Up Sucker Creek

Up Sucker Creek
Photo Courtesy of the Lake Oswego Library

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Kate plays the fool - again

 Kate advertises her ridiculousness while Oregonians hang their heads in embarrassment.  THIS is who we have as a Governor?  

No wonder Oregon has gone downhill. Our so-called leaders are leading the state into the crapper.  Are we ready for a serious (Republican) governor and legislature yet?  

The Florida law does not ban anyone using the word “gay” and the word does not appear anywhere in the text of the Parents’ Rights bill. The new law forbids teaching about sex or gender in grades kindergarten through 3rd grade.  Parents don’t want public school teachers talking to their kids about these topics at such a young age.  Parents are the primary teachers for their children and need to have some assurance that school teachers don’t undermine their authority.  

But Kate picks up the gay and trans rights activists’ propaganda and repeats it with the anger and passion reserved for narcissistic activists everywhere.  By twisting the truth, Kate makes herself appear too lazy or too addle-brained to look into what the Florida law is all about.  This is a common sense law that all states should adopt.  Why do teachers want to sexuality very young children?  Why do they think it is their job to explore some of these subjects at all without parent approval?  

 Am so glad my kids are grown and that they had a real childhood free of teacher union and other activists’ agendas.  I feel sorry that parents have to work harder to protect their children from the people who should be providing them a safe place to learn.  

Kate Brown’s Twitter Account:



Well-heeled outsiders try to manipulate lawmakers in Salem

When I read the headline below, my heart beat a bit faster and I became excited.  Someone in Salem was finally tuned in to the problems of Antifa violence and leftist mob activity in Portland and elsewhere that has caused thousands of dollars of property damage and serious harm to humans who became targets of their rage.  

My heart sank back to a depressed, black place when I read the article and realized they were referring to right wing extremists who they associated with the Republican Party!  ??  Their solution, aimed at these “domestic terrorists” was chilling.  

The movement to criminalize political speech and activities of conservatives while ignoring or even praising the illegal (arson, assault, vandalism, rioting..) acts of the Black Bloc and the mobs they incite to riot, has come to our fair state.  Malignant Marxism has taken root and is growing fast.  

The organization that performed the Oregon audit, Center for Strategic and International Studies, is a Washington DC based left-leaning non-profit.  A check with Influence Watch shows that it’s director, Wally Adeyemo, is also president of the Obama Foundation, a senior advisor for Blackrock, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Department in the Biden Administration, and is connected to several other left-of-center think tanks and non-profits.  (The site also shows some of the organization’s key funders.)

This group has an agenda, and it’s obvious that their goal is to manipulate the law to criminalize with Federal statutes the speech and activities of people they don’t like and make others fearful of trying the same thing.  If crimes are committed during a protest, there are state and local laws to deal with them.  But label the criminal a domestic terrorist rather than a vandal, and a protester can be put in jail without representation or speedy trial and face financial ruin, just like the Jan. 6 2021 protesters who entered Congress. 

Is this group going to every state?  Or just the welcoming Blue states on the East and West Coasts?  Do we move, or fight back?  Allow these outsiders to influence lawmakers in Oregon to criminalize free speech in OUR state?  We must elect Republicans and other non-Democrats to local and state government to break the Democrat’s single-party, Marxist hold on the state.  

See scary pictures of “domestic terrorists” HERE.  



Read the BIG LIE here:

Oregon at high risk for violent extremism, could do more to prevent it, audit says

Auditors said Wednesday the state could do more to prevent these events from happening and improve coordination between levels of government and agencies grappling the threat of extremist acts, the Statesman Journal reported.

The threats have “become increasingly complex and volatile,” with people using social media and websites to propagate “extremist narratives and activity,” according to the auditor’s report.

Oregon state law doesn’t define or criminalize domestic violent extremism. Auditors suggest Oregon consider looking to other states that define domestic violent extremism or “terroristic acts” in their laws which can mean the state can charge offenders if federal standards aren’t met.

Federal law defines domestic terrorism as “acts dangerous to human life” that are illegal, primarily take place on U.S. soil and appear to intend to influence a government or intimidate people.

Monday, March 28, 2022

The Pacific NW can recover if….

… enough grownups decide to make it happen. That’s a big if.  

If Seattle can do it, why not Portland?  Common sense can win. People are looking for stability, joy and hope.  Maybe Seattle will rise again.   But what about creepy, dirty, crime-ridden, angry Portland?   People will flaunt the rules of society as long as they are allowed to do so.  We need actual grownups in government who understand it is their job to keep the city running, maintain order, and not try to social engineer us.  Keep it simple.  

