The Northwest Speaks

Media Fail: ‘Dying’ Tea Party Raises $12 Million

Janet Bird — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:49:49 +0000

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by John Nolte3 days ago40 post a comment

More proof the media loves to write the reality they desire.

Over and over again we’ve told by the MSM that the Tea Party is dying or dead … then a entrenched incumbent in Indiana is booted out.

And now this:

Sen. Richard Lugar, who lost his primary fight in Indiana Tuesday, doesn’t need any reminders of the tea party movement’s ongoing appeal. But for those who do, another one surfaced recently in the tax return of the tea party movement’s biggest umbrella organization.

The Woodstock, Ga.-based Tea Party Patriots reported raising $12.2 million for the year ended May 31, 2011. That vaults them into the ranks of some of the most successful conservative activist groups, including FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform.

Nonprofit organizations’ annual tax returns are lagging indicators, of course, and the political-fundraising landscape has been evolving rapidly. But the Tea Party Patriots’ success underscores the continuing – perhaps even growing – power of the tea party.

Warrenton High’s Warrior Statue On The Chopping Block?

Janet Bird — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:28:41 +0000

Warrenton High’s Warrior Statue On The Chopping Block?

Jim Welsh

•
Saturday, April 28, 2012

The testimony of Banks High School student Coryn Nelson before the Oregon Board of Education about banning Native American mascots has ignited quite a stir across the state. Nelson’s testimony has even received TV coverage. Lars Larson’s posting on his face book page of our MOOCountyNews article (“15 Year Old Banks High Student Schools Oregon Board of Education”) with Coryn’s complete testimony brought an amazing number of hits(Thanks Lars).

To all of you folks who are supporters of the Warrenton Warriors, your mascot’s days may be coming to an end if the State Board of Education has its way. That unique statue of the Warrenton Warrior, actually fashioned by Warrenton students years ago, may be headed to the politically correct scrap pile.

A New Beginning for Oregon

Janet Bird — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:38:12 +0000

Jim Welsh

•
Thursday, April 26, 2012

A couple of days ago, a friend and I spent about 5 hours visiting empty commercial properties from Nehalem to Astoria. We took pictures and videos of these spaces whose only occupants were “For Lease” signs. We plan to make a short video (in a series of videos about HD32) and discuss the state of House District 32’s ailing economy. By the end of our trip we had filmed about 70 empty commercial spaces in six towns separated by a distance of about 40 miles. And we had not by any means compiled all of them.

To be honest, at the end of the day I was a bit depressed. A few short years ago most of these spaces were leased to businesses with owners and employees earning their livings. Today there is nothing but a sign begging for a tenant. Cumulatively there was a feeling of having just visited a ghost town. The human dimension of this stuck in my mind. Hundreds of people who previously provided for themselves and their families have vanished. The owners of these properties are suffering too with the loss of their rental incomes and the means to pay the mortgages on these properties. Many of these properties are now in foreclosure.

My friends, there is something seriously wrong in House District 32. These empty commercial properties are just the tip of the iceberg. Many of our once self-supporting friends and neighbors have lost hope in their futures. They are out of work or barely working. Their homes are in foreclosure. They’ve gone on Food Stamps and their unemployment benefits have run out or are about to do so. Many are leaving the towns where they were born and raised. And where are their elected representatives who have promised to represent them in Salem? What have they been doing for the past three years since our economic troubles have begun? Honest to God, I don’t know. Read More….http://moocountynews.com/a-new-beginning-for-oregon-p671-1.htm

David Wu continues to spend cash left over from his old campaign fund

Janet Bird — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:50:35 +0000

Doug Beghtel/The OregonianThen-Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., speaks at a town hall in Portland in April of 2011, less than four months before his resignation.

Former Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., continues to spend money out of his old campaign fund, without providing much explanation for where most of it is going.
A new report filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that Wu was reimbursed nearly $4,000 for unspecified expenses during the first three months of the year. Wu resigned in August following a sex scandal.
All told, Wu’s old campaign fund – which has been renamed the “Education & Opportunity Fund II” –reported spending nearly $20,000 in the first quarter of 2012. The committee spent more than $1,200 on travel and more than $7,000 on legal expenses.
Just two of the expenditures showed a clear political purpose. In February, he gave $500 checks to both the Clatsop and Yamhill County Democratic central committees.

Here Come The Taxers Again

Janet Bird — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:14:29 +0000

Here Come The Taxers Again

Let’s put Rep. Boone onto Social Security and a PERS retirement in 2013

MooCountyNews.com

•
Sunday, March 25, 2012

They’re Back!

Remember back in 2009 when the Democrat controlled Oregon Legislature passed tax increases that were supposed to “save” education and social service funding? And remember when our liberal friends in Portland and Salem and the other environs of “Our Oregon” (henceforth to be known as “Their Oregon”), along with their Democrat panderers, told us that if we didn’t defeat Measures 66 and 67 (that would have overturned the tax increases) that Oregon‘s future ability to fund those services was at stake. Remember that? Yep, all we had to do was increase the taxes on those nasty corporations and all those nasty millionaires and by golly we’d get the State of Oregon back on its feet (or at least the part that lives off of taxpayers). Well it seems it hasn’t quite worked out that way. As old Gomer Pyle used to say to the Sarge: “Surprise, surprise“.

State tax revenues are now stagnating, if not declining and the 2013 Legislative session looks to be another battle over who to fleece to keep the bureaucracy afloat. Enter “Our (Their) Oregon”. Read more….http://moocountynews.com/here-come-the-taxers-again-p650-1.htm

Its Time For A Devolution In Oregon

Janet Bird — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:31:57 +0000

Jim Welsh

•
Wednesday, March 21, 2012

By now a number of you readers are aware that I am running for Oregon House District Seat 32 currently held by Deborah Boone. Rep. Boone has held this seat for nearly 8 years. I am sure you are interested in why I am running. Well, let me first tell you some reasons that did not enter into my decision.

