If you can't beat them, join them.

If Texas can do it, so can Oregon.

Let's see if Oregon's Republican Congressman, Cliff Bentz really thinks aggressive gerrymandering is good for America.

It would cost him his seat in Congress.

Republicans in Congress are following their leader. President Trump urged Texas to redistrict mid-cycle and not to bother with hypocrisy; just admit right out that redistricting is for the sole purpose of partisan gain. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is on board, and so is the GOP caucus. 

Oregon has six congressional districts. Five are represented by Democrats, one by a Republican. The Democratic-trifecta of governor, state senate, and state house of representatives oversaw creation of the current congressional map. It has a mild Democratic lean. They put the voters in the Democratic-leaning Portland metro area into four of the districts, giving them a small Democratic majority. Then they gave the rural, conservative, counties of Eastern Oregon their own rock-ribbed GOP U.S. Representative. The conservative counties of Eastern Oregon don't have enough votes to warrant a Representative of their own, so mapmakers tacked on a couple of southern counties jutting to the southwest, including my light pink one -- we voted for Obama in 2008 -- to get the population the district needed.

Here is a map, color-coded to show partisan lean.

Republicans complained that this map favored Democrats, and it does. But it has good-government fairness logic to it. The rural conservatives of Eastern Oregon, people who would leave Oregon and join Idaho if they could, have their district. Yes, it concentrates GOP voters -- a gerrymander tool -- but it gives them what they want.  And the rest of the state districts are drawn so they connect to the market center of the state in Portland. Three districts are genuinely competitive. A weak Democrat candidate and a good Republican candidate, or a strong Republican year, would result in Republicans getting elected in those districts. That is as it should be.

But Texas is playing hardball. Their goal isn't approximate- fairness in map-making; their goal is to maximize election of GOP Representatives. Get everything you can. Screw Democrats. I don't hear Cliff Bentz complaining.

Oregon has 991,000 registered Democrats and 731,000 registered Republicans -- a margin of 260,000 Democrats.  Divided among six congressional districts, that would mean a margin of about 43,000 per district. Here is what a new map -- a map inspired by Trump, Texas, and GOP hardball -- might look like:

Republicans wouldn't like it. Republican state legislators might do what Texas Democrats are doing, and leave the state to avoid a quorum. Trump and Fox News says that is outrageous and criminal. Would Trump and Fox complain if Oregon legislators did it, too?

Cliff Bentz would lose, perhaps badly, in a district shaped like this. He needs a 60-40 Republican margin that he has. He is on the Trump team. He cast his lot with the 2020 election deniers when he voted not to count the Pennsylvania vote for Joe Biden. Bentz voted for the Big Beautiful Bill that cuts the Medicaid that his own Eastern Oregon voters depend on. He was worried about a challenge from his right or someone who Trump endorsed over him, and made no effort to be moderate. He made his choice.

The new map has some logic and fairness. There is a coastal district which includes the travel corridor from the coast to Portland. There is an Interstate-5 corridor that connects my Medford home with Democratic Eugene, home of the University of Oregon. One Eastern Oregon district has a Columbia River and Snake River orientation that connects grain farmers with the Port of Portland and the voters of SE Portland. The other Eastern Oregon district, with big acreage and few people, gets combined with the state capital. Greater Portland's Democrats get divided among five districts, not four. There are fewer "wasted" Democratic votes, which is good for Democrats. It creates more swing districts which is good for democracy.  

None of the incumbent Representatives would welcome this mid-cycle change in maps. The Democrats would adjust. They are moderate enough to win GOP and non-affiliated votes, and are doing so now. The outlier is Bentz. He is stuck with his Trump-compliant record.  Let Trump come to Portland to campaign for him.

There are risks to Democrats to this approach, both political and philosophical. Incumbent Democrats would have less partisan advantage in a general election. And Democrats may not want to mirror Republican hardball tactics. I have heard objections. Democrats think they are "too good" to govern the way Republicans do.

I will explore this some more tomorrow.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Trump is unconstrained by "appearances."

I expect Trump to pardon the convicted pedophile sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

He would be sending a clear message: 

  -- He can do anything he wants.

  -- No one can stop him.

  -- He protects his team. 

