The system worked.

Don't do crimes.

That advice even applies to rich and powerful people.

Trump had every opportunity the justice system provides. A unanimous jury found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing crimes.

Engraving on Supreme Court building

In the aftermath of the jury announcement, I turned on Fox News to hear Trump. He, GOP politicians, and conservative media went on a tirade. "Travesty." "Dictatorship." "Ugly blemish." "Absolutely shameful." "Unjust." "Show trial." "Derangement." "Communists." Biased prosecutor, judge, witnesses, jury, city, state, legal system. Again and again the word "travesty."

Donald Trump insists he is "completely innocent." He did not have sex with Stormy Daniels, he knew nothing about a hush money payoff, the signed checks were for legal fees. Whatever happened had nothing to do with him. He says that Biden and Democrats are railroading an innocent man for purely political purposes.

Notice something. Notice what Fox News hosts aren't saying, what VP aspirants Tim Scott, Marco Rubio, and Doug Burgum aren't saying. What Trump's current and former lawyers aren't saying. What Republican officeholders all over the U.S. who are assuring GOP voters that they are loyal to Trump are not saying. They aren't saying Trump is innocent of the crimes. They aren't saying he isn't, in fact, guilty, just like the jury said.

Donald Trump did not get "equal justice." He got far better justice than is typical in the U.S. Equal process of adjudication for defendants involves overworked defense attorneys, little or no money for investigations, and defendants held in pre-trial detention. Donald Trump got the very best defense money could buy among lawyers willing to work with him. He got the indulgence of the system to ignore comments that would intimidate witnesses; he got a slap on the wrist. He got the full process made possible thanks to unlimited resources: Motions on evidence, witnesses of his choice, depositions, cross examination, peremptory challenges to jurors. 

He was alleged to have broken federal election law in New York, New York tax law, and New York laws about false business records. He was tried in Manhattan because that is where the crimes were done. Trump lived and did business in Manhattan. He was guaranteed a jury of his peers in the place where the alleged crimes were committed. A Manhattan trial is not a flaw; it is a Constitutional feature.

Trump, Republican politicians, and Fox dismiss as trivial New York laws about false business records. What a small thing, they say, not worth prosecuting. New York takes seriously the white collar crime of false business records. Americans who have bank accounts, have a mortgage or insurance or own stock should take a moment to consider if records really do matter. Our largest banks are headquartered in Manhattan; the stock exchange is there; U.S. treasuries are priced and traded there, and trillions of dollars clear there every day. This is possible because of trust. Trust that Morgan Stanley or JPMorgan really have the assets they say they do and that when a blip on a computer screen says a bond is there, that it is really there. Financial institutions are a pyramid of mutual trust agreements. Laws that require honest record-keeping are essential for a capitalist economy to function. Bad business records allowed the fraudulent mortgage crisis to take place, and it brought down the American economy. I was a victim of it and so were 300 million other Americans. Bad business records allowed Bernie Madoff to steal money. Honest business records matter.

The jury heard evidence that could be examined in detail for accuracy. Trump got to examine the text messages, the checks, the handwritten notes to see if they were authentic and reliable documents. The jury did not hear Trump's voice on the Access Hollywood tape -- prejudicial, the judge ruled. The jury did not get to hear Stormy Daniels provide all the details she was willing to share about her encounter. The judge stopped that on his own, even without objection by Trump's lawyer. Trump had the right to stipulate that he had an encounter with Daniels, and she never would have been called as a witness. Trump chose to deny it ever happened, which forced the prosecution to use her as a witness. His choice.  

Donald Trump could have chosen to testify. He could have sworn under oath what he says publicly, that he had no idea that these false business records were being filed. He chose not to testify. Donald Trump chose the attorney who put on a defense witness whose testimony ended up helping prove the prosecution case. Trump hired the lawyer and chose the strategy. Was Trump's legal defense misguided by following their client's strategy of deny-everything-attack-everybody? Maybe. Trump did it his way. 

The jury didn't decide Trump probably, arguably, maybe 55%-likely did the crimes. They decided he did them "beyond a reasonable doubt." They were sure.

Republican defenders of Trump are showing their loyalty to Trump-the-man. They are doing so by criticizing the justice system for holding Trump to account for crimes. That way they don't need to defend the indefensible, that Trump is an innocent man. They don't need to claim to believe Trump never had sex with Stormy Daniels, he had no idea what the checks he signed were for, and that it was all Michael Cohen acting on his own. They know better than to do that. 

So instead, they criticize the prosecution for prosecuting actual crimes and the jury of volunteer citizens who evaluated that evidence. That is what is absolutely shameful, an ugly blemish, and a travesty.

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The verdict: Heads Trump wins, tails Trump wins.

     "The judge, who, as you know, is very conflicted and corrupt. Because of the confliction, very, very corrupt. Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged."

       Donald Trump, while the jury began deliberations

Democrats are checking the news in hope of a game-changing guilty verdict.

