Up Sucker Creek

Up Sucker Creek
Photo Courtesy of the Lake Oswego Library

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

What do 8% of Portlanders know?

 ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  Read on.  

Portland Tribune 

The Oregon gubernatorial candidate's campaign expands on the comment in light of a New York Times story. 

An independent candidate for Oregon governor has a new moniker for the state's most populous city: "the city of roaches." 

Gubernatorial candidate and former state Sen. Betsy Johnson made the comment to a New York Times journalist, referring to Portland's battle with homelessness and crime. 

Her statements appeared in a June 28 newsletter that explored Oregon's political landscape as a barometer of potential Democratic losses nationwide. The newsletter included an interview with Johnson. 

"You can see the deterioration of the beautiful City of Roses, now the city of roaches," Johnson was quoted as saying, riffing on Portland's moniker. 

Johnson, who is running as an unaffiliated candidate in the November election, is one of many candidates who has zeroed in on Portland as an example of failed policies or action. 

"Betsy made a quip about the city of Portland which resonates with a lot of people," Jennifer Sitton, Johnson's communications director, told Pamplin Media Group on Tuesday. "What Betsy has been saying for months is that Oregon cannot succeed if Portland fails and, as detailed in the NYT piece, only 8% of residents think that Portland is on the right track." 

In a campaign speech on her website, Johnson accuses Gov. Kate Brown, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Johnson's Democratic opponent, Tina Kotek of Portland, of bridging the urban-rural divide by unifying Oregonians in "mutual frustration with their leaders and their government."  

"Right now, Portland is failing," Johnson said. "I don't think any problem demonstrates the need better to change Oregon's politics than the failure to solve homelessness on our streets."

She stressed getting unhoused people into shelters utilizing police, addiction treatment services and mental health services. 

"Democrats are right that we need compassion, services and housing," Johnson said in a campaign video. "But Republicans are also right that we need more personal responsibility, accountability and no more tent cities."

Johnson later clarified her comment in a short video statementthe following day, saying her comment "was about trash, not people."




A look back and forward

 What will the stack of Federal regulations look like at the end of the Biden administration?   

As government grows, fewer freedoms are left for the individual citizen.  The job of politicians should be to expand liberty while preserving the sovereignty of the nation and safety for the people.  How many regulations can be safely eliminated?  



Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Immoral environmentalism from, global elites

Click here to read more about Hoover Institute Fellow Bjorn Lomborg and other articles from distinguished Fellows and academics and a follow-up article about Dharnai, India’s experience with solar power from Scientific American. 




Wall Street Journal Commentary

The Rich World’s Climate Hypocrisy

They beg for more oil and coal for themselves while telling developing lands to rely on solar and wind.


Saturday, June 25, 2022

Where are people moving?

 The answer to where people are moving depends upon the data source.  Here are some interesting sites to see where people from different cities and state are moving from and to.  

The last couple of years has upended the flow of people into cities like Portland and Seattle. Though no exact explanation is given for the dramatic change, it is easy to trust one’s instincts and assume the decline in safety and overall quality of life in these cities has a lot to do with their fading popularity

.  

Charts by Redfin

Incoming migration to the Northwest from LA and SF continues to be strong, probably due to less expensive housing options with relatively similar progressive political and social leanings.  Of course, more people coming from Blue cities and states only make Seattle and Portland bluer.  


Maps by Redfin

Given the flight from these failed locations, how long can Portland survive as a decent place to live?  For the many who have left already, the tipping point has come and gone.  Since Portland politics control the state, the bloom is off the once beautiful Oregon rose. Oregon is now only preferable to someplace more horrible - like crime-ridden, high poverty, high tax, expensive Los Angeles.  

Like any data, be aware of when charts and maps were created.  Things change quickly and you don’t want to depend on information that is out of date.  On the other hand, it is fun to look back and see where things were and how much change has occurred and in which direction.  

Redfin Data Center 

Housing and migration data drawn from Redfin users.  


Vivid Maps

A plethora of maps showing a huge variety of information! Great site to explore.  

Visual proof that Oregon’s culture has been altered by an influx of Californians over many decades.  We used to depend upon months of uninterrupted overcast skies and plenty of liquid sunshine to drive away the southerners.  With summers getting warmer, you can pick out the Johnny-come-latelys by how much they proclaim their love of the heat!  True Oregonians don’t like temperatures over 78.  




