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A Plea to Rescue the Republic

If you have a few minutes, I’d like to begin by telling you about Edwin Bell Forsythe because his service to our country and his dedication to liberty are instructive.

Forsythe was a true public servant. A devoted Quaker from Moorestown, New Jersey, he served honorably in the House of Representatives as a Republican from 1970 until his death in 1984. I worked for Forsythe and remember keenly his decency and dignity.

Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe and his wife, Mary, at the Capitol.

A continuing reminder of Forsythe is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. The refuge includes over 32,000 acres of coastal salt meadows, uplandbrush and woodlands, and open bays and channels along the New Jersey shore.

At the dedication of that refuge, Ed Welch, Chief Counsel of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, praised Forsythe for his effective leadership, the ability to take divisive controversies and hammer out strong bipartisan compromises in an atmosphere of fairness and civility. “The policy differences between Republicans and Democrats were never ignored, but they were not permitted to obstruct the essential workings of the Committee,” Welch said. 

“Ed Forsythe was a man of integrity and principle,” said Rep. William J. Hughes of New Jersey, who served as a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995, “He represented the very best that this nation has to offer, serving quietly but tirelessly and effectively for the people of his district. There was not an ounce of pomposity or pretension in Ed Forsythe. Ed’s unfortunate death has taken from us a great legislator and a fine individual. We have all been enriched by his presence among us.”

”His sensitivity, wisdom and quiet voice of reason will be missed,” added New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean. 

In today’s tumultuous political environment, “sensitivity, “wisdom and (a) quiet voice of reason” are sadly missing. Can you name even a handful of members of Congress who are spoken of with such respect today?

In their place we have rancorous, narcissistic exhibitionists focused more on messaging and publicity than on driving good public policy. 

In 2015, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, a shape-shifting individual, called Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,”  a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.” He’s now one of Trump’s most sycophantic defenders when it suits him.

Then there’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Despite being a doctor, who’s obligation is “First, do no harm”, he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made multiple outrageous medical statements, as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Even Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a supposed moderate, has lost her bearings. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for 12 years, she voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, a politician with a history of troubling statements and actions, to be the Director of National Intelligence, putting American security at risk. 

Republican Senator Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in the face of Trump’s threat of supporting a primary competitor, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. This despite serious allegations of personal misconduct and lack of judgement on his part, as well as minimal executive experience essential to managing a Department of Defense with about 3.4 million civilian and military personnel and an $850 billion annual budget.  

The list of weak-kneed Republican members of Congress could go on as the Republican Party has fallen into the trap of slavishly bowing down to President Trump, less because they agree with his erratic pronouncements than because they fear losing their prestigious positions.

House Republicans are no better. In bowing to Trump’s will, they are consciously compromising their authority. 

In the midst of all this stands Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who daily declares his fealty not to the constitution, but to an erratic, morally compromised president.  

On August 7, 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”

These days, don’t count on Johnson to try to put the brakes on any of Trump’s questionable autocratic moves. As Johnson told reporters in January, “There is a new sheriff in town.” 

And reveling in his position at the top of the Republican hierarchy stands Donald Trump, who sees himself as a wonder of the world, comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes constructed in homage to Helios, the original god of the Sun in ancient Greek mythology.

Wishing to be unburdened by common standards of decency and respect, Trump has even tried to fire an executive branch ethics watchdog who heads the Office of Special Counsel. 

With a brusque two sentence email, the White House Personnel Office leader was dismissed on Feb. 7, 2025, with little more than a “Thank you for your service”. The firing is only on hold because a federal district court issued a temporary order keeping the lawyer in office through a hearing scheduled for Feb. 26, 2025. 

The behavior of senior people serving under Trump is no better. Their abandonment of civility is exemplified by “Border Czar” Tom Homan who callously said of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Feb. 17 Newsmax interview, “She’s the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress and she proves that every day.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is no more reticent. A fanatical Trump devotee, he was accused by the chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol of “efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and encouraging state legislatures to alter the outcome of the 2020 election by appointing alternate electors.

Considered a racist by some of his detractors, Miller was a lead author of the zero tolerance policies that led to immigrant children being separated from their parents during Trump’s first term.

“America is for Americans and Americans only” Miller bellowed at a Madison Square Garden Trump campaign rally on October 27, 2024, “With your vote, you can smash this broken establishment” he concluded.

Trump has also brought into government efforts to indiscriminately hollow out the federal civil service. Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government efficiency, or DOGE, is hacking away with abandon at multiple federal departments. Regardless of what Trump and Musk might say, the goal is not so much to diminish the federal workforce as to replace it  with clones of Trump’s most rabid supporters. Meanwhile, Republicans stand idly by. 

Affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department oi Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Aviation Administration. The IRS is also expected to lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season.

 A DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees led to embarrassment and a recall when it was discovered that many of them worked on the nation’s critical nuclear weapons programs. The Associated Press noted that the firings came as the National Nuclear Security Administration “is in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort, including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads.”

