Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), 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 could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

………This is a reprise of one of my past approaches to writing blogs – mixing several topics in what I call “Bits and Pieces?………

WASHINGTON POST ANNOUNCES SWEEPING LAYOFFS:  WILL IT EVER BE THE SAME?

For someone who loves quality newspapers – me – the news came as a jolt last week.

The Washington Post, under its owner, Jeff Bezos, of Amazon fame, said the Post was going to layoff one-third of its reporting staff.

So, I ask the question in the headline:  Will it ever be the same?”  The likely answer is “no.”

Here is how the New York Time described the status of one of it competitors under this headline:  Washington Post announces sweeping layoffs as it scales back news coverage.

“The Washington Post has announced it is laying off one-third of its work force, sharply scaling back the paper’s coverage of sports and foreign news.

“The cuts, announced on Wednesday, will impact employees across departments with roles in the newsroom’s sports, local and foreign sections hit particularly hard.”

So, for me, it may become a chore for me to continue reading the Post, which I started doing when I worked for Congress in Washington, D.C. many years ago.

The chances are that I will persevere, loving newspapers as I do, including one, the Post, which will be changing for the worse.

TRUMP PERVERTS NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

Guess what?

For a president of many perversions, Donald Trump committed another one last week.

He turned the National Prayer Breakfast into a forum for his personal diatribes against any and all who disagree with him.  And, he spoke for 75 minutes.

Incredible!

If I would have been there, I would have left.  Quickly.

Leave it to Trump to turn anything into something all about him.

THE TRUTH IN MINNEAPOLIS IS WHAT TRUMP SAYS IT IS

This headline says it all:  Donald Trump wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in face, so he lies over and over again.

Pretty soon, as Trump would say it, people believe it, if only because of the repetition.

For this headline, I am indebted to the New York Times which placed it over a story by veteran political reporter, Peter Baker, who is covering his sixth U.S. presidency.

His focus:  What Trump is doing with ICE personnel to arrest immigrants and deport them to penal camps.

Here is how Baker’s story started:

“The Trump team has advanced one-sided narratives to justify each of the killings in Minnesota, even when bystander video shows something else entirely.

“Twice since the start of the year, federal officers have gunned down protesters in Minneapolis, with cell-phone cameras rolling and twice Trump and his lieutenants have rushed forward with a message to the American people:  Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes.

“Without waiting for facts, the Trump team has advanced one-sided narratives to justify each of the killings and demonize the victims.”

The trick, Baker adds, is that the Trump versions of reality have collided with bystander videos watched by millions who did not see what they were told by Trump they were seeing.

“Trump has found that putting out a story line early and repeating it often can, with the help of an ideological media and online surround-sound machine, convince a sizable share of the public that does not credit contrary evidence.  Even after investigations, recounts and his own advisers and attorney general refuted Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 election, polls show that most Republicans still believe the election was stolen.”

To analyze Trump, we are indebted to reporters like Baker, as well as to the Washington Post Fact Checker column.

From Baker:

“Trump has a long record of dishonesty.  He was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents, he was found liable in civil court of defrauding lenders, his family-owned business was convicted of criminal tax fraud, he was indicted though not tried on charges of obstruction of justice and defrauding the United States, his charity was shut down after the authorities found a ‘shocking pattern of illegality’ and his self-named university paid out $25 million to settle complaints by students who called the school a sham.”

From Fact Checker:

“While in office, Trump has been a prolific source of prevarication on any number of topics, so much so that The Washington Post counted more than 30,000 false or misleading statements in his first term.  Most significantly, he repeatedly spread lies about supposed fraud in the 2020 elections that inspired a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to stop the transfer of power — and he continues to promote lies about those events even now on a White House web page that rewrites the history of that day.”