PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The headline for this blog relates to a presentation I heard this week that came across as foreboding in a business where I have been involved for my entire professional career – the communications business.

But, wait for it.

I’ll provide more information, but, first, this introduction.

A few months ago, I and about 10 others were asked to participate as members on a committee appointed by Oregon Common Cause to take a look at how to improve ethical conduct and behavior at the federal level.

A tall task. One that might not to produce any kind of result, especially as we worked in little old Oregon.

The motivation for our effort was that, since Watergate has receded from public consciousness, so has ethical behavior and conduct on the part of public officials, especially with a president who has no ethical bearings. And, public officials in general often don’t exhibit ethics, or appear not to care about it.

Worse perhaps, the public – you and me, as voters – sometimes appear to care more about winning at any cost than winning with skill, ethics and honesty.

At least three initiatives are under consideration by our committee:

1. Encouraging Oregon school systems to include ethics modules in their curricula – and we have found out that such modules are sadly lacking. Still, we have identified two school districts that are willing to develop pilot programs which could serve as models for others around the state.
2. Encouraging public officials at all levels – including both elected and appointed officials – to sign ethics pledges to illustrate that, while in office or on the campaign trail they engage in ethical behavior and conduct.
3. Developing an education plan that could prompt voters to re-establish ethical behavior and conduct as a solid criterion for public officials.

In all of our work so far we have been wondering how to communicate in current society, which appears to be marked by a heavy reliance on social media, including such sites as Facebook and Twitter.

So, at my suggestion, we asked my former partner ands current friend, Pat McCormick, one of Oregon’s standout practitioners of communication arts, to help us understand the new landscape.

He met with us last week and provided these nuggets, each of which has major implications for how effective communication occurs these days:

• In 2004, there were 104 daily and weekly newspapers in Oregon. Today, there are only 85.
• In 2004, newspaper circulation totaled 1.4 million subscribers. Today, the number is down to 796,000.
• There are huge generational differences between and young and old as to where each gets news. Fifty per cent of those between ages 18 and 29 get news on social media platforms.   For those 65 years of age and older, 85 per cent get their news from TV.
• Further, 50 per cent of the so-called “millennials” get their political news on Facebook. For “baby boomers,” 50 per cent get their political news from local TV news.
• Overall, two-thirds of adults in the U.S. get news from social media sites, not mass media sites that were the stock in trade for persons in my age group
• The most-viewed social media site is Facebook. Twitter is next, but quite a ways down.

Beyond these and other statistics, my friend, Pat, said there are six communications trends that have started and will continue:

• Consolidation
• Fewer reporters
• Constant content demand
• Post first; correct later
• Entertainment matters more than journalism
• There is more investment in news dissemination than in news collection

He also said many Americans suffer from what he called “confirmation bias.” When we see or hear something that confirms our bias, we then confirm it. Think about it for only a few seconds – that’s what happens when citizens rely on only one source for news and information – a source they agree with most of the time — and don’t employ a variety of sources to come up with more reasoned viewpoints.

Pat ended with a terrific point made often, he said, by his late mother. She said God made people with two ears and one mouth for at least one reason – so they listen more than they talk.

Good advice for all of us – whether in the communications or in real life.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I have heard of duplicity on the part of public officials, but actions lately by Senator Bernie Sanders take the cake. Thus, the headline on this blog.

As Andy Puzder wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week, Sanders, “by his actions, shows he disagrees with the socialist policies he advocates.”

Or, this from Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post, which I quote in detail because it serves as a telling indictment of Sander’s duplicity:

“Sanders proudly announced this year that his presidential campaign would be the first in history to have a unionized workforce. Well, he just became the first presidential candidate in history to face a labor revolt from his unionized workforce.

“According to The Post, the Sanders campaign workers union, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, complained that field organizers are ‘making poverty wages’ and that ‘many field staffers are barely managing to survive financially.’ Because field organizers are working 60 hours a week, according to the union, their annual salary of $36,000 works out to $13 an hour — well below the $15-an-hour federal minimum wage Sanders has called for.

“It gets worse. When the Sanders campaign offered to raise salaries to that level, the union rejected the offer. Why? Because, The Post reports, ‘the raise would have elevated field staff to a pay level responsible for paying more of their own health-care costs.’