“The goal here is to dismantle the merit system and return the government to the spoils system, awarding the president who gets into office and punish people who worked for the prior administration,” Kevin Owen, a lawyer who represents federal employees in civil service and whistleblower litigation, told the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, issues of privacy and data security are arising. Democrats and tax experts are sounding alarms, for example, about a plan by Elon Musk’s DOGE team to gain access to an IRS system that contains detailed financial information about millions of taxpayers, including their tax returns.

“This is a five-alarm warning,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS, said in a post on X, calling the move an “illegal and blatant power grab.”

Also raising alarms are DOGE moves at the Social Security Administration, where Elon Musk’s team, alleging unsubstantiated concerns about fraud, is reportedly attempting to access reams of sensitive information. The acting head of the SSA, Michelle King, has already resigned over the intrusion. Yet, again, elected Republicans casually ignore the threat. 

And I haven’t even begun to address the international chaos emerging under Trump and his servile minions. 

Nowhere is this chaos more evident than in Trump’s handing of the Ukraine war. Word of impending negotiations with Russia was, first of all, a shock to Ukraine and America’s European allies. 

Then, when negotiations on the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between the U.S. Delegation, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Russian Delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, conspicuously absent were any representatives from Ukraine or Europe. The move was perceived by both as a slap in the face.

“Making sense of Trump’s plan – if there is one” read the headline of a Kyiv Independent article on the negotiations.

One thing was clear, though. “Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in address at a Munich Security Conference. “From now on, things will be different…”

On Feb.18, Trump lambasted our European allies and Ukraine for letting the war go on. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” he said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” 

On February 17, Trump went so far in a Truth Social post as to directly insult Zenenskyy , calling him “a modestly successful comedian” and ” A Dictator without Elections”.

” Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote. ” In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do.” 

“Trump sold his soul and our country to Putin,” said one commenter. “Hard to believe we’re defending Russia instead of the Ukrainian freedom fighters.

But Russia is likely thrilled by Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine as well as by Vice President Vance’s remarks critical of Europe and supportive of far-right forces on the continent.

“The Kremlin for years has sought to weaken Europe by boosting parties that Mr. Vance argued must be allowed to flourish,” reporter Paul Sonne wrote in the New York Times on February 16. “The same day as his remarks at the conference, Mr. Vance met with the leader of Germany’s extreme right movement, which is contesting national elections this month, boosting a party Russia has sought to legitimize. Moscow has also sought to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, realizing that a destruction of the longstanding Euro-Atlantic alliance from within would lead to a world where Moscow can wield far more power.”

Echoing Sonne, Ian Bond, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, commented online, “Some of the most shameful comments uttered by a president in my lifetime. Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim. In the Kremlin they must be jumping for joy.”

If Trump’s usual bull in a china shop approach to foreign affairs,  complemented by his vice president, leads to the abandonment of Ukraine and a reinvigorated Russia, the risk for Europe will be great and another American threat, China, will be emboldened. 

The United States has also inserted itself into a flammable situation with Trump’s proposal that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and push the Palestinians into other countries, principally Jordan and Egypt. The land by the Mediterranean Sea is a potential French “Riviera,” something that would be worth a “long-term ownership position,” Trump said in early February. Typical of Trump, his vague proposal was an apparent surprise even to his closest advisors and stunned Congressional Republicans.

It was all reminiscent of Trump in his first term trying to convince North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un that his country was ripe for development as a popular destination spotif he gave up his militaristic nuclear weapons program.  If you can believe this, Trump even showed him a slick video the White House National Security Council came up with showing what North Korea could become if it concluded a rapprochement with the United States.  “They have great beaches,” Trump said. 

Where are the members of Congress voicing concerns? Where is today’s Wayne Morse, a vocal critic of the Vietnam war and an outspoken defender of the Constitution’s checks and balances during his 24-year tenure in the U.S. Senate representing Oregon from1945-69?

Fariborz S. Fatemi, who worked on foreign policy issues on the staff of U.S. Sen. Frank Church, told of how Morse frequently went to the floor of the Senate to deliver riveting and informative speeches about the rule of law, separation of powers and how the Senate and the House were slowly giving their powers away to an already powerful executive. 

Way back in 2018, Berry Craig, a state AFL-CIO official, saw the relevance of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, to Trump’s behavior. President Lincoln “wanted men who would tell him what he needed to win the war, save the union and put slavery on the road to extinction – not what they thought he wanted to hear,” Craig said. “It’s the opposite with Trump. He demands obsequiousness.” 

That’s still true. Instead of strong, valiant, principled members standing up to Trump on myriad issues for their institution, we have toadies worried only about their next election.

That must change. 

George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, cautioned his fellow Americans about the rise of a man like Trump. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty,” he warned. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said on Fox TV about Trump’s push to control Greenland, “I met with the Danish Ambassador this past week. They said Greenland is not for sale. I said, ‘Everything is for sale.’” 