The result of the trial is already in: Trump will survive and thrive.

Possible outcome #1. A unanimous jury says "not-guilty." Jurors could decide that making this a felony was a stretch because every candidate tries to show off some bits of information and hide others. They might decide this was tawdry, sure, but not a crime. 

There is no way to sugar coat this for Democrats. A not-guilty verdict would be a disaster. It would feel like election night in 2016, with shocked faces on the faces of MSNBC hosts. It would discredit both liberal news and mainstream news, which had given Democrats false hope. 

Liberal tears, election night, 2016

Trump would say he was proven right, that this was a "witch hunt." A not-guilty verdict would validate and accelerate his plans for political prosecutions. It would suck the wind out of the sails of the other, stalled, prosecutions. It would be a centerpiece of Trump's campaign.

Possible outcome #2. A long deliberation and then a hung jury. Trump would say he was found "completely and totally innocent." Republican officeholders and conservative news would echo that story. Not being found guilty is not the same as being "found innocent," but that is how Republicans will describe it: Trump vindicated!  Establishment news sources would admit it was a defeat for the prosecution. A hung jury would end the prosecution on this case. 

It would not matter if a majority of the jurors said Trump was guilty; even an 11-1 majority. The headline would be that Trump was not convicted, notwithstanding a Democratic DA's best efforts. Even an 11-1 split in favor of guilty helps Trump. It would add to the myth that Trump is untouchable, even when he tempts fate. He wins even after the Access Hollywood revelation. He wins the impeachment vote even when he publicly plots to overthrow an election in the very building where his Senate jury meets. He wins notwithstanding his signature right there on checks to pay off a porn star. Nothing can stop him. A narrow victory parallels the Trump-as-messiah meme. Powerful elites can crucify him, and he can be written off as dead, but he comes back for the win. There is drama in surviving a close call or making a buzzer-beating clutch play in a championship game. 

Possible outcome #3. A guilty verdict. Democrats will rejoice for a moment, but the joy won't last. I liken it to Santa bringing the longed-for bicycle, but then having the bicycle promptly vandalized and stolen. 

The political meaning of the verdict will not be that "Trump is a felon," and that felons are bad, so therefore Trump is bad. Democrats will say that, but it won't stick. It will look like over-reach. We have an idea of what a "felon" is. Felons are frightening. They hurt people. This is different. This is Donald Trump. He is vile. He is flagrantly dishonest. He is a dangerous political leader, but he is not dangerous as a tabloid horndog who lies to us about sex. 

The meaning of a guilty verdict, as it will be understood by Americans on the margin in battleground states, is that the powerful and corrupt Democratic elites snagged Trump on some bulls___ technicality. Maybe they rigged the justice system -- just like Trump says. Maybe there was a vast conspiracy of corrupt elites. Or maybe they just found some excuse to use a good legal system to harass him. Either way, the prosecution is the bad guy here. That is the story. 

Trump is telling it repeatedly. He has rounded up his political and media allies to echo and validate him. I watched two minutes of Fox News last night. 

The inescapable problem with this prosecution is that nobody learns anything we didn't already know, even with a guilty verdict. Of course Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels, and of course he shamelessly lies about it. Of course he paid her off via his "fixer," and of course he tried to keep the information from damaging his campaign. That is Donald Trump, the tabloid playboy horn-dog scofflaw.

People who like him don't care.

People who might vote against him dislike him because he is a dangerous leader, not because of this. 

I cannot see any upside in this case.

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Artificial Intelligence responds to my Memorial Day blog post

"O brave new world that has such people in it!"
      William Shakespeare, The Tempest

There aren't people in the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence. But it knows stuff anyway.

My blog post on Memorial Day received far more than the usual amount of criticism. 

I outlined a theory of history: endless cycles, not progress. I said that since the human species sought status within and between groups, human groups would be drawn to war by our instinctual motivations of self-interest, honor-seeking, and fear of the ambitions of others. I said these motivations lead to wars of territorial conquest. I cited White settlers replacing indigenous people in North America. I said the cycles of ebb and flow continue, and ownership of my farm back to indigenous people will come full circle when descendants of immigrants from the south own the farmland again. I was serene about it.

One critic said the immigrants were murderous outsiders and I would regret welcoming them. Another said I was antisemitic in saying that humans, including both Jews and Arabs in Israel, wanted ethnic cleansing so disputed land would be an unshared homeland for their own tribe. Other critics thought I sounded bleak and depressed.

I asked an Artificial Intelligence program -- claude.ai -- what it thought. I asked it to write a response of approximately 250 words from the point of view of a Republican reader.  Here was  the AI response:

Dear Mr. Sage,

While I respect your right to express your views, I must strongly disagree with the bleak and cynical perspective presented in your recent blog post.

As Republicans, we believe in the fundamental goodness of America and the principles upon which our great nation was founded. Your characterization of history as an endless cycle of conquest and oppression, with no real progress, runs counter to the ideals that have made the United States a beacon of hope and opportunity for people around the world.