“It turns out that Sanders pays only 85 per cent of health-care premiums for campaign staff making more than $36,000 — despite campaigning on a promise of free health care for all with ‘no premiums, no deductibles, no co-payments, no out-of-pocket expenses.’”

During his campaign – both of them, the last time around and this one — Sanders has promised to cover the cost of prescription drugs and make sure “no one in America pays over $200 a year for the medicine they need.” He has promised to pay for “universal childcare and pre-kindergarten.” He has promised free college, because “you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain.”

He has promised to “free generations of Americans from the outrageous burden of student loans by canceling all existing student debt.”

Is Sanders setting an example by providing all these benefits to workers on his campaign?

Of course, the answer is no.”

Because, if he did, his campaign would quickly run out of cash.

There’s the rub.

Soon-to-be former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously put it this way: “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Unfortunately, Sanders is practicing two kinds of duplicity as he hopes Americans will vote for him as president. The first is that he cannot even run his campaign according to the socialist values he says he espouses.

Worse, he wants to expose the rest of us to his goofy proposals, which no one in their right mind can afford.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

No doubt some would answer “yes” to the question in the headline. I say “no.”

The most egregious example of Trump’s atrocities revolves around the camps for immigrants, which, to some, resemble Hitler’s concentration camps. To Democrats who criticize the camps, I say what are they going to do about it, for action is possible in Congress, if only to offset Trump’s preoccupation with his own aggrandizement rather than solving a pressing problem in this country – immigration.

Here is a quote from news commentator site, Salon, that captures the ignominy of the Trump regime, which is taking America down a path like Hitler:

“The presidency of Donald Trump has been one horror after another  — the endless lying, the coddling and worship of dictators, the rank incompetence and corruption of the people he has chosen to run government departments, the saber-rattling and about-facing with various enemies, the repeated attacks on voting rights and free speech and a free press, the countenancing of rank racism and white supremacy in Charlottesville and elsewhere, the personal corruption and grifting at his resorts and golf clubs, the reverence for a celebration of ignorance, the disdain for science and expertise, the constant tweeting and spewing of hate and stupidity and racism and misogyny and xenophobia  — the list goes on. Add your own outrages at will.”

Further, columnist William Galston in the Wall Street Journal contends that it is within the power of Congress to do something about immigration.

Here is the way he put it:

“The comprehensive immigration-reform bill of 2013 enjoyed bi-partisan support, and there’s still widespread approval for its core elements: Stronger border enforcement, a path to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants, and a shift to skills-based admission criteria. What these policies lack is the explicit support of a Democrat candidate who could make a case for them, which must include a defense on both the merits and the politics. Without a full-throated defense, this balanced approach to immigration would be dismissed by the left as a timid capitulation to Trump.”

So, again Trump appears to be appealing to his supporters as he calls, essentially, for eliminating immigrants, or, at least, locking them up without their children.

Here are my reasons why the Trump-Hitler comparison works (as I repeat points I wrote couple years ago after returning from a visit to the D-Day killing fields in Normandy, France, not to mention a more recent trip starting in Nuremberg, which among things, was the site of the War Crimes Trials that Hitler avoided because he had committed suicide):

• Like Hitler, Trump has watched approvingly as his followers use violence to silence hecklers, dissenters and protesters.
• Like Hitler, Trump appeals to a specific race – his race — as being above all others and, thus, able to subjugate the “others” to near-death.
• Like Hitler, Trump offers few real plans or strategies for confronting the nation’s challenges, giving voters instead the assurance that he, by force of his personality alone, will solve them. Of course, he never does, believing that he benefits more from the problem than any solution.
• Like Hitler, Trump has presented the electorate a scapegoat for its fears and vulnerabilities. Hitler gave the Germans the Jews. Trump has given the U.S. the immigrants.
• Like Hitler, Trump proposes to register and restrict the immigrants whom he condemns as all being criminals, even though most of them simply seek a better life in this country.
• Like Hitler, Trump views everything through his own lens – and he is front and center. This is one of the clearest illustrations of what a narcissist is. Hitler was one. Trump is another.

My hope – yes, my prayer — is that citizens in United States will realize the specter of what Trump is doing and has proposed doing before it is allowed to continue for another four years.

I often wonder what prompted the German people to worship Hitler, even as he convinced them that the only way to national glory was to exterminate an entire race of people.