Interesting to see what was happening in my youth - California was the Golden State - high quality education from K through University, booming industry, fabulous farming, affordable housing, people doing well - it was a symbol of the good life - the American Dream!  People came from all over to live in sunny Cali.  The exodus to the NW and elsewhere began in the 70s as a dribble, but became a river of people in the 90s and as progressive policies made living in California impossible, the migration became a flood.  This is the natural fate of a single-party leftist state like Oregon.  



Flowing-data

Interesting data in visual form with instructions on how to create charts, graphs, maps and more for your own use. 

Storymaps

Statistics and data shown in static and interactive maps.  Colorful, easy to read and understand with useful information.  



This is what the map looks like for Lake Oswego, Oregon.  
Color of the dots relate to regions on the map above.

38% of the people who moved to California were from outside the United States.


The Lone Star state (Texas) experienced migration from all regions due to its strong economy and affordable housing.


Most people who moved to California and New York were from a country outside the United States.
Most people who were from the West moved to another state in the West. The same goes for people in the Midwest and the Northeast.





Wednesday, June 22, 2022

The Success Sequence works!

 Introducing the University Of Virginia’s  Institute for Family Studies website.  A great place to find academic research on what factors make families thrive and help children prosper in adulthood.  

Strong Families.
Sustainable Societies.

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) is dedicated to strengthening marriage and family life, and advancing the well-being of children through research and public education. Addressing family life is what we do, and we invite you to learn more about ways to strengthen families in America and around the world.


Use links on the IFS home page to find the media below.  The information is thoughtfully presented and impossible to dispute.  This is worth sharing with anyone who believes that society and humans can flourish without traditional social structures that have always worked, despite the persistent propaganda that denies it.  

Podcast:  Federalist Radio Hour, “Post-Father’s Day Special With Brad Wilson”

Film:  “The Social Divide”


Read the Institute for Family Studies report "‘Life Without Father’: Less College, Less Work, and More Prison for Young Men Growing Up Without Their Biological Father" here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/life-without-father-less-college-less-work-and-more-prison-for-young-men-growing-up-without-their-biological-father


Click HERE to read the 2022  report.

THE POWER OF THE

SUCCESS SEQUENCE

for Disadvantaged Young Adults

Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox May 2022


The “Success Sequence,” a formula to help young adults succeed in America, has been discussed widely in recent years, including by Brookings Institution scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. The formula involves three steps: get at least a high school education, work full time, and marry before having children. Among Millennials who followed this sequence, 97% are not poor when they reach adulthood. The link remains strong when this cohort of young Americans reaches their mid-30s, according to a new IFS analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).1

The success sequence seems like common sense. In an interview, Nobel Laureate James Heckman called the success sequence a fact, adding: “When children or young adults have a child out of wedlock and if they take responsibility for that child—even if they don’t—that’s going to generally impair their progress.” Similarly, Bryan Caplan commented that the causation between the success sequence and poverty is obvious: “‘Dropping out, idleness, and single parenthood make you poor’ is on par with ‘burning money makes you poor.’ The demand for further proof of the obvious is a thinly-veiled veto of unpalatable truths.”

Critics of the success sequence often point out that it ignores the “obstacles individual efforts can’t always overcome.” There is no question that structural disadvantages make it more difficult to follow the three steps of the sequence. But that is also why it matters: Young adults who manage to follow the sequence—even in the face of disadvantages—are much more likely to forge a path to a better life.

In fact, young adults from disadvantaged circumstances who follow the sequence are markedly more likely to overcome challenges and achieve economic success. The vast majority of black (96%) and Hispanic (97%) Millennials who followed this sequence are not poor in their mid-30s (ages 32 to 38), as is also the case for 94% of Millennials who grew up in lower-income families and 95% of those who grew up in non-intact families. Moreover, for those who do not have a college degree but only finished high school and who work and marry before having children, 95% are not poor by their mid-30s.2

Friday, June 17, 2022

Are you a native Oregonian?

If so, you are a rare duck.  Or beaver.  

 When I grouse about how much the state has changed, and not in a good way, I reach for the Californication movement that began in the 70s.  Governor Tom McCall’s most famous quote was “please visit, but don’t stay.”  We had seen the sprawl, the rebellion and the madness that was beginning to overtake California and didn’t want their problems to migrate north.  People joked about barricading I-5 at the border, but sadly, nothing ever came of that idea.  

I think it was our live-and-let-live nature - the desire to be left alone to do your own thing that attracted disaffected outsiders who turned into the intolerant progressives we now have who want to tell us how to live.  We were too nice.  Too open.  Too accepting.  We were patsies, ripe to be taken advantage of and having our culture destroyed. 