We acknowledge that our nation's history has its dark chapters, but we also celebrate the tremendous strides we have made in expanding liberty, equality, and justice for all. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s were not the birth of a "sham" nation, but rather important steps in our ongoing journey to form a more perfect union.

Your suggestion that the current political climate represents a "counter-revolution" against the gains made by women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community is misguided. As Republicans, we believe in equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of their background. What we oppose are divisive identity politics that seek to pit one group against another.

Finally, your resignation to the idea that "humans come and go" and that our land will inevitably be lost to others is antithetical to the spirit of American exceptionalism. We believe in the power of our ideas and the resilience of our people to overcome any challenge and to secure a brighter future for generations to come.

America is not perfect, but it is a nation worth fighting for. As Republicans, we will continue to champion the values that have made us great and to work towards a future of opportunity and prosperity for all.

Sincerely, A Proud Republican

This reveals some of the abilities and limitations of AI at its current state of development. Artificial Intelligence text adopted a polite and reasonable tone. It got the Republican give-no-quarter response right. It held the ground of America-is-good patriotism.  AI saw "both sides." 

But the AI program mis-read my post describing a "sham." Equality, I had written, was an unmet aspiration of our founding documents until the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws, not because of them.

The AI text demonstrated a wider knowledge of events than what is present in the document it critiqued. It "knows" things, including the presence of "divisive identity politics" on the left. It "knows" that "American exceptionalism" is an idea a Republican critic might cite. AI is well-read and has good common sense.

There is a formula to it that my eighth grade English teacher, Ray Lewis, taught. Start with an opening statement of the point of view. Then three examples of evidence, the third one beginning with "finally." Then a short re-statement of the now-proven conclusion. It is a good formula for clear exposition. Its weakness is that it reads as formulaic.

I consider it soul-less, but I have a hard time describing why. If I were reading quickly for content I might consider it clear and persuasive. I probably would not notice it was written by a machine. It is competent and sounds confident.

I write these blog posts myself. I try to be competent and sound confident. Like claude.ai, I, too, make mistakes.

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Would you freak out if your daughter married a Trump voter?

Politics matters more than it used to.

Religion still matters.

My mother-in-law voted for Barack Obama. She was an immigrant from China, an escapee from Communism, and an evangelical Christian. She faced discrimination based on her race and being an immigrant, but religion trumped everything else for her, and she identified as a Republican since it was the more openly Christian party. She voted for both Bush presidents and John McCain, but not Mitt Romney. Romney was a Mormon. She thought Mormons were dangerous heretics. Better a Black Democrat than a Mormon.

The Pew Research Center polling shows that she was not alone. Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are less popular than Muslims and atheists, measured by the number who are favorably inclined toward them compared to the number with unfavorable opinions. (My own experience with Mormons has been very positive.) 

There are curious things about this chart. Jews are generally well regarded, the best of any group, with a huge net-favorable status. Evangelical Christians stand out, too, as the group with the highest unfavorable number: 27%. That number is balanced by an equally-high number of people with a favorable opinion. Evangelical Christians are controversial, indeed more controversial than atheists and Muslims. 

A Monmouth poll asked a related set of questions. How would Americans feel about at son or daughter-in-law on a variety of characteristics -- college, an immigrant, a different race or faith?

Americans became accustomed to interracial marriage, something that was a big deal a generation ago and a criminal act in 16 southern states until 1967. Americans are slightly more comfortable with an in-law who is an atheist than with one who is a "born again" Christian. 

The factor with the greatest risk of disappointment is a family member who chooses to marry a Trump voter. That 48% of disappointed parents looks at all Americans including the near-half of American parents who are themselves Trump voters. Among Democratic parents, 60% would disapprove; 35% say they wouldn't care.  Republican parents are less bothered by the prospect of a child marrying a Biden supporter; only 46% would disapprove and 50% wouldn't care. 

Across the board, Independent votes have a higher "don't care" response to who a child marries, but more Independents (20%) say they would be happy with their child marrying a Trump supporter than the 10% who would be happy with a marriage to a Biden supporter. That contradicts the Biden narrative that Biden is the "normal" lowest-common-denominator candidate. He has negatives, too, and they are not matched by his positives.

Evangelical Christians have become a growing political force in America because they recognize the cultural trend moving against them. There are fewer regular churchgoers. Atheism has become acceptable. Evangelical Christians consider themselves to be under assault, and they are fighting back. They are the vanguard of the cultural counter-revolution, which has made them a political force, most visible in wedge issues such as abortion, LGBT rights, and religious expression of Christian faith in public places. They are attached to a populist leader and movement in ascendance. That gives them temporal power. It also makes them a target of opponents to that power.

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Memorial Day

     "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
          Martin Luther King, Jr.

I would like to believe it, but I don't

I understand it to be the wish of my friends on the progressive left, but it is not a description of history. Progressives believe in progress. They want to believe that time is on their side. 