And then if Portland wises up and grows up, maybe there is hope for the state legislature to get back to the business of running things, not people.  So grow up quickly, before it’s lost forever.


How Seattle Stepped Back From the Leftist Abyss

After a mob occupied the Capitol Hill area in 2020, voters rejected the city’s left-wing leadership.



After six years of increasingly progressive governance, Seattle voters finally had enough. In November they elected Democrat Bruce Harrell, a moderate former City Council president, to be the city’s next mayor. Mr. Harrell’s more liberal opponent in the nonpartisan mayoral election had campaigned on preventing the city from clearing away Seattle’s drug-infested homeless encampments and cutting the city’s police budget by half.

Mr. Harrell, on the other hand, pledged to make public safety a priority and to ensure that city spending on homeless programs followed firm rules for moving people “off of sidewalks and out of parks.” He pledged to restore civility to the city’s increasingly angry political discourse. “I never had to deviate from that message,” he told me in an interview this week.

Mr. Harrell’s election wasn’t the only victory for common sense. Sara Nelson, a self-described “lifelong Democrat,” defeated Nikkita Oliver, a well-known radical activist, for a seat on the City Council. And in the race for city attorney, former public defender Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who had vowed to stop prosecuting misdemeanors, lost to a Republican, Ann Davison, who promised to increase prosecution.

Mr. Harrell’s election wasn’t the only victory for common sense. Sara Nelson, a self-described “lifelong Democrat,” defeated Nikkita Oliver, a well-known radical activist, for a seat on the City Council. And in the race for city attorney, former public defender Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who had vowed to stop prosecuting misdemeanors, lost to a Republican, Ann Davison, who promised to increase prosecution.

Seattle’s turnaround will take time. The city’s political culture has been wounded by decades of terrible public policy, and not just by the mayor and City Council. Judges are still letting armed drug dealers with long rap sheets out of jail on low or no bail. 





Sunday, March 27, 2022

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

 If you haven’t discovered it already, the Mises Institute website is a great source for knowledge on the Austrian School of Economics and it founder, Ludwig Von Mises.  The site has a collection of Mises publications available as downloads - one I have featured below.  See the entire list HERE.  

The irrational anti-capitalist attitudes of intelligent, educated people continue to confound me, even though I understand why they exist.  Human nature makes it easy for propaganda against capitalism to succeed.  Envy, resentment, humiliation, greed, hatred… directed by the many toward the few at the top.  The popular memes of greedy business owners and landlords who take advantage of the working class and deserving poor are ground into our culture and supported by religious admonitions of sacrifice, humility and charity.  Conveniently ignored are the benefits of personal ambition, creativity, effort and making tough decisions about personal conduct that will yield success.  Mises explains it all, but America has lost its will to learn.  

For the following publication, Click HERE.


The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

In 1954, after a lifetime of serious theoretical work in economic science, Mises turned his attention to one of the great puzzles of all time: discovering why the intellectuals hate capitalism. The result is this socio-psycho-cultural analysis informed by economic theory.

Mises explores answers from a wide variety of angles, and discusses the nature of academic institutions, popular culture, and how vices like jealousy and envy affect theory. All play a role in preventing people from seeing the self-evident benefits of economic freedom relative to controls. His comments on the resentment of the intellectuals cut very deeply. Mises shrewdly teases the anti-capitalist bias out of contemporary fiction and popular culture generally.

In the course of his narrative, he explains aspects of the market that have generally eluded even its defenders. For example, is it true that markets dumb down the culture, exalting trashy novels and movies over higher-brow fare? Mises points out that the tastes of the masses will always and everywhere be lower than those educated and cultivated to love higher culture. But, he says, the glory of capitalism is that it brings to every sector what it wants and needs, and more of it than any other system. So, yes, there will be more trash, but also more great work as well. It is a matter of availability: Under socialism, nothing is available. Under capitalism, choice seems nearly infinite.

Ron Wyden and Total Income / Total Power

 Carpetbagger Ron Wyden does not represent Oregonians.  He may own a home in Eastmorland, but he lives with his family in New York City and travels to Another home in Washington DC for work. Why is he still allowed to be called the Senior Senator from Oregon?  He wasn’t born here and hasn’t lived here in years.  With his leftist, elitist, anti-capitalist sentiments, he is a destructive force for average Americans who aspire to the American Dream. 