I stumbled on this map from 2014, and though it is now 8 years old, it explains how the Oregon identity of independence and ruggedness has been undermined. 

Oregon Office of Economic Analysis



Nationally, 67% of Americans currently live in the state in which they were born (this is excluding foreign born and naturalized citizens), however in Oregon only about 50% of our population was born in the state and its even lower in our southern counties. I color coordinated the map to the national average. Yellow indicates the local share of residents born in the same state is comparable to the national share, while counties in shades of green have an above average share of same state residents. Counties that are orange and red have a below average share, indicating a larger presence of migrants.

Overall, Oregon’s population growth is heavily reliant upon migration. During the 90s and through the mid-2000s, nearly 3/4 of our population growth was due to net migration. 

Not for the faint of heart

 Trigger Warning!

The Twitter page posted here is upsetting.  You may lose your lunch.  You may weep uncontrollably.  You may experience feelings of sadness and hopelessness. There are phone numbers and websites for those who may have thoughts of hurting themselves or others - please use them if you need to.  Otherwise, read on.  Join the fray.  Educate yourself.  Fight back.  

The Libs of TikTok

This is a Twitter page devoted to the craziness that liberals are posting on TikTok.  There are teachers who  gleefully tell about the books they are reading to their 8-year-old students about gender ideology.  There are stories about pedophiles who are employed in public schools. There are other topics too, but I presume gender issues are prominent during Pride Month.  

Libs of TikTok shows people loudly and proudly proclaiming how they are acting badly.  The Twitter poster doesn’t create the news - he just reposts what others have made public on their own.  Obviously the libs are not ashamed of what they are dong - they put it all online.  Now we can get a look into their world as they take their perversions and inappropriate thoughts and agendas into schools where they have captive, trusting, innocent children to mold.  

My guess is that Twitter censors don’t like this page but can’t complain because it just reposts what progressives have posted - but in this case it’s to expose how ridiculous and dangerous these people are.  



Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok
Bringing you news you won’t see anywhere else. All videos belong to their respective owners. 📧 libsoftiktok@gmail.com. DM submissions


If you live in Oregon - you are NOT living your best life

The perils of living in a one-party state - it's now their way or the highway.  However, the highway now appears to be leading out of the state instead of in.  In 2021, 20% more people moved out of the state than moved here.  Portland lost about 11,000 people to the suburbs, other parts of the state and other states.  Gee.  Who could have predicted that.   Government has become an impediment to a high quality of life.  

The website, Freedom in the 50 States, created by the CATO Institute, measures and tracks the freedom or lack of it in all 50 states on a variety of indices.  The very sad fact is that Oregon, my Oregon, ranks in the bottom 5 overall.  

Check out the categories to see how Oregon rates and read the analysis for the state.  So sad.  For the people who weren't here before Californians took over in the 70s, it was a wonderful, wild and more importantly, live-and-let-live place.  


Sunday, June 12, 2022

Don’t be fooled!

Even if it seem the rest of the world is going in one direction, you are not wrong to question prevailing destructive ideologies. Your duty is to defend and restore healthy norms that I’ll strengthen society and create happier, more stable human beings. 

Gender identity instruction harms children. Fight back against this pervasive anti-child ideology.  

There is no question about it, but progressive activists and compromised institutions deny it and are actively engaged in gaslighting the public into believing otherwise.  WHY?  

If a population can be persuaded to believe something that is impossible, they are ripe to believe that what those in control are selling is worth buying into.  Being controlled means freedom from having to decide what to be or do.  We all want freedom, don’t we?  

How did we get to a place where our culture does not actively protect its children?  And condemn those who treat kids as pawns for their perverted agendas?  

If you have children or know someone who does, pass along a link to the The American College of Pediatricians’ website:

https://acpeds.org/assets/imported/9.14.17-Gender-Ideology-Harms-Children_updated-MC.pdf

Gender Ideology Harms Children

The American College of Pediatricians urges healthcare professionals, educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.



Another important article on the subject from Education News:

https://www.educationviews.org/transgender-agenda-harms-children/

Educator Resources|Education & Information Age Education News

How the transgender agenda harms children

Feb 21, 2017

Today we are publishing excerpts from a brief by Dr Judith Reisman, founder of the Child Protection Institute and a  research professor at Liberty University School of Law. She is an internationally recognised expert on child sexual abuse and the influence of sexologist Alfred Kinsey.