The Trump administration recently moved Maxwell from the kind of prison that holds multi-count pedophile sex traffickers to a much nicer place, a minimum-security prison. Meanwhile, ABC News reports that Maxwell said nothing to implicate Trump in her interviews with Trump's Department of Justice.

She knows what is good for her. So does Trump.

Her statements are not remotely credible given the incentives to lie. Even Fox viewers have seen photographs and videos of the Trump and Epstein together leering at women. Even Murdoch's Wall Street Journal published a story about the bawdy birthday card Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein referencing their little secrets. Trump owned a teen beauty pageant and bragged about how he could just walk into the dressing room while they were undressed -- a perk of owning the pageant. He complained that Epstein "stole" -- Trump's word -- one of Trump's 15-year-old spa-girls by hiring her away. Of course, Maxwell knows of embarrassing, possibly felonious, Trump behavior. 

This quid pro quo deal is as transparent and visible as Trump shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. And that is the point of the Fifth Avenue story, and now this one. He can do something blatantly wrong, and no one can stop him.

Trump is sending a message of triumph and power. Trump has no boundaries when it comes to exercising presidential power. He will make a deal with a convicted pedophile trafficker if it helps him. If good-government editorial writers complain, so what? If the victims complain, so what? If Democrats sputter in frustration, all the better. They can say it is wrong but they can't stop him.

Trump would be sending a message to his team, people who might do illegal, cruel, high-handed things on his behalf. He doesn't care about "how things look." If he will pardon a pedophile sex trafficker, he would surely pardon an ICE officer, biased judge, bribe-taking legislator, an executive branch employee, or a citizen in a MAGA militia. Trump does not require a pretext, or credibility, or an honorable cover story. The Maxwell case shows that.

The thrust of the amicus brief that my attorney, Thad Guyer, filed for me in the tariff case before the U.S. Court of Appeals was that Trump is busy expanding presidential power and testing whether it has any boundaries whatsoever. His seat-of-the-pants tariffs are an obvious grab of power clearly given to Congress, so it is a place to draw the line. But the tariffs are part of a bigger picture. He is flouting the Civil Service laws. He is flouting the courts. Can anyone say "no" to him? Trump is betting no one can or will.

Trump is demonstrating that he will not be constrained by "appearances." He has power and he will use it. The more the Maxwell deal stinks, the stronger that message. Trump is in charge, he has no shame, and he can do anything.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Public radio set free

Trump warned Republicans in Congress: 

     "Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement." 

         

Federal funding is ending. Some programming will be cut. Some smaller stations will close. 

But public radio and television will continue. 

A Harris poll found that 66 percent of Americans supported funding of public radio and considered it a good value; 58 percent of Republicans, 77 percent of Democrats. For decades it had critical support in Congress from Republicans representing rural states, especially Alaska, where public radio stations are the primary source of news in some small communities. But the end of federal funding has long been rumored and feared; it finally came.

My local public radio station, Jefferson Public Radio, wrote on its website that the cut put an immediate $525,000 hole in its budget. So, like radio stations nationwide, it is reaching out seeking voluntary support from its audience:

Listener support has always been the backbone of our work and service to the region, providing the vast majority of our funding. It is now more critical than ever.

Ron Kramer is a pioneer and builder of public radio stations. He created the Jefferson Public Radio network of stations throughout SW Oregon and Northern California. His writes that the loss of federal funding takes some handcuffs off public broadcasting. 

Kramer worked in broadcasting at both local stations and the ABC Radio Network for over 50 years, was executive director of Southern Oregon’s Jefferson Public Radio for 38 years, and co-founded Medford’s ABC television station. He taught broadcasting and media history at Lewis and Clark College and Southern Oregon University. In 2002 the Oregon Association of Broadcasters commissioned him to write “Pioneer Mikes: A History of Broadcasting in Oregon.”

Kramer: photo by KOBI-TV

Guest Post by Ron Kramer

The Right Idea … the Wrong Execution

In 1982 then-NPR President Frank Mankiewicz announced the “Off the Fix by 86” plan, an ambitious attempt to replace federal public funding – funneled through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – with new privately generated income. The plan involved using then-cutting-edge technology to partner NPR with various businesses providing digitally transmitted information, useful to a variety of commercial entities, using excess capacity of the then-new and state of the art satellite transmission technology.