Eugene Register Guard, 6/2/18
LETTERS

Why doesn't Wyden live among constituents?

When our absentee senator, Ron Wyden, made one of his infrequent visits to Oregon to meet with with students at North Eugene High School the other day, it was too bad no one asked him why he does not choose to live among his constituents here in Oregon as opposed to shuttling between his real homes in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

I have never understood why Oregonians continue to elect this carpetbagger.

Jim Hargreaves, Eugene

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Don’t be for about his reviled billionaires’ tax plan (AKA Wealth Tax).  The problem with singling out the wealthy to pay “their fair share” of taxes is a cheap appeal to humans’ innate selfishness and desire to have something at another's’ expense. It doesn’t take long for the billionaires’ kitty to run dry and the definition of wealthy drop to include millionaires and then the middle class.  It’s a slippery slope of greed.  Even 

Wyden’s son doesn’t like Dad’s fiscal policies either.  

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Democrat Wyden's Son: Dad, 'Cronies' Hate American Dream

Newsmax. By    |   Monday, 08 November 2021 

Adam Wyden, a multimillionaire hedge fund manager, called out his father, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and his "cronies" on Capitol Hill on Sunday saying they hate the "American Dream."

"Why does he hate us / the American dream so much?!?!?!?!" Adam Wyden tweeted on Sunday. "Reality is: most legislators have never built anything… so I guess it’s easier to mindlessly and haphazardly try and tear stuff down."

"Thankfully, I think I can compound faster than my dad and his cronies can confiscate it…" Wyden said

The younger Wyden moved from New York to Florida last year to escape his previous home's high tax rates, Forbes reported. And he hasn't been shy about criticizing President Joe Biden or his father's tax policies.

The Biden administration has pushed an "unrealized capital gains" tax for billionaires to fund his infrastructure plan. Such a tax would force payment on an increase in net worth, which is not currently taxed unless the money is cashed out.

Detractors have noted that the income tax was initially sold as only for the wealthy and now hits nearly all Americans.


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Recall Margaret Thatcher’s quote:  

The problem with socialism is that you eventually 

run out of other people's money.”


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New term,  TOTAL INCOME = unrealized gain.  The increase in value of a person’s assets that he hasn’t sold yet.  Such capital gains are currently taxed when they are converted into spendable income.  Total wealth tax is a new term for Wealth Tax that would tax the gains before they are liquidated thus lowering the ability of a person to compound their gains over time.  

When will the increase in value of personal residences be included in total income?  I have been predicting this for years as a way socialists can degrade private property rights, though private property includes financial assets as well as hard assets. 

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Biden to propose minimum tax on billionaires in budget


President Biden will propose a new 20 percent minimum tax on America’s wealthiest households as part of his fiscal 2023 budget, according to a White House fact sheet released on Saturday.  

The White House said that the “billionaire minimum income tax” Biden will propose would apply to the top 0.01 percent of American households, or those worth more than $100 million. More than half of the revenue raised by the proposed minimum tax would come from households worth more than $1 billion, according to the fact sheet.

The new proposal would require wealthy households to pay 20 percent in taxes on their “full income,” including standard taxable income as well as unrealized income like gains from stocks. 

Such a proposal would need to be passed by Congress. 

Democrats in Congress have previously debated how to raise taxes on America’s most wealthy. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled a billionaire tax proposal last fall that would tax investment gains of taxpayers with assets exceeding $1 billion or income of over $100 million.   

Biden is expected to release his full budget proposal for fiscal 2023 on Monday, days after returning to Washington from a high-stakes trip to Europe that focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

Presidential budgets are not typically passed by Congress, but they send a signal of the administration’s priorities for the coming year.    

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Wyden’s version of the Billionaires’ tax from the fall.  It didn’t pass, so Biden is trying another version.  Just as destructive, just as hateful towards the American Dream.  


Wyden releases billionaires tax proposal for spending package

Friday, March 25, 2022

Bring back Walt!

Why do people fold when challenged by a mob of angry activists?  These woke lunatics are not the majority yet they wield a lot of psychological power with their Alinsky-style antics. It may be uncomfortable, but it isn’t impossible to stand up to bullies.  Shame on Disney Corp.  what would Walt say?