We already know Marco Rubio is. He previously portrayed Trump as “a pathological liar”, a “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral”. Now Trump’s his best buddy.

So far, the Republican Party, Republican members of Congress and obedient Republican staff seem to be for sale, too. They need to act to protect America from Trump’s lunacies.

Challenging Trump won’t be easy. 

In the movie “The Apprentice”, Sebastian Stan portrays a young Donald Trump determined to make his mark in 1970s New York. Reflecting on what he saw in Trump, Stan said in a New York Times story. “What I’ve always seen in his journey, and certainly we were exploring in the film, was the solidifying of a person into stone, the loss of humanity.” 

Despite his public efforts to appear amiable and open, Donald J. Trump is a cold-hearted vindictive man who will fight tooth and nail. 

But let the fight to rescue the republic begin.

. 

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Oregon Democrats are going to get your kicker, one way or another

State Senator Jeff Golden wrote an Opinion column in The Oregonian recently calling for diversion of the next kicker, recently forecasted to be $1.8 billion, to a dedicated Wildfire Programs Fund, which the state treasurer would invest.

It’s just one more way for a hungry Democrat-run government to raid your pocketbook. 

The idea came out of a workgroup of 36 stakeholders chosen by Gov. Tina Kotek to deliberate over alternative funding sources for dealing with wildfires. 

The key options identified were:

  • Kicker Funds: One-time use to “jump-start” wildfire funding.
  • Bottle Bill Adjustment: increase the bottle deposit to include a non-refundable portion for wildfire funding.
  • Insurance retaliatory tax – Dedicate a portion of existing retaliatory taxes paid by out-of-state insurers to the State.
  • Ending Balance: Dedicate 0.5% of previous biennium’s appropriations (if there is an ending balance) to the Wildfire Fund. 
  • One time transfer from the Rainy Day Fund (RDF) – directed to wildfire.
  • Lottery Funds – Constitutionally dedicate a portion of lottery funds for wildfire.
  • Landowner assessment rates and existing structure – will be part of the solution. 

The proposal to create a Wildfire Programs Fund “stands out from the others,” Golden wrote.

“Funding for our programs would come not from the $1.8 billion principal—that would be preserved – but rather from the investment interest it earns.,” Golden wrote. “Assuming 5% annual return (a reasonable guess judging by the Treasury’s investment history), the fund would annually generate $90 million – $180 million each biennium – for wildfire programs. While that’s not enough to cover all our needs, it sure looks good relative to the $87 million budgeted in the current two-year cycle.”

The Legislature has fooled around with the kicker before. In 1991 and 1993, budget problems relating to Ballot Measure 5 of 1990 prompted lawmakers to suspend the kicker, withholding $246 million from taxpayers. Then, in 2007, lawmakers succeeded in diverting funds from the corporate kicker to a surplus account called the rainy day fund.

Public resistance to diversion of the kicker has historically been strong. As one current Reddit post says, “The Oregon State government is run as efficiently as an HOA. The kicker policy at least mandates them to return surpluses rather than letting this group of clowns spend it on whatever is fashionable and keeps them in office.”

There’s also long been suspicion that free-spending Democrats will take undue advantage of any relaxation in kicker policy.“This past session, I was approached multiple times by Democrats who wanted to use the kicker for some purpose, and their requests were well over $10 billion,” Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, told OPB in 2023. “The reason I haven’t done any of that is, once you open the door, you’re going to spend it all.”

That’s still true. 

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Trump’s Message to Millions: So Die, Scum

A president who once referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” is continuing his cruel attacks on people around the world suffering from disease and starvation. 

The Trump administration has moved to shut down USAID, the federal government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance as an independent agency and integrate what remains into the Department of State under Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

 Elon Musk, head of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, a billionaire with zero expertise in global development, has said of USAID that it is a “criminal organization. Time for it to die.”

“We’re shutting it down,” Musk said during a live chat on X,  later adding, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”

The Devious Duo (Photo credit: AP)

Consider:

  • USAID’s partner program PEPFAR, an anti-HIV/AIDS initiative launched by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, pays for antiretroviral medicines and leads efforts to halt the spread of the virus. It is estimated to have saved 25 million lives since its inception. USAID’s collapse could serve a death sentence for PEPFAR, Persuasion,  a nonprofit digital magazine, reported. In a survey of 275 H.I.V. treatment organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, every single one reported needing to shut down programs or turn away patients.
  • The United States contributes approximately $300 million dollars annually to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which targets diseases such as malaria and rabies in low- and middle-income countries Gavi supports the accelerated introduction of new and underutilized vaccines in 73 countries. Across the world, immunization yields up to a 48-fold return on investments, averting an estimated 2-3 million child deaths per year.
  • About 500,000 metric tons of food worth $340 million is in limbo, in transit or storage,Reuters reports, as humanitarian organizations wait for U.S. State Department approval to distribute it.
  • U.S.-provided cash assistance intended to help people buy food and other necessities in Sudan and Gaza has been halted, aid workers told Reuters. So has funding for volunteer-run community kitchens, an American-supported effort in Sudan to help feed people in areas inaccessible to traditional aid.
  • The US system for monitoring famine globally, designed by US government agencies, including USAID and NASA, has been taken offline.
  • The Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet) was established after the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, as part of a worldwide effort to prevent a repeat of its devastating impact. Trump’s action has left  policymakers in the dark about impending hunger crises “It is regarded as a gold standard in combining weather data and political analysis to predict drought and food insecurity globally,” the BBC reported.
  • About 500,000 metric tons of food worth $340 million is in limbo, in transit or storage, as humanitarian organizations wait for U.S. State Department approval to distribute it, according to Reuters. Among the food aid in limbo is almost 30,000 metric tons meant to feed acutely malnourished children and adults in famine-stricken Sudan., The food includes lentils, rice and wheat, one worker said – enough to feed at least 2 million people for a month. 
  • The USAID shutdown stalls progress toward economic prosperity and stability, Brookings reports. It stops support for cash transfers that reach the poorest households, halts financing for women farmers who produce food and other staples, stops lifesaving health services, and disrupts public-private partnerships to help women compete in the digital economy. 
  • Some officials fear that the closure of USAID could slow the response to ongoing outbreaks of Ebola in Uganda and Marburg virus in Tanzania, according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. USAID and the CDC collaborated in 2022 on a successful effort to limit the spread of an Ebola outbreak in Uganda.
  • The President’s Malaria Initiative, a US government program that funds malaria prevention and research, is led by USAID and implemented together with the CDC. (It’s website is currently “undergoing maintenance in order to be consistent with the President’s Executive Orders”)  One company has more than one million insecticide-treated bed nets in a warehouse in Ethiopia that, along with antimalarial drugs and diagnostics, it now can’t deploy, and at time when malaria transmission spikes in many countries. “Without those services — especially now that it’s the rainy season in a lot of the world — people will die,” an employee told the journal Nature. “We’re putting kids’ lives at risk by stopping this.”

Just a bunch of people in shithole countries affected. Who cares?

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I Beg Your Pardon! Oregon Democrats Want Employers to Pay Strikers 

Talk about absurd legislation. 

In an insult to common sense, Oregon Democrats, at the request of the AFL-CIO union of all things, have introduced a bill, SB 916, that would allow striking workers in Oregon to collect unemployment benefits. Because the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund is funded through a payroll tax that is paid by employers, Oregon employers would be paying workers not to work, actually encouraging more strikes. 

The bill is sponsored by Senators Kathleen Taylor, Wlnsvey Campos, James I. Manning, Jr., Chris Gorsek, Mark Meek, and Deb Paterson, as well as Representatives Dacia Graber and Ben Bowman. 

The unemployment insurance program, as the state explains, ”provides partial wage replacement benefits to eligible workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own.” It is not, and was never intended to be, a source of money to compensate workers for refusing to work. 

Oregon employers contribute between 0.9% and 5.4% of an employee’s wages to the unemployment compensation fund. The exact amount depends on the employer’s tax rate and the employee’s wages. In 2025, Oregon employers are projected to contribute $1.3 billion to the unemployment compensation fund, an increase from the $1.2 billion projected for 2024. 

A similar proposal is being considered by Washington’s Legislature after a bill to make strikers eligible for unemployment benefits after two weeks on strike passed the state house last year, but didn’t have enough support to move forward in the senate. 

Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, is sponsoring this year’s proposal in Washington,  Senate Bill 5041. “Unions should finance their own strike funds and they are trying to make employers be on the hook to pay for strikers.” Says Elizabeth New (Hovde), Director, Center for Health Care and Center for Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. 

A public hearing on SB 916 before the Senate Committee On Labor and Business was held on Feb. 6, 2025. Witnesses opposing the bill included representatives of the Northwest Grocery Retail Association, the National Association of Independent Business (NFIB), the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) and the League of Oregon Cities. Witnesses supporting the bill included representatives of the Oregon AFL-CIO, the Oregon Education Association, the Oregon Nurses Association, SEIU Local 503 and the Oregon arm of the the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 

The high cost of doing business in Oregon already hinders the state’s economy. “Passing SB 916 would make Oregon less appealing for business investment, which is needed to create jobs and generate revenue needed by state and local governments,” says Oregon Business & Industry, a statewide business advocacy group. They’re right.

The Senate hearing will continue on Feb. 11. Sensible Oregonians need to tell Oregon’s Democratic legislators to stop the bill in its tracks.

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FBI Nominee Kash Patel and His Friends: A Cabal of Co-Conspirators

Kash Patel

There’s a common saying that reflects how a person’s friends reveal a lot about them: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in announcing that Kashyap “Kash” Patel would serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As Paul Harvey used to say in his widely popular radio broadcasts, “And now, the rest of the story”. 