I see history as characterized by ebbs and flows. Nothing really changes because the character of our species does not change. "Civilization" does not change us. Judeo-Christian religion doesn't change us. Nobody's religion changes us. Humans are social animals, so we seek power and status. We pursue self-interest. We fear the ambitions of others. That hasn't changed since Thucydides spelled it out. 

Romans built roads and aqueducts and created a "civilized" society, but when they conquered Carthage they killed nearly everyone and enslaved the rest. Genghis Kahn put the sword to millions of people. Stalin and Hitler killed millions as acts of policy. 

Humans conquer lands and remove the defeated people. Ethnic cleansing isn't new. It is what humans do. Jews and Palestinians in Israel both have the same problem, which is that in the world of phone cameras and television there is no polite and invisible way to do a good, thorough job of ethnic cleansing so that their homeland is theirs and free of the conquered people.

Throughout history if the former occupants of conquered lands survive in some form it is because there is another deep instinctual part of the moral universe that does not change. Men find women sexually attractive. Some descendants of the conquered people survive as the children of women and girls who were plunder. The tribe survives.

Is this cold and ugly? Yes. The arc of the moral universe bends toward humans being the species that we are.

On Memorial Day we reflect on the warriors in that perpetual struggle. For good reason we fear the honor, self-interest, and fear felt by other groups. Putin wants Ukraine's oil, fertile soil, and position on the Black Sea; he wants Russia to be great and proud again; and he is afraid of NATO. So of course he invaded Ukraine. If Ukraine survives it will be because it organized itself to defend against an enemy. Tribes and countries that fail to do that don't survive.

I don't consider my farm at the base of the Table Rocks to be stolen land. It was conquered land. Previous occupants had conquered it from one another over the millennia. I find arrowheads in tilled soil after a rain. It is land worth taking. What is better than fertile land along a river where the fish come to you so plentifully that as recently as 1940 one could stand at riffles and scoop them up with a pitchfork and throw them into a wagon?

White Americans took North America from Indigenous people. That wasn't "progress," and it certainly wasn't an arc bent toward justice. It was a moment of history's ebbs and flows. White people had diseases and guns. But history oscillates. The story is never over. Descendants of those indigenous people -- cousins of the people there in 1855 -- are at the southern border now. Many of them have been here for decades and I see them at Costco, mothers with big families in tow. 

I am OK with this. Humans come and go. I have my turn. The land is won or lost with contraception now, not guns. 

My sense of patriotism bends toward inclusion. The United States described in the Declaration of Independence was a sham. The modern USA finally came into existence in 1964 and 1965 with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Black people and women entered the political world. Black people in the South could finally vote; women could enter the professions. It was a revolution and it took hold and grew to include LGBTQ and grew for 50 years.

But history oscillates. Women, Blacks, Asians, the non-religious, and immigrants from Latin America "won." It wasn't a final victory. We are in a counter-revolution.

The soldiers in this war are civilians, but they still wear special hats and carry flags. The wars continue.

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Easy Sunday: Trump Booed at Libertarian Convention

Libertarian convention theme: 

                  Become Ungovernable

CLICK HERE

Click above for one minute of Trump's contentious 31-minute speech at the Libertarian Party National Convention. He was booed repeatedly. It's a pie in the face for the bully.

Trump experienced the flip side of his MAGA movement. Break norms. Break laws. Insult. Show contempt for courts, prosecutors and law enforcement. Overturn elections. Ignore the Hatch Act. Tell oil companies if they give you a billion dollars you will make it up to them many times over. Sell flags and posters that say "Fuck Joe Biden." Politeness is for losers. Be ungovernable. Make liberals cry.

Libertarians are MAGA, but they aren't Republicans. They aren't in the Trump cult. 

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Election denier wins nomination to be Oregon's chief election official

Oregon Republicans elected Dennis Linthicum to be their nominee for secretary of state.  

He joined a lawsuit protesting the 2020 election. 

Many of us had hoped that the Oregon GOP would start to get reasonable in the face of repeated defeats in statewide elections. Alas, they are going in the other direction, deeper into MAGA craziness. 

Republican candidates and officeholders have a perennial complaint about Oregon politics. They say they are outvoted. Eastern Oregon rural counties talk about leaving Oregon and becoming part of Idaho out of frustration that most people in Oregon -- the people in the Portland metropolitan area -- vote for Democrats. State senators from Republican areas don't have the influence they think they deserve. Republican state senators in Oregon left the state capitol and hid from the sergeant at arms and state police to stop unwanted legislation by denying a quorum. Democrats have a super-majority.

Oregon voters acted. Voters passed a constitutional amendment to stop the practice of abandoning their posts with a rule that any senator with 10 unexcused could not run for re-election. 

Oregon Republicans complain they are locked out of winning statewide offices. There is a reason for this. They usually nominate un-serious candidates. 

Kim Thatcher, the GOP candidate in 2000 for Oregon's chief election official, the secretary of state, became an advocate for the Texas lawsuit to throw out Biden's electoral votes in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. Thatcher looks like a MAGA fringe candidate, suitable for local election in deep red districts, but not for statewide office.