As a fan of The Wonderful World of Disney on TV every Sunday night, and the Mouseketeers on weekdays, and a once-in-a lifetime trip to  Anaheim in 1959, my heart breaks that kids and families can’t go to such places to just have fun.  I don’t think anyone cared what political party the kid in the next teacup was.  The point was to turn our cup faster than his without barfing or falling down afterwards.  


https://www.dailywire.com/news/they-call-their-fellow-employees-bigots-conservatives-at-disney-issue-open-statement-detailing-hostile-work-environment


‘They Call Their Fellow Employees Bigots’: Conservatives At Disney Issue Open Statement Detailing Hostile Work Environment

   DailyWire.com

As LGBT employees at Disney get ready to stage a walkout on March 22 over Disney’s attempt to remain neutral on Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, conservative staffers have issued an open letter of their own.

Published Monday and provided to The Daily Wire in advance, the authors reveal that they do not feel safe in their jobs and say that Disney has “come to be an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for those of us whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive.” The staffers say they’ve watched silently as Disney villainizes and condemns political leaders who share their opinions:

Over the last few weeks, we have watched as our leadership has expressed their condemnation for laws and policies we support. We have watched as our colleagues, convinced that no one in the company could possibly disagree with them, grow increasingly aggressive in their demands. They insist that TWDC [The Walt Disney Company] take a strong stance on not only this issue but other legislation and openly advocate for the punishment of employees who disagree with them…

One of the employees, who works in the Imagineering department designing attractions in Disney theme parks, told The Daily Wire that he’s had three close colleagues leave his division in just the last nine months because of the increasingly hostile work environment. “No matter what department or what segment, we’ve been watching the [diversity, equity, and inclusion] takeover of Disney accelerate to breakneck speeds, and God help you if you get caught standing in front of the train.”

Another, an engineer, described the open letter as “kind of a last-ditch effort to appeal to senior leadership that may agree with us but lack the courage to say anything because they feel all alone themselves.”

America is changing in ways we didn’t vote for

Whether you know anything about it, whether you like it or not, America is in the throes of a dramatic transformation.  The only thing that can save our freedoms is that enough people become aware of what is happening soon enough and can do enough to stop it.  This is the reason I write this blog.  It’s my duty, my purpose to fight for ethical governance and individual liberty and freedom.  



https://www.dailywire.com/news/sec-eyes-forcing-companies-to-disclose-data-on-social-issues-sparking-politicization-concerns

SEC Eyes Forcing Companies To Disclose Data On ‘Social’ Issues, Sparking ‘Politicization’ Concerns

“Think deeply about the possible impact on our democratic structure if the corporation is used to engineer social change.”

   DailyWire.com


Weeks into the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is mulling a larger focus on the “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) actions of publicly-traded companies — amorphous categories that one industry official said could lead to “politicizing the role of the corporation” that “will inevitably alienate not only a large portion of a company’s customer base but a significant percentage of the company’s workforce.”


https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-ags-want-to-push-companies-into-revealing-climate-change-prevention-plans

Democrat AGs Want To Push Companies Into Revealing ‘Climate Change’ Prevention Plans

   DailyWire.com

Thirteen Democratic state attorneys general want to force companies into revealing their efforts to fight climate change.

The letter — which is signed by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Maryland, and Wisconsin — demands that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) push companies into more transparency over climate-related issues.


https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-condemns-rising-woke-trend-in-corporate-america

Elon Musk Condemns Rising Woke Trend In Corporate America

   DailyWire.com

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk condemned “ESG” standards — a growing trend in corporate America to make businesses more “socially conscious.”

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria are “a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments,” according to Investopedia. For instance, a company may emphasize its use of green energy, association with LGBTQ suppliers, or otherwise arrange its operations such that producing shareholder value is inseparable from a leftist agenda.

When software engineer and entrepreneur Marc Andreessen criticized ESG funds’ willingness to “make the weapons required to fight wars with hostile regimes we buy energy from” and simultaneous refusal to invest in energy companies, Musk pointed out that “ESG rules have been twisted into insanity.”

Republican SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce told The Daily Wire last year that the environmental and social categories are both “quite unclear,” and may be “driven by people who want to know the information for other reasons.”

As The Daily Wire explained last summer, “activist investors” have long sought to reform troubled companies by taking over upper management. However, some modern “activist investors” are — quite literally — “activists.” Beyond increasing firms’ profits, fund managers are pressuring companies resistant to systemic change into adopting ESG criteria.




Great Reset meets Climate Change

 End goal: Social credit system to control YOU.  Control citizens by any means necessary.  

Centralized power cannot work with 

individual freedom.   