After working for the first Trump administration,Patel launched Kash’s Corner, a podcast in which he offered his MAGA-tinged take on the news alongside a co-host, none other than The Epoch Times senior editor, Jan Jekielek.

The Epoch Times is a far-right conspiracy-peddling newspaper and website affiliated with Falun Gong, a fringe Chinese religious movement. If you are not already familiar with the Epoch Times, Falun Gong also founded the controversial entertainment organization, Shen Yung, the the ubiquitous dance troupe that appears regularly in Portland.

The Epoch Times and its affiliates “have grown, in part, by relying on sketchy social media tactics, pushing dangerous conspiracy theories and downplaying their connection to Falun Gong” according to a New York Times investigation.

NBC News has reported in depth about the “conspiracy-fueled” Epoch Times, citing it as “an early and aggressive promoter of election information” in the United States. The Election Integrity Partnership coalition has cited the Epoch Times as a “repeat spreader” of false and misleading voter fraud stories as well as a major promoter of debunked conspiracy theories around Dominion voting machines and the “Stop the Steal” movement, aimed at overturning the election results.” 

After the 2020 election, The Epoch Times refused to acknowledge the results, “falsely suggesting instead that legal and procedural challenges that will flip the results in favor of Trump are still ongoing,” Forbes reported. 

NBC News has also reviewed 79 episodes of Patel’s podcast, featuring Patel and Jekielek. “Together, they spun detailed but unfounded claims of conspiracies involving government officials, law enforcement agencies, the media and tech companies, among others, all aiming to rig elections, silence conservative voices and undermine Trump’s presidency and re-election,” NBC reported. 

NBC noted that in a 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, Patel claimed the FBI used confidential sources during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capital for political purposes, asking whether rioters had been goaded by agents to commit crimes and questioning the related convictions. Did “those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so? That is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped,” he said. 

At his January 30, 2025 Senate confirmation hearing, Patel said with a straight face, “I have no interest, no desire, and will not, If confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI.”

But In an interview with Trump ally Steve Bannon, Patel insisted he would go after judges, lawyers and journalists who, in Patel’s view, had improperly investigated Trump and stolen the 2020 election.  “We’re going to come after the people in the MEDIA who helped Biden rig presidential elections,” he vowed.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media — yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’re going to figure that out — but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice,” he added. “We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”

Bill Bramhall, The Virginian-Pilot

Should this guy be running the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in the United States? I don’t think so.

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“Abortion Rights Are Safe In Oregon” Says Oregon’s Attorney General. Don’t Believe It.

Survey shows Americans' conflicted ...

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump was all over the map on abortion. But you’d be a fool to think this means abortion rights are safe in Oregon or the rest of the country. They are not.

In June 2023, addressing a Faith & Freedom Coalition Gala, Trump said he was the “most pro-life president ever.” As with so many of his other c campaign promises, he’ll likely follow through with that promise.

Oregon’s attorney general says all is well. The Oregon Department of Justice website is adamant that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has not affected abortion rights in the state: “Abortion is still SAFE, ACCESSIBLE and LEGAL in OREGON” its says. “The United States Supreme Court decision in June 2022 overturning Roe v. Wade(called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health) did not change Oregon laws protecting a pregnant person’s right to have an abortion in Oregon.”

The fact is, however, that no state is immune from federal actions limiting abortion rights.

With Pam Bondi’s Senate confirmation as attorney general still ahead, for example, her chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, who is temporarily leading the Justice Department, issued a memo sharply limiting prosecutions of people accused of blocking access to abortion clinics, calling such cases the “prototypical example” of federal weaponization.

On January 23, 2024 Trump followed up by pardoning 23 people who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), including many who were serving prison sentences for physically blocking patients from accessing their doctors. Some of the offenses committed included breaking into clinics, stealing fetal tissue, and accosting pregnant patients.

Jessica Valenti, a prominent writer on gender and politics, has reported that:

  • Dozens of Republican lawmakers held a private meeting with anti-abortion activists where they pledged to repeal the FACE Act
  • The Department of Justice announced that they won’t enforce the FACE Act unless there are “extraordinary circumstances…such as death.”
  • Conservative legal groups are working to overturn Hill v. Colorado—the Supreme Court decision that established abortion clinic buffer zones.

Efforts are also underway to limit Planned Parenthood’s operations in Oregon access to federal Medicaid money, potentially cutting off its ability to provide abortions. 

On January 27,  the White House Office of Management and Budget  (OMB) issued an order setting off  a temporary pause of  federal grants to give agencies time to review spending priorities. On Jan. 28, OMB sent another sent a directive telling federal agencies to fill out an attached spreadsheet answering questions about programs that might require funding and whether they aligned with Trump’s agenda. One of the questions asked if the program supports abortion “in any way.”