It was a flaming disaster, cost Mankiewicz his job and nearly bankrupted NPR. But the idea of releasing public radio’s dependance on federal funding was sound. Mankiewicz foresaw the possibility (I would argue likelihood) that the GOP’s growing political vendetta against public broadcasting would eventually lead to the end of federal funding unless public media capitulated to political pressures.

I always believed that federal funding for public radio would eventually end. I just wasn’t sure about how and when. In fact, it has proven more brutal and ugly than I could have imagined.

However, like a lot of other things being undertaken by the current administration, this was not well thought out and may well prove a Pyrrhic “victory.”

Federal funding of public radio has always provided guarantees against slanted news coverage. Virtually alone among news networks, NPR created an ombudsman to review complaints over biased coverage. Renamed NPR’s Public Editor, that function continues.

So there has always been a viable path to question NPR coverage anyone considers biased. I have sat in meetings at NPR in which alleged bias in a given story was reviewed. On examination, the coverage always was found fair and balanced, both sides being within mere seconds of equal treatment.

But there’s an important point in that. Public radio accepts federal funding under a statutory condition requiring recipients subscribe to a “fair and balanced” commitment in news reporting. Indeed, that “fair and balanced” obligation has never been litigated and is often considered to be unconstitutional. Ending federal funding erases that statutory obligation. And without it, any federal pursuit or complaint over “fair and balanced” smack dab into the First Amendment.

Many public radio stations will not pursue any enhanced political agenda because they are owned by colleges which are potentially subject to political pressure. But half of the nation’s public radio stations are entirely independent NGOs and, as such, are free to editorialize and cover world events as they see fit.

MAGA may come to regret releasing public radio from a “fair and balanced” news commitment (which is admittedly entirely subjective). Public radio is now free to pursue news coverage without seeking to do so behind that fig leaf – and public radio has large audiences.

 [Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

 

Inequality. A good issue for Democrats if they handle it right.

The U.S has income inequality, and it is getting more unequal. 

There is a majority constituency for the inequality. But that could change.

Republicans won the 2024 election, and did so carrying the weight of a party leader who is a felon, an acknowledged sexual predator, a conspicuous liar, and a man who openly attempted to overturn an election to stay in power. As unpopular as Trump is, the Democratic Party brand is even less popular. Voters think Democrats stand for snooty coastal elites, not working people.

Republicans cannot escape acknowledging that the Big Beautiful Bill perpetuated significant tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The marginal tax rate for the highest incomes had been set to go up. The Big Beautiful Bill also cut various transfer and income-supplement programs to the working poor, including Medicaid and SNAP benefits. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer. Republicans aren't hiding this. They are justifying it. The wealthy deserve to keep what they own, and the poor are undeserving.

Our Gini index -- the measure of inequality of incomes -- even when measured after application of social safety-net programs, is high and getting higher. Notice that it dips briefly during recessions, including during the recent special benefits in response to Covid, but the trend is up. The U.S. Gini index is about 0.42. We are an outlier among developed countries, putting us amid countries like Cameroon and Uganda, and far more unequal than places Americans consider peer countries, like the U.K., Japan, Germany, and Canada, each with a Gini index of about 0.32.

Americans have gotten comfortable with the idea that certain jobs do not pay a living wage. The federal minimum wage used to set both a floor and a national expectation of fairness. Had wages stayed equal to what they were in the late 1960s, when I was young and working for about minimum wage thinning pears, fighting forest fires, cleaning dorm rooms, and checking out books, I could afford college. If minimum wage kept up, it would now be about $25/hour.

Bernie Sanders was thought radical for calling for a $15/hour minimum wage.

I pay workers at my vineyard -- all Hispanic and all legally in the U.S. -- $30/hour. They are delighted to show up to work. By market standards, I am a foolish Gringo, paying top dollar, more than other employers.