After being in Germany a couple times in the last few years, I have reflected on what could have prompted the German people to go along with Hitler. Of course, that is a question formed by hindsight, which always is 20-20.

So, with that question hanging, I cannot help but reprint this story, which appeared this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

As written by Greg Lewis, it focuses on five books written about German citizens who opposed Hitler and paid with their lives for doing so. Their stories are marked by courage and selflessness.

Five Best: Greg Lewis on the Anti-Nazi German Resistance

The co-author of “Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule” on the White Rose movement and others who didn’t give in.

By Greg Lewis

July 19, 2019 11:12 am ET

The Oster Conspiracy of 1938

By Terry Parssinen (2003)

1. As Hitler pressed for war against Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hans Oster, a senior member of Germany’s military counterintelligence and a committed opponent of the Nazis, formed a snatch squad to kill him. Author Terry Parssinen traces the fate of this plot and of the German officer who planned it. The operation was to take place in the 48 hours between the time Hitler gave the order to invade Czechoslovakia and the time the German tanks began to roll. Mr. Parssinen’s compelling history establishes Oster as the key anti-Nazi figure in Germany’s prewar military. His acts of resistance continued after the war began. Oster passed military secrets to the Dutch, warning them that Hitler was about to sweep west—messages that Dutch intelligence viewed as a trap and ignored. Oster was finally arrested when the Gestapo learned he was smuggling Jews into Switzerland. “It is my plan and my duty,” Oster said, “to free Germany and at the same time, the world, of this plague.” On April 9, 1945, as the U.S. Army approached, Oster was hanged at Flossenbürg concentration camp.

Counterfeit Nazi

By Saul Friedländer (1969)

2. “If resistance within the body of a totalitarian system is ambiguous by its very nature,” Saul Friedländer writes in this extraordinary biography of Kurt Gerstein, “one criterion nonetheless remains essential for defining it: that of the danger incurred.” Gerstein was at the heart of the apparatus of Nazi terror, the Waffen-SS. Even more significantly, he was involved in supplying the deadly Zyklon B gas to the death camps. A staunch Christian, he had joined the Waffen-SS to expose its crimes. But what he uncovered he also became a part of. At the height of the war, he destroyed consignments of gas and tried to tell the Allies and the Vatican about the mass murder of Jews—messages that were ignored. Recognized at war’s end for the intelligence he provided, he was for a time treated respectfully—until he found himself facing interrogation for “complicity to murder.” Realizing that he was to be tried as a war criminal, Gerstein killed himself in July 1945. Mr. Friedländer, a Prague-born historian whose parents were murdered by the Nazis, relates Gerstein’s story in all its heart-rending depth. “Had there been in Germany thousands or even hundreds of Gersteins,” he writes, “hundreds of thousands of victims would have been saved.” Tragically, Gerstein was the only resister of his kind.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst in 1942. They were members of a secret student group in Munich that resisted the Nazis. Photo: George (Jürgen) Wittenstein/akg-images

A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich

By Lucas Delattre (2003)

3. In the words of spymaster Allen Dulles, Fritz Kolbe was “undoubtedly one of the best secret agents any intelligence service has ever had.” A nondescript career-functionary in the German foreign office, Kolbe succeeded, during the war, in smuggling some 1,600 copied diplomatic cables from his office—mainly tucked into his pants—to be passed on to Dulles. The cables revealed details of German atrocities and efforts to break Allied codes. They helped uncover a German spy in the British Embassy in Turkey, who was close to discovering plans for D-Day. Kolbe’s identity was such a close-held secret that even President Roosevelt, who read Kolbe’s reports with astonishment, knew of him only as “George Wood.” Kolbe received little recognition for his courage after the war. But when he died, in 1971, “two unknown men laid a wreath” at his grave. They were, Mr. Delattre reveals, from the CIA.

Sophie Scholl

By Frank McDonough (2009)

4. Sophie Scholl’s story has never been more affectingly told than in the pages of this biography, which makes eloquent use of her letters. Sophie, her brother Hans and their friends formed the White Rose group, a small but dedicated band of Munich students who printed and distributed thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets during the war. For this, Scholl would pay with her life. After her death sentence by guillotine was carried out, a prison guard discovered her final message. On the back of the indictment against her she had written one word: “Freedom.”