Despite studies showing that 80 to 95 percent of children who report dissonance between their perceived gender and biological sex find that their perceived gender and biological sex correspond by late adolescence, medical protocols for “transgender” children are calling for earlier intervention with puberty- suppressing drugs and cross-sex hormones. These protocols create irreversible sterility and other life-changing effects to which the children, as minors with immature brains, are unable to give informed consent. Nor can their parents give “informed” consent to such protocols as the long-term consequences of these early interventions are unknown.

Children are not legally capable of giving consent. Even if it could be assumed, arguendo, that parents can consent on behalf of their children, they still cannot give informed consent because the hazards and the effects upon children’s health have not been scientifically determined and therefore cannot be known prior to treatment. By advocating for the inclusion of gender identity in Title IX for elementary and secondary students, the Departments are placing the government’s imprimatur on human experimentation and involuntary sterilization of children wholly bereft of informed consent. Such disregard for the health and safety of children as well as the rule of law should not be given any effect by this Court.


Friday, June 10, 2022

Beware! The LO Library may not be safe for children.

 It all started when I picked up the June 2022 edition of LO Monthly - a magazine published by the Lake Oswego Review that arrives in our mailbox every month.  This month the magazine is highlighting the Festival of the Arts which is back in operation this year.  Yay for the arts!  

When I got to page 21 and 22 I had to stop and check to see what I was reading,  in a two-page spread titled “What’s on your nightstand?” with books selected by Allison Staley, Youth Services Librarian for the Lake Oswego Library.   So what books does Allison have on her nightstand?  Or wish you had on yours? Or hope you will bring home to your children for a bedtime read?  


To celebrate June as Pride Month, Allison chose 4 out of 5 books for young children and 5 out of 5 books for teens that deal with gender identity, trans kid characters, and/or sex and sexual attraction.  The one non-gender book is about a “child” who talks his Grandpa into fixing up his camper to take a trip together.  Illustration on the cover of the book suggests the “child” is female - but I can’t really tell. Gramps is definitely male and is referred to with a male pronoun.  Oops!  I just looked up the symbol on this book (and two other books) and found out it is a
Stonewall Book Award medallion.  That means all 10 books selected for children and teens have ALA approval - selected by librarians for your kids.  

Wikipedia:   The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S.[1] They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award.[4][5]

So, with the local library firmly entrenched in the gender identity for kids debate, why should I be surprised to see this banner advertising a gender/sexuality training session for anyone in the community?  Yet I am.  Surprised.  




Read my previous post on the DailyWire movie, “What is a Woman?” And watch it before you do any gender training.  You will learn some effective ways to ask polite, straightforward questions that propagandists can’t answer or may lie to keep secret the damage this kind of indoctrination has on children.  If many skeptical adults and young people can attend the Zoom training from different locations and expose the fraudulent basis for what they are trying to sell, that would be great!  Be polite.  Be sincere.  Don’t make statements - Ask questions!  One does not have to be anti-gay, or ita it-trans or anti-anything n order to believe that only parents should be talking to their children about their sexuality, especially at young ages. 

If the gender/sex wars directed at kids bothers you, please consider calling or writing a letter to the publisher and editor of the LO Monthly and the Lake Oswego Review, the Library director and the librarians who select the material (Allison Staley)and organize the training (Todd Feinman).  Then contact the Mayor and City Council about your concerns for the direction the library is taking, and how the LO Monthly is marketing our town.  (In the publisher’s info section of the LO Monthly, it says the magazine “is produced in support of Lake Oswego’s Strategic Marketing Plan.   I’ve read the plan and don’t see how celebrating Pride Month by peddling gender books to kids fits their goals.  Note to LO Monthly:  Offending members of the public isn’t a great marketing tool!  

High gas prices are part of the PLAN for US.

And have been for years! 

The war on fossil fuels didn’t start with Joe Biden.  Like most other policies his administration has put forward, this came from the Obama era. With many of the Obama alumni in place in federal agencies and progressive activist organizations in positions of influence, Obama’s plan to “fundamentally change” the nation is being swiftly put into action.  

Read this article from February 2012 when Obama was gearing up for the election for his second term as President.  If the public had the foresight to see what was in store for them under his globalist, so-called climate-friendly rule, they might not have given him that second chance.  Second terms are when Presidents bring out their unpopular plans because they don’t have to worry about reelection and they have built an infrastructure of people, policies and laws to carry them out.  

Obama’s admitted big mistake was not moving fast enough.  His third term to continue his plans to re-engineer our society was with the election of Hillary.Clinton.  They may not have been friends nor had the same views on things, but they were cut from the same elitist, corrupt cloth and had struck a Faustian bargain about her ascension to the throne.  Then came Trump and his pledge to “drain the swamp.” 