Theoretically, Democrats have an opportunity here. They might win back support from working people by making the distinction between themselves and Republicans. Republicans just sided with the wealthy getting richer and the poor getting benefit cuts. Plus, they voted as a block to keep the minimum wage at its current $7.25/hour. By contrast, Democrats might advocate for fairer wages for people at the bottom: a $20 or $25-an-hour minimum wage. Such a wage would restructure the economy and be controversial, but that controversy is a good thing. Democrats would demonstrate courage and commitment, because they would be accepting criticism and standing up to it anyway, visibly being fighters for working people. A $25/hour minimum wage would drive up the cost of fast food, hotels, food, and construction. The working poor themselves might protest that it raised prices on things they buy. The controversy would give Democrats an opportunity to make the case on behalf of the value of work. That used to be the Democratic brand. That is a better platform than arguing for the need for means-tested safety-net programs, the current Democratic go-to response. Make a brand change. Become again the party of hard work getting a fair reward. Work, not welfare. That idea resonates for Americans. Bill Clinton got elected with it amid a conservative tide.

Such a policy switch would re-position Democrats on the immigration issue, too. If Trump wants immigrant workers out of the country, then at least those jobs being vacated need to be paid well enough that native-born Americans can take those jobs and afford to live.

Would this work for Democrats? It might. It would be consistent with their stated policies. They would be fighting for working people and the value of work. But there is a problem: Americans have been spoiled. We have adjusted to having low-paid workers. We like things cheap.

The fact that it is risky means the public will notice that Democrats have returned to their roots.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Easy Sunday: Let's just chill today.

So much going on.

Investment markets. Job disappointment. Staff firings at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Tariffs. Epstein revelations. Ghislaine Maxwell. Nuclear sub redeployment. Trump booed at WWE event. Israel and Gaza. NIH funding. Trump nomination of Jeanine Pirro. Shootings. Appellate court cases on tariffs and birthright citizenship.

Just breathe.

Climate worriers have it backwards. Earth will endure. It's humans who have problems. 

The grapes know what they are doing. They know what time it is. Here is a Pinot Noir plant yesterday. The grapes are getting color.

Back in the late 1960s, I thought unrealistic and sentimental the  back-to-the-earth romanticism of farming by urban youth -- people who had never hoed a weed or got dusty and sweaty bucking hay.  Growing melons was work.  I grew melons for sale, to make money, to pay tuition. I was making verbal contracts every day with Mr. Blunt at Blunt's Ranch Market and the produce manager at Sherm's Thunderbird Supermarket. They were counting on me. Customers would expect stocked shelves. 

Now, 55 years later, my livelihood not dependent on the farm, I relax into a mindset of pleasant refuge at the farm. It's the sentimental thinking I used to scoff at. Forget the world. The farm is more real than the news. Relax into nature's rhythm.

There is a tradition for that kind of thinking. At college I stumbled upon William Wordsworth, a Romantic poet, himself writing about escape from a world in turmoil from the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Joni Mitchell's Woodstock played in my dorm room and the AM radio in the family car in Medford, a 1962 Chrysler Newport, the one I could use on dates with young women on summer evenings. 

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe.  Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.] 

Music with Artificial Intelligence

Pretty useful.

Pretty great.

Amid all the worry about artificial intelligence killing jobs, replacing the human touch, and taking over the world, today's post is a first-person report on how AI helps create music.  This guest post by Rick Millward does not describe AI as a Frankenstein monster, destroying creativity. Quite the opposite. The post describes the experience of finding AI to be a useful tool for music creators.

Rick Millward is a songwriter, musician, music producer, and performer. He worked in Silicon Valley, then Nashville, and now has retired in Southern Oregon, where he performs primarily in wine venues. His most recent album is Loveland. It and his other music are available on Spotify and other streaming services.

Guest Post by Rick Millward

I thought it would be interesting to share a personal experience with an AI application specifically targeted to music production. 

When a song is recorded, the final product is a stereo, or two-channel “mix.” All the various instruments are encoded together. Once this is done, it can’t be modified, or as we say in the biz, it’s a “master.” The source recordings are either separate digital files, or prior to computers, on magnetic tape, where each instrument has its own separate track. These tapes were big brothers to cassette tapes, with a difference being the tape was two inches wide. The first recordings I ever made were done on this medium.

These tapes were lost, but I did have a mix of the songs that I transferred to computer to preserve them as soon as I could. As the years passed, I redid some, rewrote others, but there was one song that I always felt had great performances from the musicians, but would have liked to sing it again and keep the original work. Some years back, there was a software program for karaoke that supposedly could remove a vocal from a finished recording but it didn’t really work that well, certainly not for professional use.

