Democrats Hoisted by Their Own Petards

For years Portland has been enamored of its favorite motto “Keeping It Weird.” There is a significant amount of debate between Portland and Austin, Texas, as to which city stole the motto from the other – it doesn’t really matter since both cities are liberal bastions populated by the idle and the unwashed and run by the some of the dumbest people in the land. The only difference is that size of Portland compared to conservative Oregon is so great that the morons from Portland also run the state of Oregon, while in Texas, Austin is overwhelmed by Dallas/Forth Worth, San Antonio and Houston and thus treated as a wayward child by a mostly conservative state.

But this isn’t about Texas; this is about Oregon and more importantly about the politicians who have been hoisted by their own petards. Lets start with Governor Kate Brown (D-OR). Ms. Brown has been running roughshod over the laws and constitution of Oregon ever since her election. She is never worried about being called to account because both houses of the state legislature have a super majority of Democrats, every statewide office is held by other Democrats (most of them, like Ms. Brown, rising from the swamps of Portland) and the judiciary has been largely appointed by over three decades of Democrat governors. Why worry? This is the home of a one party state and it is as corrupt as other one party states such as Illinois, California, Maryland, and Delaware. All of this from a state that was once a beacon of clean government.

Ms. Brown has also been described as the “least transparent” governor since that term became popular. Even former governors Neil Goldschmidt (D-OR) and John Kitzhaber (D-OR) couldn’t hold a candle to Ms. Brown even though Mr. Goldschmidt, with the help of other Democrats and much of the mainstream media, spent most of his political career burying and reburying the fact that he had an ongoing sexual relationship with his fourteen year old babysitter (statutory rape) and Mr. Kitzhaber was caught up in a scandal when his paramour was accused of influence peddling. After promising an open and transparent government, Ms. Brown routinely suppresses reports, refuses information requests, parses words and phrases, and otherwise closes the windows and shades to the sunlight necessary to insure clean government.

Ms. Brown routinely relies on the now trite phrase of “following the science” even though she has steadfastly refused to identify the sources of that “science.” As a result Ms. Brown and her administration have been all over the map in dealing with the pandemic. The latest inconsistency comes from her administration’s response to the smoke from the growing forest fire conflagrations. Ms. Brown’s Department of Environmental Quality announced last Friday that cloth facemasks were ineffective against the air pollution caused by the fires. Really? This comes after nearly nonstop berating by Ms. Brown about wearing facemasks during the pandemic as a means of stopping the spread despite the fact that the coronavirus is so small that it can easily pass through the weave of cloth facemasks – so small that if a cloth facemask cannot stop the smoke and ash of a forest fire they are certainly ineffective against the coronavirus. But consistency is apparently reserved for the self-aware.

Ms. Brown’s approval rating now stands at a startling low thirty-eight percent. For it to be that low “ statewide” would mean that even portions of the “woke” liberal/progressive/socialists of Portland –Ms. Brown’s fellow travelers – would have to be fed up with her incompetence, demeanor and noblese oblige attitude. And while Ms. Brown pursues the Biden administration for a federal appointment, even the very liberal University of Oregon has asked her to shut up about vaccinations against COVID. An article published by the Oregon Taxpayers Association noted:

“The Oregonian reports researchers at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Policy Research and Engagement conducted a survey and are urging Gov. Kate Brown to stop promoting COVID-19 vaccines, saying she is the ‘least trusted’ messenger for hesitant Oregonians.”

In the end Ms. Brown is a victim of her own shortcomings. She has been hoisted by her own petards and she well deserves the irony of its explosion.

This is also about Mayor Ted Wheeler (D-Portland). Mr. Wheeler is the son of a wealthy timber family who was educated at Stanford, Columbia and Harvard and attempted a banking career back East. It is safe to assume that success at the financial and banking institutions alluded Mr. Wheeler because he soon turned to the one job that requires no demonstration of skills or success – politics. After failing to be elected as a Republican in Massachusetts, Mr. Wheeler obtained an appointment as State Treasurer from then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D-OR). Once inside the Democrat hierarchy, Mr. Wheeler moved through various political offices until being elected the mayor of Portland in 2017 and it has been all downhill from there. Content to blame former President Donald Trump for everything that ails Portland, Mr. Wheeler encouraged the burning and looting of Portland by doing nothing to stop it. He marched with the terrorists, criticized the police, supported the reduction in funding for law enforcement and joined with the rioters who promptly derided him and attacked his home in Portland’s Pearl District. He’s a dope and incompetent to lead a boy scout troop let alone a major city. His lack of action has forced businesses out of downtown Portland, seen the mass resignation of all of the officers from the special unit charged with confronting violent crime, and watched as large swaths of his police force took retirement rather than work in the conditions created by Mr. Wheeler and the other morons who run Portland.

But now Mr. Wheeler (without Mr. Trump to blame) is calling for more police resources to confront the sky high murder rate, violent crimes and continued rioting on the streets of Portland. Having been hoisted by his own petards, Mr. Wheeler is still trying to recover the scattered pieces of his life by refusing to accept blame for his incompetence. I recall when a friend of mine told me that the business community was supporting Mr. Wheeler for mayor because he would deal with the problems that a succession of liberal/progressive/socialist predecessors had created. I laughed and told him that Mr. Wheeler was just the latest in a long line of incompetents who would continue and extend the policies of his predecessors and that the business community was whistling up a dark alley thinking things were going to change. I leave you to decide which of us was right.

But here’s the kicker. Recall efforts have been tried and failed for both Ms. Brown and Mr. Wheeler. And they have failed in part because of what I refer to as the Obama-Biden conundrum. When former President Barack Obama (D) secured the Democrat nomination for president, he looked around for a vice-president. Mr. Obama (by his own admissions) has always thought he was the smartest person in the room. Having witnessed how the mainstream media derided former President George W. Bush (R) for selecting former Vice-president Dick Cheney (R) who they believed was actually running the country, Mr. Obama wanted to make sure nobody could seriously make that assertion about his choice. So he selected the dumbest man in the United States Senate – then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE). Given that it was widely believed that Mr. Biden had been wrong on every major issue over forty plus years, Mr. Obama was relatively comfortable that no one would attempt to assassinate him because of the obvious result. And Mr. Biden – no slouch at plagiarism – followed Mr. Obama’s example and chose the dumbest woman in the United States Senate – then Sen. Camilla Harris (D-CA). So the same phenomenon exists in Oregon and Portland – what comes behind Ms. Brown and Mr. Wheeler is even worse than they are. There is little hope for Oregon. The Democrats are in full control of the government and the liberal/progressive socialists are in control of the Democrat Party. It’s no wonder that those east of the Cascades want to secede from Oregon and join Idaho.