Republicans did it again. Dennis Linthicum, one of the Oregon state senators from a bright red district, who is barred from running for re-election because he joined the walkout, was in the news in two ways this week. The first is that he won the nomination to be the chief election official. The second is that the class action lawsuit he was party to that claimed widespread fraud was just denied certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Linthicum's lawsuit made assertions based on speculations and rumors. It cited the movie "2000 Mules" as an authority. It conflated suspicion and allegations with evidence. Their filing is a list of conspiracy theories. Read it and see.

Click here

Of special interest to me is item 46, page 12 of their filing:

Fraud in two Oregon counties, Jackson and Marion Counties, is so rampant that Jackson and Marion Counties are identified by Capt. Keshel among the 100 counties having the most fraud in the United States.

Rampant fraud in Jackson County? Fraud here?

Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker, a lifelong Republican serving in a nonpartisan office, said she had "absolutely no idea what they were talking about, and no idea what problem they think we had here." 

The lawsuit prays for relief in the form of ending mail-in balloting and ending machine-counting of ballots.

Linthicum will face off against Tobias Read in the general election in November. Read might have a serious challenge against a serious Republican, but Linthicum is easy to portray as a kooky extremist deep into MAGA conspiracies. He did not draw a conclusion based on evidence. He is repeating the Trump line. That makes him dangerously unsuited for a job as Oregon's chief election official. 

If Republicans want a chance at winning statewide offices then they need to nominate better candidates. 

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Trump leads in the polls.

     “The degree to which the cost of living is the biggest pain point for voters today cannot be overstated. . . . There are significant numbers of voters who appear willing to risk the future of democracy because they believe Trump could help get costs down.”
         Patrick Toomey, Partner at Democratic Polling firm BSG

I probably overestimate how much people care about democracy, rule of law, and good political process.

That miscalculation caused me to think voters would surely like the two Jackson County measures that would make the positions nonpartisan and increase their number from three to five.  It opens up the process for disenfranchised nonaffiliated voters. That's good, right? 

It turns out people people did not care much. 

There is a lesson in that for Democrats watching the presidential race. I think Trump's open and now-proud effort to overturn the 2020 election, along with a fake electors scheme, are disqualifiers for public office. They cannot be ignored. Nor can taking secret documents home, hiding them, and lying to the FBI about them. This wasn't carelessness. It was premeditated and corrupt.

What is wrong with my Republican friends and neighbors who observe this and support him anyway? 

They don't care very much about them. "Democracy" isn't all that important. Not compared with the economy and public safety. 

Possibly half of Republican voters --  the people who buy "Trump Won" flags and banners at this pop-up store on the highway north of Medford -- actively support the January 6 insurrection and consider Trump a hero. 

There is another set of Republican voters who aren't MAGA crazy, but who like to vote for Republicans because they always have. They are part of the red team. At first they thought January 6 was wrong, but with Trump continuing to be popular and adamant he is completely innocent, they are coming now to think maybe Trump is OK. Not perfect, but of course better than any Democrat.

Maybe some of those voters remain swing voters. Nikki Haley was a vehicle for them. She said clearly and forthrightly that Donald Trump is unfit for office and a danger to democracy. She just said she would vote for Trump to be president. She is protecting her future within the Republican party.

A Cook Political Report poll shows Trump ahead by several points in all the battleground states. The polling gets worse for Biden when third party candidates are included because RFK, Jr. gets about 8% of the vote and Jill Stein and Cornell West currently get about 2% each. 

Click Here: Cook swing state survey

The poll indicated that the single biggest concerns are not democracy or the rule of law. It is inflation. Inflation defines economic distress for 54% of the public. The record high stock market, the near-record low unemployment, and the very strong increase in household income are secondary issues. 

It's the economy, stupid. Not democracy. Economies are hard to change. Biden will go into the November election with the economy he now has, and that is the best case. 

Is Biden doomed? I think not. A guilty verdict in New York might help on the margin, but Trump has already de-legitimized a potential guilty verdict in the New York documents case. He says it should not have been prosecuted, the DA and judge are biased, the jury is biased, and that Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen are liars.

The local election outcome was not encouraging. Democracy and talk of "good government" are not the motivators I thought they were. What gives me optimism is Trump's near-infinite capacity to self-destruct. He is acting more erratic and unhinged than before. Four years ago, when the attention of the public was on him, they saw a crude bully in his debate with Biden. They saw a man unfit for the office. They will weigh Biden's age against Trump's crazy. Biden cannot escape his age. Trump cannot escape his own temperament.

My expectation is that, on the margin, more people will consider Trump the more dangerous choice. A crazy leader can ruin the economy.

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Jackson County Voters have spoken

Notice the field sign we did not see:

Voters said NO to nonpartisan commissioners and adding two to make a total of five. 

Voters said YES to bringing salaries back to reality. 