Resisting Hitler

By Shareen Blair Brysac (2000)

5. In Berlin, as she was led to the guillotine in February 1943, Mildred Fish-Harnack of Milwaukee—the only American woman to be executed on Hitler’s orders—whispered, “And I loved Germany so much.” She had loved Arvid, her German husband, a senior official at the German ministry of economics, and supported him when, in 1938, he was approached by American intelligence sources and agreed to pass on secrets about Germany’s preparation for war. When war came, both husband and wife passed military intelligence to Moscow. Fish-Harnack and her small group of anti-Nazi resisters—which the Nazis later dubbed the Red Orchestra—had determined that their hopes of defeating Hitler lay with the Russians. Arrested, along with her husband, by the Germans during the war, Fish-Harnack was at first given a prison sentence but then, on Hitler’s orders, was retried to ensure a death sentence. During the Cold War, when her former German prosecutor, now serving as a CIA source on German communists, dismissed her as a Stalinist, she and her services to the Allied cause were written out of history. “Her obscurity, though unjust, is somehow appropriate,” Ms. Brysac writes, “for her life suggests how an ordinary person can rise to extraordinary circumstances, and acquit herself with remarkable courage and dignity.”

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

For the life of me, as a long-time participant in politics, I cannot figure out how a brand new representative in Congress has developed so much social media fame that she goes by initials – AOC.

That stands for Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and she is certifiably nuts. She has no idea what she is doing or what she is advocating other than a new, different America that suits her purposes.

Capitalism be damned. Personal endeavor be damned.  Diligence be damned.  Creativity be damned.

Do it my way, she avers, or take the highway.

And, if you care to loft criticisms her way, you’re a racist.

Just ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  In a meeting of the in-control Democrats in the House, Pelosi told members not to criticize others in their party for fear of fomenting controversy that would eventually work to the benefit of Donald Trump as he runs for a second term.

Perish the thought regarding Pelosi’s concern – a second term for Trump, that is.

We need far less of both Ocasio-Cortez and Trump.

We need leaders who will gravitate toward the middle, not the extremes of right or left. Or, the stupidity Ocasio-Cortez illustrated when, after she and other ultra-liberals succeeded in persuading Amazon not to locate a second headquarters in the New York area (along with taking away thousands of jobs from New Yorkers), she said, good, now we can use the money for something else.

What money?  Of course, there was none.  Amazon had negotiated tax reductions in exchange for bringing the jobs and secondary investment to New York. The total was in the millions.  Ocasio-Cortez, incredibly, wanted to spend “that money” elsewhere.  She couldn’t.

Regarding Pelosi, she is taking heat for the caucus meeting where she scolded Democrats for publicly attacking each other. “You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK,” Pelosi was reported to have said.

She noted that “a majority is a fragile thing,” and warned the loudest progressives to quit their attacks on moderates.

Her comments were viewed as a direct warning to “The Squad,” a quartet of high-maintenance female freshmen:  Representatives Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

Pelosi was responding, among other things, to offensive tweets, including from Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti.  Last month, he accused moderate Democrats who backed a compromise border-spending bill of “being hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s.”

Ocasio-Cortez played the race-and-sex card on America’s foremost liberal, Pelosi.  She accused Pelosi of “singling out newly elected women of color” and of being “outright disrespectful.”  Pressley complained that the speaker’s comments were “demoralizing.” Omar suggested Pelosi was insufficiently committed to resisting the Trump administration.

To the extent Pelosi has faced moments of “chaos” or “civil war,” it has been entirely at the hands of a few media starlets who are at the far left of even the so-called “progressive world.”

As opined by Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, “the Squad commands the cameras, and they are getting good at creating outrages, imposing litmus tests, and intimidating other members.”

Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk — this is not a racist criticism; it is one based on the demerits of her point of view.  Sne wants to fight, not to produce results or capitalize on the good that is in America.

In that way, she mimics Trump on the right.

That’s what he does, too. He wants a fight because he believes the fight, not results, will accrue to his credit.

The problem is that Trump’s approach may win him another four years in the Oval Office.  And, if it does – if it produces a second term for the buffoon – Ocasio-Cortez should be given credit for the result.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Donald Trump – some would call him president, but I reserve that title for someone who deserves it – got just what he wanted this week with a series of over-the-top, “I hate you” tweets.

First, he changed the debate to be about him, which he always wants as the self-defined narcissist – the smartest person in any room because it revolves around him.

Second, he managed to elevate the group of representatives – it is called “The Squad” – to be the face of the Democrat party.