Then last year it was announced that a cassette tape of John Lennon playing the piano was used to create a new Beatles recording. Using AI, they were able to separate the vocal from the piano, and then use it as the basis for a new track. Here’s the story of that project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJAQoSCwuA

The AI used for this is called “stem separation” with each instrument called a “stem,” I guess like stems on a plant. Weird name aside, the interesting thing is that it uses newly developed algorithms to “hear” the different sounds and recognize them as drums, guitar or whatever and so is able to create a separate file for each.

Then early this year I upgraded my decade-,old recording software and discovered that it included a stem separator module. I loaded up my old song and was delighted to hear that it separated all the instruments perfectly, and now I could redo the vocal as well as make any other changes to the song; add another guitar or whatever. As a side note, this has become somewhat nostalgic for me, sort of like time travel to revisit old friends and play music with them, as well as my former self. Kind of trippy. 

There are concerns that AI will profoundly disrupt the economy, and just like any new paradigm or invention, this is to be expected. There are innumerable applications for AI, and they are coming regardless, and there will be unintended consequences that require both regulation and adaptation. My experience using this tool for my art is one very useful and rewarding example of how it will enhance our lives, and one hopes the value of AI will be greater than any turmoil it creates in this ever-changing world.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe.  Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Canada Followup What if Trump really means it?

What if Trump isn't bluffing?  

Maybe Trump really wants to annex Canada as the 51st state?

Maybe this isn't a period of trade negotiations. Maybe we will come to understand this as the pre-annexation period.

Today's Washington Post:

The day before yesterday I published a guest post by Canadian political scientist Sandford Borins. He said that Canada needed to resist Trump's efforts. He wrote as if this were a negotiation toward a better trade deal.

No deal at all is better than a bad deal. Don’t accept the pressure of artificial deadlines. Canada already has a trade deal with the U.S. – CUSMA [known in the U.S. as the USMCA.] The current sectoral tariffs are a violation of CUSMA, and Canada should not accept them or any additional sectoral tariffs. 

Meanwhile, Canada is negotiating, as its citizens expect it to do. Canadian polls are consistent in saying that 75 to 80 percent of Canadians want to preserve Canadian sovereignty and independence from the U.S.  

Tariffs on goodsw from Canada are generally counterproductive to U.S. interests. Yes, Canada has tariffs on milk imports from the U.S. to protect its own dairy industry, but this is small potatoes, and a reasonable position on Canada's part to protect domestic source for infant food. The other major imports from Canada: steel, aluminum, softwood, and oil are all inputs into U.S. manufacturing and homebuilding. Do we really want to raise prices in those areas? The auto manufacturing sector has been integrated for decades, with parts going back and forth across the border. Tariffs put friction into that process and raise prices on American cars and make them less competitive. Is that a good thing?

I may have made a category error. I may have thought that what we are seeing with Canada is hardball trade negotiations. That may be the wrong category. This may be the "pre-war era," or the "pre-annexation-crisis" era. The American public may think this is an era of peaceful relations with Canada -- business as usual, with a bit of Trump drama. Trump may not see it that way. He may be setting up a crisis event.  As Borins wrote:

When Trump sees prosperity in any country other than the U.S., his prima facie conclusion is that country is ripping off the US. 

From Trump's view, the U.S. is being screwed and we are already at war with Canada. He is playing defense. 

How would annexation take place?  We won’t invade with tanks. Maybe one or two assassinations of Canadian leaders from unknown sources, coming on top of an ornery Canadian public facing economic distress, will create a power vacuum wherein a helping hand from the U.S. becomes acceptable. Or, maybe the tried-and-true border incident, the bombing of a border bridge, can be cooked up, requiring the U.S. to send in the Marines to protect ourselves from terrorists. To be really clever, Trump might arrange the assassination of a couple of pesky Democrats, plant evidence pointing to Canada, and send in marines to protect us from the ongoing Canadian terror. Two birds with one stone.

The real end-game here is American greatness. Absorbing Canada would double the size of the country. Throughout history countries have gone to war because leaders seek resources and glory. Canada is nearly vacant land, ripe for development, so why not? Make America great again. It takes a great leader to achieve that greatness. Trump wants his rightful place on Mount Rushmore. 

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email gfo to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe.  Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]