OK. Let's go with that.

The Jackson County commissioners organized a spirited campaign and they won on two of the three ballot measures. Jackson County for All, the committee that wrote the ballot titles and gathered the signatures, made the salary reductions in measure three contingent on adding two commissioners. Since measure two failed, it means that the current salaries stay in effect.

The idea was that the three measures taken together would reorient the commissioners away from a circle-the-wagons partisan group looking inward and protecting their political turf. They would not be career employees of the county, getting longevity step increases in pay and serving as public relations staff to the county administrator. Instead, commissioners would be the public's representatives providing oversight and direction to the county management.  

They were three separate issues in order to meet state law requiring that ballot measures be on a single topic.

The public's vote and the campaign in opposition taken together show that the "good government" concerns of Jackson County for All were not a strong motivator. There was no outpouring of support from non-affiliated voters, the group that would benefit most from the shift to nonpartisan commissioners.

The "NO" campaign argued that the extra representation was "big government" and unwelcome. Their campaign emphasized cost, saying it would cost "a LOT more." They argued that broader representation was not worth paying for. Using projections from the county administrator, the "NO" campaign warned that two additional commissioners would require major renovations at the courthouse. It warned that the two commissioners would share in the generous benefit packages that accompany the commissioners stated salaries. Surely, the public doesn't want those costs, the ads said. Apparently the public did not. It voted "no." 

So I suggest giving the public exactly what the voters demanded, when they voted down measures one and two and supported the salary-cut measure. I suggest Jackson County for All immediately gather signatures for a single measure to reduce salaries back to a reasonable level. The job of county commissioner is not that of a county department head directly supervising staff within a field of expertise, e.g., road construction or land appraisal. It should not be paid like one. It is a job of representation, rather like a state senator. Both commissioners and state senators serve four year terms. The qualifications for each are the same -- being voted into office. Both jobs are significant commitments of time done out of a sense of public service. State senators are paid $35,052/year. That is a reasonable starting point for discussion.

Because the commissioner job does not require temporary housing in Salem and travel back and forth to it, there is no need for the "per diem" pay currently paid to state senators.

The "NO" campaign has alerted voters to the potential that commissioners vote themselves significant pay in travel and telephone perks in addition to the stated salary. That loophole should be closed. 

I suggest a simple, straightforward ballot measure. Cut commissioner salaries to be equal to the salaries paid to state senators and make any payment for expenses contingent upon supplying receipts for actual mileage and business costs. If, for legal reasons, it is necessary to define the job and relate it to the salary to avoid the commissioners claiming that their salaries cannot be cut, then put words in the measure that clarify that the commissioner job is one of representation, not departmental management. And since state senator pay could increase without consent by local voters, put a cap into the measure. A measure might read something like: 

"The job of county commissioner is one of representation and oversight, so the salary shall equal the salary paid Oregon state senators, but not more than $40,000 a year unless amended by Jackson County voters. Any additional payment to commissioners shall be reimbursement for actual expenses incurred in carrying out official business of the county."

If commissioners are paid like state senators perhaps they will begin acting like the people's representatives, not like county department heads clinging to their jobs. They don't work for the county administrator. They work for the public.

The people have spoken. They want small government and lower costs. Let's give it to them.

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Oregon votes are (mostly) in.

 I see three big themes of consequence in the Oregon election results.

1. Established candidates won. They had endorsements, they raised money, they had bigger campaigns. 

2. In three hotly contested races in the Greater Portland area, the "regular, liberal" Democrat defeated the "progressive" candidate.

3. In Jackson and Josephine counties measures to change the charter failed. 

Cliff Bentz, U.S. Rep. in a largely-rural district

The "favorites" won. There were no big upsets.  Oregon's rural-district Republican U.S. Representative, Cliff Bentz, coasted to an easy win. He endorsed Trump while Nikki Haley was in the race. He voted to throw out Pennsylvania's votes for Biden in the 2020 election, even though the audited results showed Biden won by 80,000 votes. He voted along with nearly all his GOP House members for various Speakers, including Jim Jordan. That would appear to be good MAGA compliance with Trump, but the concern within Republican circles was that maybe Bentz was not red-meat MAGA enough. So he had a primary election opponent, Prineville Mayor Jason Beebe, but the concern was for naught. 

Tobias Read, the current state treasurer won the Democratic primary for secretary of state. His opponent was a widely respected state senator, but Read had better name familiarity, raised more money, and had a bigger campaign. 

Voters chose "regular" over progressive. Voters in the heart of blue Oregon --  the Greater Portland area -- saw three progressive candidates with big, well-funded campaigns. Each got substantial contributions from within the state and from out- of-state progressive PACS.  Seeking the bright blue Portland congressional seat vacated by retiring Earl Blumenauer , former Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, sister of the leader of the U.S. House's Progressive caucus Pramila Jayapal, had strong national support. She lost, getting only 29% of the vote compared to the 51% given to State Representative Maxine Dexter, who communicated more moderate Democratic politics. Dexter told supporters on election night, 'In Congress, I will listen, I will work with others and we will find a path forward that gets results."