One member of “The Squad,” Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is exactly the kind of person Trump want to illustrate the Democrat Party.

Here is what political commentator Karl Rove said about Ocasio-Cortex in a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal:

“Representative Ocasio-Cortez is not a serious legislator but an unusually shallow poseur, the product of social-media culture. She offers slogans cribbed from the latest socialist bull session; wild utterances that receive enthusiastic nods from “woke” Democrats and looks of astonishment from much of Middle America.

“There are reasons why AOC, “The Squad” of her running buddies on the House’s far-left fringe, and their operatives are characterizing some less-liberal Democrat representatives as akin to 1940s Southern segregationists, threatening them with primary challenges, and even castigating Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a racist.

“They’re convinced the shock value of their attacks and radical ideas will give their movement dominance over the Democrat Party and the country.

“For now, they’re drowning out the Democrat presidential candidates. As these young representatives become the face of their party, they define it with their wackiness. Trump knows this, and he will take full advantage of their gift.”

Thus, Trump has achieved the goal of running against those four who all are American citizens, three from birth, but who advocate making America into a socialist country, not to mention a host of other wacky, far left wing ideas.

So, Trump will set out to energize his base, as well as “white America” to win another four years in the Oval Office.

The trouble is that Democrats, not just “The Squad,” but most others, are playing right into Trump’s hands. Rather than advocate policies that might convince voters to depart from Trump, they call him a racist, which might actually be true, but which only serves to tick off right-wing acolytes.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Remember the movie, “Dumb and Dumber?” I do.

But the movie title could just as well apply to politics these days.

Just when you think things couldn’t get worse, the combatants – and that’s what they like to call themselves – on the right and left go off the deep end.

President Donald Trump, on the right (if that is where he really is) and Democrats on the left have absolutely no use for each other. So, they result to name-calling, innuendo and charges of racism.

Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American comedy film starring Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels. It tells the story of Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels), two dumb but well-meaning friends, who set out on a cross-country trip to return a briefcase full of money to its owner, thinking it was abandoned as a mistake but was actually left as ransom money.

Today, the title captures all that is wrong with politics.

Who is dumb and who is dumber, the Republicans or the Democrats? Take your pick. Both qualify either nickname.

Former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal put it this way in a piece for the Wall Street Journal:

“The political world has gone absolutely crazy. America has seen event after event that broke every precedent and seemed to set a new standard that couldn’t be surpassed — until it quickly was.

“Trump’s penchant for personal attacks and undisciplined tweets drives even some of his supporters crazy. They wonder if he is his own worst enemy and hope he doesn’t sabotage his success. Yet, many more supporters want a disruptive force and view his unorthodox behavior as a positive feature rather than an unfortunate price to pay for conservative judges and lower taxes.”

The craziness on the Democrat side, Jindal writes, “lies in its leaders’ policies and the plan they want to impose on America. The party’s inability to condemn anti-Semitism with a unified voice and the current debate on whether America owes reparations to African-Americans and Native Americans are the tip of the iceberg. Democrats like Elizabeth Warren favor a steep wealth tax, even as Europe is largely abandoning such schemes.

“Others want to abolish the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court.

“Whereas President Obama realized fully government-run health-care was too radical for the American people, many in his party now believe the problem with ObamaCare was that it forced too few people off plans they liked. The misnamed Medicare for All would cost more than $30 trillion and force almost 200 million Americans off private health insurance.

“The Green New Deal dwarfs Medicare for All in potential cost and damage to the economy. Its supporters aim to do more than merely eliminate the use of oil, gas, coal and nuclear power — they aspire to rid the country of commercial airline travel and flatulent cows, retrofit every building, and provide a universal federal guarantee of economic security even to those ‘unwilling to work.’”

For his part, Jindal says he would choose Trump over the Ds, a point which, perverse as it is, makes just a bit of sense to me if, as reported by the Washington Post this week, U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is viewed as the “standard bearer” for the Ds.  I would never choose her for anything and, no doubt, I’ll be called a racist for saying so.

To call her a standard-bearer makes little sense because she has no standards. She prefers to fight about problems rather than work to solve them. In that way, she is much like Trump.

I say they deserve each other.

What I long for is someone from the middle who works for the middle. That means it won’t be Trump or any of those running as Ds, except, perhaps, for Joe Biden if he can survive the slings and arrows of others in his own party.