I am not running to draw a paycheck for serving my constituents. I would do the job for free except that the Legislature, in its wisdom, won’t permit that. Whether I want a paycheck or not, you tax-payers will have to pay me. So I’ll just donate the take-home pay to charities. And I will opt out of PERS as I don’t intend to have tax-payers pay me after I leave the Legislature. And when I leave the legislature I’ll donate whatever accumulated in a private plan to charity also. I’m not going there for a pension. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe any elected officials should have tax-payer funded pensions. I don’t consider elective service a career. (As a matter of fact, I’ll probably introduce a bill in every session to do away with pension benefits for legislators). I will accept the per diem costs while in session and I’ll let you know what I spend it on. It is your money. You are paying the bill. You have a right to see what you are paying for. I can assure you that you’ll see more purchases for my food during session at places like McDonalds and grocery stores than at fancy restaurants like DaVincis in Salem.

Free Sterilizations Must be Offered to All College Women, Says HHS

Janet Bird — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:47:21 +0000

By Terence P. Jeffrey

March 17, 2012

Subscribe to Terence P. Jeffrey’s posts

President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

(CNSNews.com) – All student health care plans covering female college students in the United States must include coverage for free voluntary sterilization surgery, the Department of Health and Human Services announced late Friday afternoon.

Women of college age who do not attend school will also get free sterilization coverage whether they are insured through an employer, their parents, or some form of government-subsidized plan.

All student health plans, HHS said Friday as it finalized a new regulation under the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) must cover the full set of cost-free women’s “preventive services” that HHS ordered last month must be covered by all U.S. health care plans.

These free “preventive services” include surgical sterilization procedures and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

The Magician In a re-election year, the U.S. president is making the world and all its troubles . . . vanish.

Janet Bird — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:38:22 +0000

Don’t get too distracted by the Republicans’ road-tour version of the 2012 presidential election as it hits theaters in the likes of Mississippi, Alabama, Hawaii and Illinois. The best show in town still plays daily at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If maestro Barack Obama wins re-election this fall, we will have watched one of the greatest magic acts in American history.

The new Obama magic show debuted in the State of the Union speech. Standing before Congress, Mr. Obama brought forth “An Economy Built to Last.” Not the real one we have now, but the one he’s going to conjure after he’s re-elected.

The way this works is the president breaks economic history into two parts. In his right hand are the awful policy mistakes someone else made before January 2009. In his left hand is the economy he’ll bring to life after November. In between is nothing. You think you’re looking at the Obama years from 2009 to 2012—8% unemployment, low growth, low investment—when whoa, it’s gone! Never happened.

The best was yet to come. The president of the United States is making the world itself and all its troubles . . . vanish. Read more….http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type=%7BWonder+Land%7D&HEADER_TEXT=wonder+land

Enlarge Image

Chad Crowe

Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea—one by one, Mr. Obama and his lovely assistants have methodically taken them all off the table. If he can make the world’s problems seem to go away until he gets re-elected, it will constitute his presidency’s greatest illusion.

Iraq went away in October, when Mr. Obama announced that all U.S. troops would be out of there by year’s end. Not most of them; all of them. This would be the first major war theater in modern times that the U.S. departed without leaving behind any presence. The argument in defense of this total troop wipeout is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded the U.S. waive prosecution immunity for any of our forces still there. The counter-argument is that the U.S. lost all leverage with Iraq’s government because of Mr. Obama’s passivity toward the place and its problems. Iraq fell to next to nothing. Remarkable.

More Welfare Payments To Tillamook County

Janet Bird — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:22:30 +0000

More Welfare Payments To Tillamook County

Jim Welsh

•
Thursday, March 15, 2012

It appears that Tillamook County’s welfare check for lost Federal timber harvesting will be extended another year thanks to Oregon/New York Senator Ron Wyden’s amendment to the Transportation Bill extending Federal timber fund payment to states for another year. Oregon’s only Republican member of Congress, Greg Walden, is applauding this action. Well, I live in Tillamook County and I am a Republican and I”m not applauding this. In 2010 grass roots Republicans across this nation swept the corrupt Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, out of the House of representatives. Grass roots Republicans and their Tea Party allies were promised that the old ways of doing business, at least in the House, were over. That the days of taking Joe the Plumber’s money to give it to Bill the Carpenter were finished. That Republicans got the message. Well, it looks like we got suckered again.

Tillamook Repubs Chastise Oregon Republican Legislators

Janet Bird — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:01:24 +0000

Tillamook Repubs Chastise Oregon Republican Legislators

Jim Welsh

•
Friday, March 02, 2012

In light of the Oregon Legislature’s passage of the “emergency” Marine Reserves bill last week, the Tillamook County Republican Central Committee (TCRCC) passed the below resolution expressing “extreme disappointment” with the majority of Republican legislators. To their credit, 5 Republican Senators (Ferrioli, Boquist, George, Girod and Telfer) and 2 Republican Representatives (Freeman and Thompson) voted no. The rest of the Republican crowd down in Salem caved in to Betsy Johnson’s crocodile tears that, if they didn’t pass it, a worse ballot measure would be brought to the voters of Oregon by the environmental lobby. Gimee a break, Betsy and crew set up and orchestrated this whole scenario and the weak-kneed Republicans bought into it. Betsy, I gotta hand it to you, you’re good