A podcast that will wake you up and keep you awake:

Click HERE for this podcast and others on The Great Reset.


In this episode, I address the left’s “Great Reset,” and I provide hard evidence of the ideological subversion happening out in the open. 


Soft racism in California

Every time a college or school system eliminates testing as a form of discrimination against minority racial groups, they announce their belief that minority students are not capable.  The practice of dumbing down entrance requirements to schools or certain careers is racist.  Even after a comprehensive study revealed that using SAT scores for admission to California State University schools increased minority enrollment, the CSU Board of Trustees clung to their predetermined beliefs and banned the tests.  

How far have we fallen when beliefs triumph over facts at the university level?  No wonder irrational wokeism dominates academia.  The system is rotten at its core.  When will minorities figure out that they are being denied access to colleges by the same people who say they want to help them?  

Unfortunately, the SAT tests are constantly being changed - dumbed down - to appease the woke and stay relevant in a world where merit is vilified.  Folks, we are doomed.  


Click HERE to read full article. 

California State University Drops SATs, ACTs From Admissions Requirements

   DailyWire.com

California State University (CSU) will no longer require students to submit SAT or ACT scores for college admissions, making it the largest four-year college system in the country to drop the requirement.

CBS News reported that CSU’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Wednesday to make the change, and that the move follows the University of California’s decision to do the same in 2020. CSU had already suspended the use of test scores during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years due to the coronavirus pandemic, but this week made the move permanent.

“This decision aligns with the California State University’s continued efforts to level the playing field and provide greater access to a high-quality college degree for students from all backgrounds,” CSU acting Chancellor Steve Relyea said in a statement, according to CBS. “In essence, we are eliminating our reliance on the high-stress, high-stakes test that has shown negligible benefit and providing our applicants with greater opportunities to demonstrate their drive, talents and potential for college success.”

The Daily Wire previously reported in June 2020 that the UC system voted to stop requiring SAT and ACT scores because, as some members claimed, the test was harmful to minorities. The Daily Wire reported:

Yet only a few weeks earlier, the entire faculty senate voted to retain the SAT as a result of a study commissioned by UC system president Janet Napolitano that found that the SAT and the ACT increased minority enrollment across the UC system.

The 228-page report, loaded with hundreds of displays of data from the UC’s various admissions departments, found that the SAT and a commonly used alternative test, ACT —  also eliminated – actually helped increase black, Hispanic, and Native American enrollment at the system’s 10 campuses. The report recommended that their use be continued,” Richard Bernstein of RealClearInvestigations reported.

Yet the testing requirement was still removed.


Thursday, March 24, 2022

Terra Nullis

Wonder who owns the North Pole?  Besides Santa Claus.  

From World of Maps.



Whose children?

 A new documentary explains what is going on in most public and a lot of private schools today.  School isn’t the place kids go for academic instruction anymore - it’s not at all the way parents remember their childhood classrooms.  

My kids are grown, but if they were in school today, I’d either have them in a school that respects parental rights and sticks to academics, or I would home school, probably in conjunction with other like-minded parents. The stakes are just too high. Parents cannot trust the system to deliver an agenda-free education to their kids.  It’s embedded in university teacher education classes, the textbooks teachers must use and in the air they breath once they set foot inside the classroom doors. Children now belong to the system - to the government and the schools they operate.  How long do you think home schooling or non-conforming curriculum will be allowed?  

CLICK HERE for The Federalist podcast nerviest with the documentary’s creator.  


The Deep Roots Of K-12 CorruptionMar 16, 2022

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Deborah Flora, president and founder of Parents United America, joins Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss her new documentary "Whose Children Are They?” which exposes the radicalization of U.S. public schools. 

View trailer on YouTube - Click HERE

Search Fandango for local theaters.  For Lake Oswego readers, the movie is playing Wednesday, March 30th at 7:00 pm at the Bridgeport Regal Cinemas.  

WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THEY? is the groundbreaking and powerfully persuasive documentary featuring brave teachers, empowered parents, and front-line experts who pull back the curtain about what is truly happening in our public schools today.

This film will be the starting point for a full cultural conversation about the need to return to the original intent of education, not indoctrination. “Whose Children Are They?” will inform and equip parents, teachers, grandparents and concerned citizens, to partner together for the innocence and well-being of our children. It will also educate all education stakeholders on the corrupting influence of teachers’ unions, and the vital importance of removing them from our schools, in addition to educating parents on the need to stand with good teachers, and empower teachers to stage a mass Union Exit.