Whatever one feels about Trump, it can’t be denied that he was the one, maybe the only one who could, open the doors to the ugly underbelly of the Deep State that sees the rest of America as pawns - deplorables - who might stand in the way of their plans for power and control.

So much of our modern lives are fueled by fossil fueled energy that shortages of fues and subsequent rises in costs affect everything we do.  When Biden shut down oil drilling permits, the Keystone pipeline, oil exploration in Alaska and instituted other anti-fossil fuel regulations, the utterly predictable and desired consequence was going to be inflation.  A huge sin tax on gas and other fossil fuel energy that was to be borne by the American masses for the sake of the planet. For the wealthy, the powerful elites and the eco-religious zealots, no cost was too great for someone else to bear for the cause - the green dream of totally renewable energy-source world, without, of course, resorting to (renewable, non-carbon polluting) nuclear power.  The dream was everything.  High gas prices aren’t an accident.  The dream of $7 - $9 per gallon gas prices was Obama’s goal back in 2012 though it has taken him 10 years to achieve it through his proxy in the White House.  

Millions upon millions of children for many years now have been taught to believe in it so it has to be real.  And if gas remains plentiful and cheap, then it will take generations to get to Utopia and the planet may die in the waiting.  Never mind what is happening in China or India or any other place on Earth or how a weakened America will fare against rivals when our economy is torn asunder and our population is at war with itself.  The climate playbook doesn’t mention geopolitical warfare, only how people will be moving Northward to escape a hotter Earth.  Our schools have been dishing up silly, naive swill compliments of silly, naive teachers who lack the ability to think critically and go outside the proscribed leftist education thought control they live in.  

Where will the Obama-Biden team take us next?  Obama and Holder are working on grass roots organizations to help with controlling how elections are done and with re-districting plans in each state in order to control the Electoral College which will hopefully give Democrats permanent control of (almost) every state and the presidency in order to fully enact their change agenda. If you don’t like what you see now, just wait.  Or dont’t wait - help preserve what is left of our Constitution and vote accordingly.  Of course Republicans aren’t all angels, but they are our best hope at this point to stave off a top-down, tyrannical socialist-communist state.  

Read this article from Divided States written February 29, 2012

Obama Wants $7-$9 Gas Prices and His Secretary of Energy Steven Chu Admitted it


Obama and Sec Chu Want to Raise 
Gas to $8.00 Per Gallon

The Mainstream media does not want you to know the truth about Barack Obama, their protected candidate up for re-election in 2012. If the true motives hidden behind Barack Obama’s policies and actions were exposed, America would be in a civil war. Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu even openly suggested that higher gasoline prices would solve America’s energy problems forcing people to buy over-priced, inefficient alternative energy cars.

“The Energy Department is not working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

Obama wants to turn America into Europe. When gas prices hit $3 a gallon many people began immediately cutting back on their spending.  Now that gas prices are $4.00 a gallon, and fast approaching $6.00 a gallon, Americans are feeling pinched like never before. Obama’s strategy is going to bankrupt America from every imaginable angle from Obama care to his failed energy policies and bankrupt, non-working green energy initiatives.

Chu admitted to the House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget that the Department of Energy would prefer to work to promote alternative enery such as biofuels and electric vehicles. But experts know we are far from making these alternatives cost effective

“But Americans need relief now”, Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) said — “not high gasoline prices that could eventually push them to alternatives.”

“I can’t look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration the price of gasoline has doubled,” Nunnelee told Chu.

“The people of north Mississippi can’t be here, so I have to be here and be their voice for them,” Nunnelee added. “I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It’s a cruel tax on the people of north Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It’s a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation.”

Obama will not grant drilling in the Gulf.  Some conspiracy theorists claim that Democrat operatives under Obama’s direction orchestrated the destruction of the BP oil drilling platform in 2010 in order to catapult Obama’s energy mandates, oils banning, green energy initiatives which have all proven catastrophic to the welfare of the United States.

Obama and the Democrats are hell bent on punishing American success with a forced move towards cars are NOT reliable nor efficient.   The truth about electric cars is that in the long run, they will actually cost Americans MORE money!  They dont run in the cold weather, they go only short distances, they take 24 hours to fully charge, are dangerous, and above all are 2-3 times the cost of a gasoline engine car. None of it makes sense. Yet Americans are falling for the Obama energy destruction plan. Many accuse Obama of not standing up to Iran to further strain America’s reliance on oil.