As another movie phrase went, “we need serious people who will work to solve serious problems.”

It’s just so far each day proves that there are almost no such leaders either on or vying for the national stage in politics. As Americans, we are worse for the failure.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

At the risk of going overboard on this subject – the tactic by Senate Republicans to walkout of the recently-completed session of the Oregon Legislature — I am posting two a “point-counterpoint” description of the action.

Don’t worry. Overboard is what I do when it comes to politics because, other than golf, which is more important, I have nothing else to do in retirement.

One summary is from Senator Cliff Bentz, the Republican from Ontario, who, before he and other Republicans left town, was the chief R negotiator on the controversial “cap-and-trade” carbon reduction bill.

The second summary is from Senator Michael Dembrow, a Democrat from Portland, who says he played a key role in developing the basic bill, which eventually died, either because of the walkout or because three of Dembrow’s colleagues among the Ds couldn’t vote for the bill.

As I have said previously, the walkout was a legal maneuver, one various legislators on both sides of the aisle have used in the past. This time, the tactic tended to gain more notoriety, if only because of the prevalence of social media.

Was it worth it?

Rural Republicans would probably answer “yes” for some of the reasons cited by Bentz.

Urban Democrats would probably answer “no” for some of the reasons cited by Dembrow.

From Senator Bentz:

In a democracy, the majority rules. But when the Democratic majority decided to trade Oregon’s economic free-market system for one of central government control – while ignoring our constitution and making a shambles of Oregon’s rural and low-income economies – we walked.

These parts of House Bill 2020, which would have imposed greenhouse gas-emissions limits on businesses and forced them to buy allowances whose cost, (set by the state), would get passed on to consumers, were particularly egregious.

The bill’s regulatory cart is way out in front of the technology horse. The bill forces drivers to pay ever higher fuel prices years before the development of electric trucks and before installation of the infrastructure needed to allow meaningful use of electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles. Likewise, there’s a constitutional problem. The billions that Oregonians would be forced to pay in carbon taxes couldn’t be used to construct such infrastructure because that money is constitutionally restricted.

HB 2020 would increase the cost of fuel by 22 cents a gallon on Jan. 1, 2021, without regard to significant increases in the cost of fuel already in the pipeline. Those include Oregon’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (now five cents a gallon and on its way to 25 cents over the next few years); the 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax authorized by HB 2017; the international ban on bunker fuel for sea transport, estimated to increase the cost of diesel by 20 to 30 percenteffective January 2020; and the recently enacted Corporate Activities Tax which exempts fuel sales, but does not exempt other costs of fuel such as freight. HB 2020 callously stacks its 22 cents per gallon on top of these increases.

Democrats tried to design HB 2020 so that its 22-cent-per-gallon cost would not be considered a tax, even though you have no choice but to pay and the government gets to spend it. This unconstitutional approach kept the verboten word “tax” out of the bill, side-stepped the three-fifths legislative vote requirement and flouted the prohibition against use of an “emergency clause” in a tax bill. (Emergency clauses are often used to prevent referral of legislation to the people).

Finally, the Democrats silently changed how to measure Oregon’s carbon reduction. Instead of factoring in the amount of carbon sequestered by Oregon’s forests and sea, the bill tallies only emissions reductions. This seems innocuous, but the result skyrockets the cost of the scheme and ignores Oregon’s natural carbon sinks which, if used appropriately, could help Oregon become a major global player in the sequestration of carbon.

Yes, Oregon’s Republican senators walked and yes, HB 2020 is dead. But it will be back. Maybe the demonstrations against the bill, the three brave Democratic senators who also opposed the bill, the Senate walkouts, and the thousands upon thousands of emails supporting the death of 2020 will prompt the majority to actually address the many and damaging shortcomings of cap and trade. And maybe this time they will have the courage to let Oregonians vote on it.

From Senator Dembrow:

HB 2020B, the Clean Energy Jobs bill that would have created the Oregon Climate Action Program, was at long last ready to go – after years of work, hundreds of hours of public hearings and debate, thousands of pages of public testimony.

We had made the necessary design decisions that balanced out the needs of environmentalists and industry, urban and rural.  We had secured the support of the utilities, the construction trade unions, the tribes, large forest landowners and all the major environmental organizations, and Oregon Business and Industries had taken a neutral position on the bill.  We had the votes to pass it in both chambers.