In another U.S. representative race in district that includes both Portland suburbs and the Democratic city of Bend, progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner ran an active well-funded campaign. She had lost narrowly to a Republican in this Democratic-leaning district in 2022, a loss that drew national attention. She  lost her primary election this year almost 70%-30% to State Representative Janelle Bynum. Bynum had the support of the Democratic National Committee and the endorsement of every prominent Oregon elected official. Several of those officials told me they were endorsing Bynum because they thought McLeod-Skinner too progressive to win a general election. She had her chance two years ago and she lost, they told me, and they weren't taking a chance on her this cycle.

Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schmidt was one of several progressive DAs elected in big cities in 2020. He has been widely condemned for failing to prosecute vandalism and other crimes associated with demonstrations following the slow murder of George Floyd. As was the case in San Francisco, voters seem to want to get back to normal. The results are too close to call definitively, but Schmidt appears to be losing to challenger Nathan Vasquez.

No, to county charter changes. Voters in Jackson and Josephine counties rejected the charter change proposals. Josephine County's was an outright rejection, 70% to 30%. Jackson County's was much closer and more complicated. The proposals to make the county commissioner office nonpartisan and to increase their number from three to five both lost by similar numbers, about 54% to 46%. The measure to cut the salaries of commissioners from a current $150,000 to about half that passed easily 64% to 36%. However, a little-known provision in the salary measure stated that it would only take effect if the measure increasing the number of commissioners from three to five passed. Since it did not, then the salary-cut measure will not take effect either. This creates a complicated situation where public sentiment conflicts with the rules in effect.

I will write about that issue tomorrow.

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Gun Totin' is dangerous.

You have a Second Amendment right to carry a firearm.

Other people have the right to kill you in self- defense if they fear you are a mortal threat.

What could go wrong?

Roger Fortson, a 23 year old airman on active duty, was at his home in Florida when someone knocked on his door. The person at the door identified himself as a policeman and demanded that all occupants come to the door. Fortson, who is Black, answered the door carrying a gun in his right hand. It was pointed down. When Fortson opened the door the deputy sheriff saw the gun and immediately shot Fortson six times. When Fortson was lying on the floor, dying, the deputy told him to drop the gun. All this happened almost instantly. 

Watch 55 seconds of video from the deputy's body camera. 

Click Here

The commentary from the libertarian right -- Reason.com -- takes the position that Fortson was simply exercising his Second Amendment right to carry a gun. He should not have been shot. 

The article cites another case in New Mexico and one in Mississippi.

In Minnesota, a Black man named Philando Castile told the officer in a routine traffic stop that he had a weapon in the car -- again as was his right. The police officer told him not to pull out his gun. The officer asked him to present his license and registration. Castile reached to get it from the glove box. The officer immediately shot him, fearing he was reaching for a weapon. The officer was acquitted of any crime. The officer testified he feared for his life. 

A Texas jury found Daniel Perry guilty of murder. Perry had written angry and racist social media posts in opposition to Black Lives Matter. He went to a BLM rally and drove his car into a crowd. A man carrying a rifle pointed down confronted Perry. Perry shot and killed him, fearing he might raise the rifle. Texas Governor Greg Abbott decided the jury decision was unjust and pardoned Perry. 

The weight of most of the commentary on these incidents is that it is perfectly legal to carry a firearm and that this right should be respected. One should not presume a threat just because someone is carrying a gun.

I disagree. A person carrying a gun in a confrontation is a threat. They are capable of deadly force in an instant and one does not know their intent, only their capability.

Stand-your-ground laws mean in practice that people who feel threatened by others can use deadly force against that threat. Who wouldn't feel threatened by a stranger  who is carrying a gun? Openly carrying a gun is a statement of readiness to use it. It is asking for trouble. And anyone confronting a person who is asking for trouble has every right to be worried.

Two rights are in conflict -- the right to bear arms and the right of self-defense -- and the current version of gun culture is making the danger worse. The emphasis is on gun rights, not gun safety. You have a gun. Be ready to use it. We are in arms race. One strategy, being carried out with increasing frequency, is to be armed. Be ready to shoot first, in self-defense. Lawyers can sort it out later. 

There is another calculation to consider. Who gets the benefit of the doubt in a confrontation? The police are almost always considered right. Women are right if the person shot is a man. White people are right if the person shot is dark-skinned. A prosperous person with the ability to pay for a good defense is right, especially if the person killed is poor. Old people are right if the person killed is young. 

The shooter is right if the person shot is associated with an unpopular cause or group. Governor Abbott's pardon was a statement about Black Lives Matter. Had Daniel Perry shot a participant at a Trump rally I would expect a different, indeed the opposite, result.