At his Senate confirmation hearing for  Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assured Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) he would appoint only pro-life deputies.

Abortion access in Oregon may be constrained by restrictions on access to pills used in medication abortions.  Access to the abortion pill mifepristone, for example, still largely depends on a patchwork of state laws, with only about half of states allowing full access under the terms approved by the federal government. According to PBS, A dozen or so states have laws specifically limiting how mifepristone can be prescribed, such as requiring an in-person visit with a physician or separate counseling about the potential risks and downsides of the drug.

In a sign of the times, a New York doctor, Margaret Carpenter, was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury on January 29 for allegedly prescribing an abortion pill online in the southern state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country. Under the law, physicians convicted of performing an illegal abortion, including one with pills, face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical license. Carpenter was charged charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony. Carpenter was operating under New York’s telemedicine “shield law,” which protects providers who ship abortion pills across state lines, but it may not matter.

Project 25, The Heritage Foundations blueprint for Trump’s actions, calls for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to encourage states to remove Planned Parenthood facilities from the Medicaid program. Project 25 also proposes mobilizing an array of federal agencies to limit access to abortion, including a national ban on abortion pills even in states like Oregon with liberal abortion laws. 

“The Dobbs decision (overturning Roe v. Wade) is just the beginning,” Project 2025 says. “Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America.”

Oregon Right to Life, which says “We work to reestablish protection for all innocent human life from conception to natural death” is also continuing its efforts to restrict abortion in the state.

“Being a pro-life legislator in Oregon comes with unique challenges,” says the group’s website. “That being said, our mission remains the same: provide tangible, encouraging support to women and families, and protect as many unborn lives as possible from abortion. Understanding the unique terrain of this issue in Oregon, we want to continue to put forward limits that are widely supported with key exceptions, and considered “reasonable” even by self-proclaimed pro-choice voters.” 

 Undeterred by a generally hostile Legislature, the group is pursuing enactment of several bills during the 2025 session, including:

  • HB 2372 – would require a physician to provide a baby born alive during an attempted abortion procedure the same degree of care as any other baby at the same gestational stage.
  • HB 3248 – would place a limit on abortion when the baby can feel pain with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, and incest.
  • HB 2381, 2382 – would establish the Pregnancy Launch Program to encourage healthy childbirth; support childbirth as an alternative to abortion; promote family formation; aid successful parenting; Increase families’ economic self-sufficiency; and improve maternal health, mortality, and postpartum outcomes. It would also create a hotline and set a requirement that this information be provided to an abortion-minded woman 48 hours prior to her abortion procedure. Finally, it would establishe an OHA grant program to help fund entities offering services related to encouraging and assisting mothers in carrying their pregnancies to term.
  • TBD – would require parental consent for minors (under 18) traveling into Oregon for an abortion.

The battle is on.

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Trump Pursuing a New Tactic to Build His Presidential Library: Lawsuits.

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay about $25 million to settle a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after the social-media platform suspended his accounts following the attacks on the U.S. Capitol that year.

$22 million of the payment will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library,. Meta won’t admit wrongdoing under an agreement Trump signed in the Oval Office on Jan. 29.

This follows a Dec. 14 announcement that ABC News would pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump is discouraging. Even more discouraging, however, is word that under the terms of the settlement ABC News will donate the $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum.

And now The New York Times reports many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling an absurd $10 billion lawsuit against CBS filed before the Nov. 2024 election would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance. Trump accused CBS of deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation,” the Times reported on Jan. 30. 

“We once held the office of president, as well as its occupant, in high regard,” Anthony Clark wrote in The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity, and Enshrine Their Legacies. “As we have lowered our opinions of both, presidential libraries, consequently, have grown larger and more powerful—and, not incidentally, less truthful.” As Clark wrote in Salon, presidential centers tend to be “proud, defensive, and a little self-absorbed” and eventually become theme parks with declining numbers of visitors.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc. was incorporated in Florida on Dec. 20, six days after it was revealed that ABC News had agreed to donate the $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum.

The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey and Rebecca Ballhaus reported “Serious talks about the suit, which had seen little activity since the fall of 2023, began after Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to dine with him in November, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The dinner was one of several efforts by Zuckerberg and Meta to soften the relationship with Trump and the incoming administration. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Last year, Trump warned that Zuckerberg could go to prison if he tried to rig the election against him. Toward the end of the November dinner, Trump raised the matter of the lawsuit, the people said. The president signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be ‘brought into the tent,’ one of the people said.”

Knowing Donald Trump’s tendency toward grandiosity, he will likely want a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious billion dollar Presidential Monument. The Washington Post reported back in January 2021 that a top Trump fundraiser said the president had told supporters he wanted to raise $2 billion for his presidential library and museum and thought he could collect it in small-dollar donations from his grass-roots supporters. A satirical website was subsequently created showing the contents of a potential Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, with images of “The Wall of Criminality” and the “Alt Right Auditorium”. 