And then, for a variety of reasons—political, ideological, irresponsible lobbying, inadequate communication, misleading communication, timing, bad faith, and, ultimately, threats of violence and the involvement of dark, anti-government elements—the effort stalled and nearly took with it the entire remainder of the session.

*********

There is room for both views. For my part, I tend to head toward Bentz because he makes a solid case about the damage the cap-and-trade bill would have done to rural Oregon, an area which is often left out of legislative decisions biased toward urban Oregon.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

George Will has a point.

In a recent column in the Washington Post, Will skewers Democrats for falling all over themselves to advocate for a totally government-run health care system, even if that meant some citizens would lose private health insurance coverage – coverage they might value.

But Will’s point is one that could have been made for years as policymakers in Washington, D. C. have labored for years over health care policy usually with more regard to politics than to policy.

Will used the recent D presidential “debates’ by Senator Kamala Harris, the Democrat from California, to criticize Harris and most of her colleagues on stage. Here is what he wrote:

“If Senator Kamala Harris is elected president in 2020 and re-elected in 2024, by the time she leaves office 114 months from now, she might have a coherent answer to the question of whether Americans should be forbidden to have what 217 million of them currently have: Private health insurance.

“Her 22 weeks of contradictory statements, and her Trumpian meretriciousness about her contradictions, reveal a frivolity about upending health care’s complex 18 per cent of the U.S. economy. And her bumblings illustrate how many of the Democrat presidential aspirants, snug in their intellectual silos, have lost — if they ever had — an aptitude for talking like, and to, normal Americans.”

My point in this blog is not to rail against Harris and her ilk. Rather, it is to make a point I have made for years, including my more than 25 years as a lobbyist for Providence Health System, including its insurance arm, as well as its special programs.

My point?

What we need is a process that produces a product. What I mean is that smart minds on both sides (or more than just two) – and, yes, there are some smart minds left even as many pander to one extreme or the other – should gather in a room with a round table.

There, they should find the middle ground on health care policy, a middle that doesn’t take away your doctor (as President Barack Obama said he wouldn’t do, but did, under his :”Affordable Health Care Act”), doesn’t take away your private insurance (as Harris and others among the D presidential candidates would do), and – very importantly – finds a way to provide health care services to as many Americans as possible, if not every American.

This can be done, but it cannot be done if Democrats start over, if Republicans oppose everything (as they are wont to do), and if no one heads toward the middle.

As the “Affordable Health Care Act” comes under increasing attack, including in court (one reason is that the act no longer includes a key underpinning – an individual mandate to buy insurance much as what already exists when it comes to driving a car…you have to have insurance or you’ll pay a penalty – it is past the time for cooler heads to prevail.

I am not an optimist on this, but I choose to think that compromise is still possible.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I wrote portions of this blog a few months ago as lawmakers were gathering at the Capitol for the start of a six-month run in Salem.

Given what happened in the session, which ended on June 30, I think it makes sense to recount again my notion of reforms that I thought months ago and think now would work to improve the process in Salem.

Would they correct the various abuses and miscalculations we saw in the last six months at the Capitol? No.

First, how to characterize the session? I think the reputation of the Legislature lies in tatters after one of the toughest six months on record.

The in-charge Democrats couldn’t convince minority Republicans that they – the Ds – care one whit about R priorities, including those in rural Oregon. Yet, it always is fair for one measure rating the majority to be how it deals with the minority in a two-party system. On this measure, it would appear the Ds failed.

At the same time, Senate Republicans couldn’t figure out a way to express their views without running away from the Capitol – twice. The walkouts were legal, but, from the standpoint of the general public, it appeared some legislators were behaving like kids –“taking their toys and going home.”

To be sure, rural constituents of the Senators probably think their representatives stood up to huge, Portland-centric pressure in Salem, so Republicans probably thought leaving was worth it.

One of those who walked, Senator Cliff Bentz from Ontario, put it this way in a column that run this week in the Oregonian newspaper:

“In a democracy, the majority rules. But when the Democrat majority decided to trade Oregon’s economic free-market system for one of central government control – while ignoring our constitution and making a shambles of Oregon’s rural and low-income economies – we walked.”

Further, prior to all of the to-ing and fro-ing over the walkout, things got so bad early in the session that several leaders almost lost their jobs because of what was labeled the negative sexual harassment atmosphere at the Capitol.