As a prosperous old White guy I would probably get most of the benefit of the doubt in a shootout. It is unfair, but it is the way of the world. But I have a different strategy. I avoid the confrontation. I don't own or carry a gun. I attempt to look harmless. I think that is safer than thinking I can shoot first. The word is full of erratic and belligerent people, and many of them are armed and dangerous. I try to avoid them.

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Reflection at the dawn of modern America: Gerald Murphy’s story

"Keep your silly ways or throw them out the window. . .
Sex and drugs and rock and roll
Sex and drugs and rock and roll
Is very good indeed."
     Ian Dury, Dury and the Blockheads, 1977

There have been Great Awakenings in the past, periods understood as transformative religious revivals. 

We had a Great Awakening of our own. 

People born at the front end of the Baby Boom generation are old enough to have seen the world in the pre-dawn era and then experienced the changes in our culture that took place in the late 1960s.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the birth control pill, the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Baby Boom itself combined to change America. We experienced a revolution in law and culture. Our culture digested that revolution, along with its inevitable pushback. Jimmy Carter expressed the do-good, love-your-neighbor liberal side of the counter-revolution. Ronald Reagan reaffirmed patriotism and American goodness. We are experiencing a new version now, angrier, less tolerant, more Old Testament in its religion, especially in red states, among the self-identified evangelical Christians, in rural communities, and among working people of all races. 

Gerald Murphy was there at the beginning. He was the eighth of nine children. He is the young man in the lower left of this photograph.

Then he went to California. 

He taught English to high school students. He is retired and lives in Medford, Oregon. He writes plays performed by schools, churches, and community groups. 

A reflection by Gerald Murphy

Gerald and wife Nicole

My neighborhood in Philly was called Germantown, although I met very few people of German descent there. Mostly I lived around Irish and Italian Catholics and Blacks. The Catholic kids all went to Cardinal Dougherty High, at that time the largest Catholic high school in the country with over 6,000 students. After I graduated in 1963, I went to nearby LaSalle College for one semester, but jumped at the chance to move to Burlingame, California when my recently-married sister offered me a spot on her sofa. The draft loomed over everyone my age, but I was safe if I stayed in college. I signed up immediately at the local junior college, grew my hair long, and met my wife Nicole Jones in an English class. Two years later we moved in together and sometimes failed to take proper precautions, with passion overtaking common sense.

After that semester, she moved back to her family in Ashland, Oregon, while I hitchhiked back to my family in Philly, taking a clerical job with the Pennsylvania Railroad. My parents, especially my mother, were disgusted by all the changes in me, and not just the long hair. My politics always skewed left, but now I was very vocal with my right-wing siblings, especially my oldest brother. Soon after I started work, Nicole informed me from Ashland that the rabbit had died.* At the same time, the local draft board informed me that I was 1A for Vietnam. We decided to marry and solve both problems. She came to Philly and we tied the knot at a local justice of the peace. Of course, any marriage outside the Church was seen as illegitimate. Also, my wife was raised a Methodist, and we all know about those devil-worshipping Protestants. Everyone we knew assumed our wedded bliss would be short-lived. Three kids and 58 years later, we are still together, but I still haven't learned to put down the toilet seat.

Of course, this isn’t everything that happened to me in these times. I didn’t mention, for instance, that the Catholic grade school I attended gave me the award for religion in 8th grade, a fact made all the more ironic because even then I already had serious doubts about the existence of God. It wasn’t something I could admit to my deeply devout parents, but when I moved to California in 1964, my atheism drew yawns from my peers. It seemed no one on the West Coast believed in the Almighty. He had been replaced by sex, drugs and rock and roll.

When I returned to Philly two years after my California experience, I felt like I was traveling back in time. The Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Grateful Dead weren’t there yet. Instead Pat Boone, Lesley Gore and Gene Pitney still ruled the air waves. I had taken LSD in California. In Philly, only jazz musicians dared smoke pot.

Of course, Philly and the rest of the country did catch up with California. And it wasn’t just rock and roll and drugs. Civil rights and riots turned every big city into a possible battle zone. Negroes became Blacks. Girls became women. The Pill meant you could have sex anytime you wanted it. Revolution was in the air. Every young person I knew believed we were witnessing the beginning of an era of profound change.

And they were right. We just didn’t realize that revolutions almost always bring on a reaction. We didn’t realize that many people yearned for the very world we wanted to leave behind, a world of right-wing reactionaries, religious and racial bigotry, and the reunion of church and state. We had no idea our country might one day even choose autocracy over democracy.

And our good times are all gone,
And I’m bound for moving on.
I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way.
     Ian Tyson, Four Strong Winds, sung by Ian and Sylvia. Released in U.S. in 1964

*Prior to the mid-1960s, the test for pregnancy was to inject a bit of the woman's urine into a laboratory animal, a female rabbit. The after a few days the rabbit was killed and dissected. If the rabbit's ovaries were enlarged, the woman was pregnant. If not, she was not. This test was phased out during this era. "The rabbit died" was code/slang in the 1930s through the 1960s as an indirect euphemism to mean a positive result for pregnancy.

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