The way we’re headed, presidential centers will surpass Egypt’s pyramids as monuments to the egos of leaders. But as I’ve observed in previous posts, if Donald Trump goes forward with his museum plans, his  former, current and future advisors may have reason to be concerned. Many of the Egyptian pyramids entombed not only the deceased, but also the deceased’s servants.

Source: Putnam Museum

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Think Eco-Extremism Is Dead? Not In Oregon.

Oregon Democratic State Senator Jeff Golden of Ashland is confused.

Golden is the chief sponsor of a bill, SB 681, that would prohibit the State Treasurer from renewing investments in or making new investments in a private market fund if the managers of the fund have stated an intention to invest in fossil fuels. Joining him as regular sponsors of the bill are seven other Democrats: Senators Lew Frederick, Khanh Pham, Kathleen Taylor; House members Zach Hudson, Lisa Fragala, Mark Gamba, Travis Nelson.

The bill simply makes no sense. 

In relying on environmental criteria, investing is driven by a political agenda, not the best interests of investors.

In addition, the State Treasurer invests in securities that trade in secondary markets. As the Hewlett Foundation’s Kelly Born and Stanford Law professor emeritus Paul Brest have argued, it is virtually impossible for a socially motivated investor to increase the beneficial outputs of a publicly traded corporation by purchasing, or not purchasing, its stock.

Golden’s bill also undermines logic right off the bat when it justifies itself by citing everything but the kitchen sink as justification for the restrictive policy: 

“Whereas in Oregon, more intense forest fires threaten rural communities and disrupt outdoor recreational opportunities and the tourism industry; smoke from these fires threatens our workforce, our elders and our children; severe droughts constrain our important agricultural and nursery industries and imperil our salmon runs; and businesses are forced to spend millions to mitigate the most pressing climate effects rather than investing in future innovation and opportunities.”

Good grief. 

Then, while it prohibits fossil fuel investments on the one hand; on the other hand it cites the requirement that the State Treasurer is required to manage investment portfolios “so as to maximize investment returns and minimize the risk of loss.” You can’t do both at the same time. 

It also ignores the responsibility of the State Treasurer not to do anything that abrogates the treasurer’s fiduciary responsibilities to make available funds “as productive as possible” and “to diversify the investments of the investment funds”.

The Democrats’ bill is just leftist activism parading as socially responsible investing.

Stop it in its tracks.

 

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U.S. vs. China: Cutting Our Own Throats

Under Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China’smilitary might , including its nuclear capabilities, have been expanding rapidly while it “has demonstrated an increasing willingness to use military coercion and inducements to achieve its aims”, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

China’s dominance in global manufacturing is greater than it’s ever been. Its government subsidies are giving industries leverage to out-compete with American products. It had a nearly $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2024. 

China has an aggressive, global spy network and influence operation aimed at expanding and solidifying its power.

China is supporting the Russian war machine and is openly preparing for a war to take over Taiwan. 

China is aggressively bullying the Philippines and other countries with its claims on the South China Sea. 

The U.S is falling further and further behind China in shipbuilding, threatening maritime security around the world. A new report by the U.S. Trade Representative found, that U.S. international trade is “carried out on vessels made in China, financed by state-owned Chinese institutions, owned by Chinese shipping companies, and reliant on a global maritime and logistics infrastructure increasingly dominated by China.”

All together, China presents a clear and present danger to the United States,

But American consumers continue to subsidize the Community regime by procuring the countries products as though there’s a fire sale, American companies continue strengthening their ties to China and the strongest signal President-elect Donald Trump is sending to China isn’t, “I’m determined to protect American security”, but “Let’s make a deal”. 

Nothing illustrates that better than Trump’s words and actions with respect to TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

In April 2024, with bipartisan concern about the national security threat TikTok posed to the United States and its use as a tool to spread misinformation and propaganda, the House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 in the House and the Senate voted 78 to 18 for a bill requiring the sale of the social media platform to a U.S. company or face a shutdown.

Trump actually tried to ban the app himself in his first term by signing an executive order in August 2020 asserting that the app was capturing mass amounts of information about Americans and raising risks for the country.

“These risks are real,” the order said. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information − potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

In March 2024, however, Trump flipped his position, saying he was opposed to banning the app or forcing a sale. “Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Trump said on CNBC . “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”

On January 18, TikTok  did shut down, but after Trump promised to issue an executive order on Monday to “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect,” it came back up. It announced, “In agreement with our service providers” the company “is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”

The law allows Trump to grant a 90-day reprieve to TikTok, but only if he can certify at that point “evidence of significant progress” toward a sale. During that 90 days, of course, China’s alleged efforts to undermine United States security would continue, an issue of apparently little concern to Trump.

