive workplaces,” DOL writes. But it also acknowledges that “findings vary,” and theoretical ESG benefits don’t necessarily translate into better financial performance.

Asset managers like BlackRock are pushing to create ESG 401(k) funds in part because they can charge higher fees. According to Morningstar, the asset-weighted average expense ratio of U.S. “sustainable” funds was 0.61% in 2020 compared to 0.41% for all open-ended mutual and exchange-traded funds and 0.12% for passive funds. This difference can reduce retirement savings by tens of thousands of dollars over a few decades. 

The Biden rule would let plan sponsors enroll workers in ESG 401(k) funds as the default, so workers could unknowingly end up paying higher fees. It also threatens retirement plan sponsors with legal liability if they don’t support progressive shareholder resolutions, such as those requiring companies to reduce CO2 emissions or disclose political donations.

All of this amounts to a backdoor rewrite of Erisa, one of the better laws of the last 50 years. Progressives are moving across the Biden Administration to steer private capital to implement an agenda they can’t pass through Congress. Your savings will be conscripted to advance the progressive agenda, whether you like it or not.

Free speech means speaking up

 A podcast to savor.  

The Legendary David Mamet On His New Essay Collection, “Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch”

https://player.fm/series/federalist-radio-hour/the-legendary-david-mamet-on-his-new-essay-collection

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, playwright David Mamet joins Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his new essay collection "Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch" and explain why the West's free exchange of ideas is threatened by the "virus of conformity."

The right move right now

Oregon - another opportunity to do the right thing.  Ban outside money in state and local election processes.  Make sure elections are fair, non-partisan, transparent and not open to questions of fraud or manipulation.  

Mississippi joins states limiting outside election funding

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, MSNBC/ Associated Press April 4, 2022

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi is the latest Republican-led state to ban election offices from accepting donations from private groups for voting operations — a movement fueled by conservatives' suspicion of donations by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.

Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed House Bill 1365 on Friday, and it will become law July 1. It says state or local officials who conduct elections cannot solicit or accept donations from any private group for “voter education, voter outreach or voter registration programs."

Reeves said in a video posted to Facebook on Monday that he was “deeply disturbed by big tech's attempt to influence the 2020 elections.”

“Whether it was their attempt to silence conservative voices or suppress information they don't agree with, California's technology elites will stop at nothing to push their woke ideology on the American people," Reeves said. "Our elections cannot be left up to billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, especially when groups like Facebook systematically silence conservative voices on their platforms."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill Banning Zuckerberg-Style Election Interference.

by Catherine Salgado

  

June 11, 2021, The National Pulse

The Wisconsin State Senate has passed a bill prohibiting the outside, private financing of elections – a move that follows the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s large-scale 2020 election interference.

As originally reported by The National Pulse ahead of the 2020 election, Zuckerberg ploughed cash into heavily Democrat districts in order to privately march more left-wing voters to the ballot box.

Nooooo!

Oregonians are such sheep - if California does something, Oregon has to follow, even if it’s being STUPID!  If California jumps off a cliff, does Oregon have to do the same?  NO!  

California legislators propose new slate of COVID-19 vaccine laws

BY ELIZABETH AGUILERAMARCH 2, 2022

Gov. Gavin Newsom is easing mask restrictions and declaring that the pandemic is moving into a less critical phase. Yet an aggressive slate of COVID-19-related bills — to mandate vaccines for children and workers, to allow 12 to 17 year-olds to get the vaccine without parental consent and more — remain in play under the Capitol dome.

The vaccine working group of Democratic legislators behind the proposals say their aim is to increase vaccination rates across all age groups, improve the state vaccine registration database and crack down on misinformation about the virus and the vaccine. 

Taken together, the adoption of these bills would make California an outlier among states — and give it the country’s strictest COVID-19 regulations. Other states are considering various mandates and legislation related to COVID-19, but none appear to have the coordination of this effort, steered by some of the most powerful legislators in Sacramento. 

American Nationalism worth saving

 The loss of American nationalism, American pride, optimism, shared principals and the concept of making America a country of one people out of many is tragic.  Shame on every professor, teacher, activist and disgruntled person with an axe to grind for tearing American greatness down.  Time for some sunlight, optimism, and pride in traditional American values. 

“American citizenship is eroding”

November 2019 • Imprimis, Volume 48, Number 11 • Victor Davis Hanson

Today many condemn the idea of nationalism by connecting it to race hatred (e.g., white nationalism). But historically, the modern nation-state has proven uniquely suitable to preserving individual rights. The American nation in particular was successful in uniting individuals of different races, ethnic backgrounds, and creeds into one people based on shared principles, a unique physical space, and a common national story. Our nation is the best example in human history of positive nationalism.

The key to this benign nationalism is American citizenship, based on an understanding of American exceptionalism and formed by the American melting pot. But today, our citizenship is eroding and, along with it, American nationalism in the positive sense is disappearing.

American citizenship is eroding in three ways.

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