What to do? The early solution was to pay reparations to those who said they had been harmed. And, then late in the session, the in-charge Ds felt the only approach was to pass a law requiring better behavior – not just to expect mature behavior, but to legislate it.

Well, on to my reforms that would make the legislative process more open to the public, as well as might even produce better law.

Reform #1: Make every legislative committee a JOINT COMMITTEE.

The example for this is the current Joint Committee on Ways and Means, the entity responsible for preparing a balanced state government budget each two years.

The joint character of the effort – joint in terms of membership by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as by members of the House and the Senate – means that legislators have no choice but to work together earlier in a legislative session to achieve consensus.

Think how much time and effort could be saved by requiring the otherwise faint notion – working together – of all legislative committees.

Reform #2: Require the governor and the legislature to prepare a “CURRENT TAX” BUDGET FOR EACH TWO YEAR BUDGET PERIOD.

As it is now, governors now produce a “recommended budget,” which often includes new taxes, not state spending based on current taxes.

If it were up to me, I’d require a “no-new-taxes” budget so it would be clear how much government would cost for another two years if legislators did not do anything – no new taxes, no new spending cuts. I’d require this, first from a governor, then expect the same from the Legislature through its Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

Reform #3: Require the governor and legislators to PREPARE AND RELEASE IN PUBLIC SPECIFIC PLANS FOR “NEW TAXES” they want to impose, including those who would PAY the new taxes, WHAT the new money would fund, and WHY those who would be asked to pay the new taxes should accept that reality.

Under the current approach, new taxes are buried in the overall budget and, though they may come up for consideration in the House and Revenue Committees – yes, separate, not joint, committees – the rationale for the new taxes is often understated, if stated at all.

Reform #4: Require the governor and legislators to PREPARE A SPECIFIC PLAN FOR “THE CUTS” they would propose to make in state government so it is not just business as usual for another two years.

This final reform – listing specific spending cuts – does not get the profile it should in a legislative process. In this blog, I am not advocating for specific cuts; I am just saying that the governor and the Joint Ways and Means Committee should spend more time adjusting state spending to fit a new two-year reality.

A by-product of this type of effort could be that it would generate more support for tax increases if it were patently clear, first, what cuts would be made, and second, what those proceeds would fund.

As it is at the moment, there is no spending cut plan under consideration in a typical legislative session.

If there is good news in all of this, it is that the Oregon Constitution requires a balanced budget. That means, whatever the process, legislators have to balance spending against revenue. Good, but it’s just a process could be far more transparent – and, in turn, that would produce better laws.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

On July 8, the Wall Street Journal published a special section commemorating its 130-year anniversary.

Kudos to the Journal for its positive impact on real journalism in this country.

At least, one item caught my attention. It was a photo of President Ronald Reagan delivering memorable words in a speech, as follows:

“For decades America has led freedom-seeking people around the world in their struggles to destroy and dismantle the oppressive barriers that divide countries and restrict liberty. Today, many of those battles have been fought and won – the barricades that once stood between countries no longer exist and their citizens are able to live together in freedom and prosperity. With this in mind, we – as Americans – are faced with a new challenge. The Cold War is over and now we must break down the tariff walls that restrict the free flow of trade on our continent. The North American Free Trade Agreement can bring us that victory.”

Of course, Reagan, in another speech in Berlin in 1987, uttered the now famous line – “Tear Down This Wall,” referring to the wall separating East and West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall, referred to by the President, was built by Communists in August 1961 to keep Germans from escaping Communist-dominated East Berlin into Democratic West Berlin. The 12-foot concrete wall extended for about miles, surrounding West Berlin, and included electrified fences and guard posts. The wall stood as a stark symbol of the decades-old Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia in which the two politically opposed superpowers continually wrestled for dominance, stopping just short of actual warfare.

So, turn to today.

What do we have?

Every other word uttered by “our” President Donald Trump seems to call for building new walls, not tearing down walls.

Some of the walls advocated by Trump pertain to tariffs.  Some pertain to a wall he wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico, his supposed solution to what he calls the problem with immigrants from the south.

Trump’s trait is to build walls that separate people, not tear down walls, as Reagan put it, “to dismantle oppressive barriers that divide countries and restrict liberty.”

God bless Ronald Reagan.

Not the same for Trump.