Trump’s inclination to pacify China and TikTok, reminds me of the protests of young Americans against the TikTok shutdown, favoring their personal TikTok addiction over American security.  These same self-absorbed young people are likely many of the same people who  are sustaining China’s economy by buying massive amounts of cheap fast fashion from Chinese companies like Temu and Shein, despite extensive reports  that the apparel hides the dirty laundry of environmental damage and labor exploitation.

Trump’s moves are not, however, going unchallenged.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has urged US companies to halt operations with TikTok. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,” Ricketts said.

Also breaking with Trump, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also issued a stern warning for companies deciding to work with TikTok after its resumption of service. “Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs, Cotton posted on X. “Think about it.”

Meanwhile, TikTok’s CEO is planning to attend a Trump victory rally at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. tonight (Sunday) and is expected to sit on the dais for Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

It’s a good time to remember Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp Treblinka in occupied Poland from Sept. 1942 to August 1943. Gitta Sereny, an Austrian born journalist, biographer and historian. wrote “Into That Darkness” based on interviews with Stangl after the war. Trying to understand how he acclimated to running the camp, she asked him how he managed to do it.  “It was the small steps. Small compromises,” he said. ” You see, if you can get people to stop believing in absolute right and wrong, you can get them to do anything.”

Americans succumbing to the allure of Chinese goods, American companies allowing their drive for profits to justify strengthening China’s economy and American politicians setting aside their legitimate concerns about the challenges from China are guilty of small steps, too.

Stay tuned.

Addendum

In still engaging wholeheartedly with China, American companies are repeating how so many have responded (or not) to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.  According to Foreign Policy, as of 2023, around 800 multinational companies from Western and like-minded countries were still operating in Russia—either because they decided to stay or because they were still generating revenues there despite having pledged to leave. Around 60 percent of those global firms that operated in Russia before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 still continue to do so. Second, Germany, the United States, and France are—by far—the top three countries of origin for Western firms that retain a presence in Russia, accounting for around half of them.

What is undeniably true , according to Foreign Policy, is that the hundreds of Western firms staying in Russia are helping Moscow finance the war in Ukraine. The data is eye-popping. In 2022 and 2023, firms from the G-7, European Union, and like-minded economies generated around $370 billion in revenues on Russian soil, which was more than Moscow’s military budget over the same period. In the first two years of the war, Western firms transferred more than $11 billion in corporate taxes to Russian state coffers, with Austrian bank Raiffeisen alone accounting for one-tenth of this amount. The data is not available yet for 2024, but a ballpark estimate suggests that Western firms probably paid another $4-6 billion in corporate taxes, bringing the total to roughly $16 billion funneled to the Kremlin since the invasion began.


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At Risk: Oregon’s Minority Scholarships are in Jeopardy

Congratulations to Olivia, Rodney, Kayla, Allie, and Sumeyah, the Black United Fund of Oregon (BUF-OR) announced with pride. All earned Amina Anderson scholarships awarded to students to pursue higher education at an accredited college or university within the State of Oregon. To qualify for the scholarship, students must identify as Black, African-American, or of African descent.

Other minority students in Oregon celebrated, too. There was the Oregon Latino Scholarship from the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber, where applicants must be of Hispanic ancestry and permanently residing in Oregon or Clark County, A total of $117,700 was awarded to 40 students on May 3rd, 2024, during the Chamber’s annual Scholarship Award Luncheon at the Oregon Convention Center, in Portland, Oregon.

There was also the Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Scholarship for Chinese high school seniors, and the Full Circle Scholarship from the American Indian College Fund for American Indian and Alaska Native students in Oregon.

I hope they treasured their awards. They may be among the last winners. All college scholarships restricted to minority students in Oregon and other states could soon be on the chopping block.

A lawsuit just filed against McDonald’s in federal court Nashville, TN alleges that the company is discriminating against non-Latinos with its HACER National Scholarship Program. The program offers scholarships between $5,000 and $100,000 to up to 30 outstanding students from across the US with at least one parent of Latino or Hispanic heritage.

“So non-Hispanics—including non-Hispanics with severe financial need and racial minorities like blacks, Arabs, and Native Americans—are flatly barred based on their ethnic heritage,” the lawsuit says. “This kind of discrimination was never lawful.”

The lawsuit was filed by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by Edward Blum. His lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina led to a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to stop affirmative action admissions at colleges. Blum has consistently argued against laws and policies that make distinctions based on race or ethnicity in areas such as voting and education.

“Like the vast majority of Americans, I believe that an individual’s race and ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors,” Blum told The New York Times after the Supreme Court ruling. ” This opinion is the end of the beginning. This issue of race and ethnicity in our public lives is not going to go away.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling has already spurred other nonprofits outside of Blum’s to target what they perceive to be discriminatory scholarships and fellowships. The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, for example, has filed multiple complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office over universities’ minority scholarships and fellowships,

As The Washington Post has observed, the Supreme Court’s decision “is being closely watched because of its possible implications for race-conscious programs in the private sector.”

Get ready for change.