“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
– P.T. Barnum
Devin Nunes is a nine-term Congressperson from the California Central Valley. He is also a Putin-Trump toady. To keep his name in the news, Nunes lately has been a zealous foe of fake news. He has filed seven lawsuits alleging defamation of his character and reputation. Defendants are CNN, the Washington Post, McClatchy Company (owner of the Fresno Bee, Nunes’s hometown newspaper), Twitter, @mom_nunes (Devin Nunes’ Mom) and @DevinCow (Devin Nunes’ Cow).
@DevinCow scorns Nunes’s claim to be a dairy farmer. The family “moved” its farm from California to Iowa in 2007. The attorney representing Nunes recently admitted he is at a “dead end” in finding the person or persons responsible for the ridicule on the Twitter account.
Rep. Nunes does illustrate the Streisand Effect. When Nunes filed his suit in 2019 @DevinCow had a thousand followers. It now has 722,000.
The current occupant of the White House is looking to burnish his self-proclaimed reputation as the world’s greatest deal-maker with another arms sale to Saudi Arabia. To get rid of any distractions, he has fired the Inspector General who was looking into last year’s artful eight-billion-plus-dollar deal that sent weaponry to the Kingdom last year, over the strenuous objections of Congress.
The Bush family, too, were long-time friends and business partners with Saudi Arabian potentates.
Citizens of Baker City in northeastern Oregon, population not quite ten thousand, cast their ballots, giving overwhelming approval for sale of a twenty-five-year-old backhoe the city decided it no longer needed. An archaic provision in the municipal charter requires voters’ approval for the city to sell any equipment or vehicles with a value of more than $10,000. ($5,000 for land or buildings.) The 1995 Case backhoe’s estimated value is $16,000.
The sale was approved with 92% voting “Yes.” (One wonders what reasons the other 8% had to disallow the equipment’s sale.) Baker City’s public works director admitted that a few years previously a street sweeper may have been sold in violation of the law, although no record was kept of the sale price. (An obvious coverup!)
Baker City surplus – 1995 Case backhoe
In the same election, residents also voted, by a 65% to 35% margin, to amend the city charter putting some limit on direct democracy. The city in the future will be allowed to sell surplus equipment without obtaining voters’ consent. This will simplify the possible sale of a Case excavator and a 1988 International dump truck, each valued at more than $10,000.
A third measure on the ballot would have discontinued the stipend paid to Baker City’s commissioners. Perhaps voters feared that it would be a step toward plutocracy. The measure was defeated. The seven city-council members will continue to receive their ten dollars per meeting.
Let’s take a ride in the Wayback Machine. Forty years ago, we saw incessant news reports about Mt. St. Helens, kind of like the non-stop COVID-19 reporting today. For months the mountain had been bulging, and expelling steam and ash almost daily.
Scientists said there was imminent danger and the area should be closed off. Washington-state authorities agreed and put a quarantine in effect, blocking access into the danger zone. Right away noise began about infringing on people’s constitutional rights and the damage to tourism and the economy. The mountain’s burping was the new normal and nothing more was going to happen. (This was the era before patriots paraded in camouflage outfits and brandished combat weaponry.)
Interviews with one crusty old-timer, named Harry Truman, who lived on the mountain and said he wasn’t leaving, were a regular feature on the nightly news. According to Truman’s niece, “He thought (the volcano) would just go straight up and that somebody would be able to come and get him.”
Pressure to reopen the area increased. Officials met to discuss what action to take. Scientists expected reaffirmation of the closures and were surprised that the discussions were about plans to reopen the area. Five days later Mt. St. Helens blew. Mr. Truman and fifty-six other people died. Most died from thermal burns or inhaling hot ash. According to some estimates the death toll may be higher, that many unknown victims were swallowed by the debris flow.
“… you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Twenty or so years ago, in California, I signed up for permanent absentee voting. A few years ago I moved back to Oregon, where all voting is by mail and has been since 1998. The Elections Division notify me by e-mail and text message when my ballot has been sent to me and again when they have received and counted my vote. This year, I even received a postage-paid return envelope with my ballot.
In these days of COVID-19 upheaval, the governor of California issued an executive order that all registered voters be sent mail-in ballots for the November election. The state will still have in-person polling places open, although they expect difficulty in staffing. The White House is outraged, stating that people cheat with vote-by-mail ballots and that it is a “corrupt” practice. The president’s re-election campaign sputtered that it is a “wide open opportunity for fraud.” A bedrock Republican principle is that voting fraud by Democrats is rampant. (As with the Republican belief that lowering taxes increases revenue, just because it’s never happened doesn’t mean it’s not true.)
The current occupant of the White House voted by mail. So did Melania. (Hers was not counted in the last election. She mailed it late.) The vice-president votes by mail. (Pence listed his address as the governor’s residence, where he hasn’t lived since 2017.) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross mails in his ballots. Economic advisor Larry Kudlow and HHS Secretary Alex Azar also vote by mail. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump cast their ballots by mail, too. What’s fine for them is not OK for us. The problem is that the more people who vote, the worse Republicans do. In an inadvertent moment of candor the coWH said of mail-in voting, “… that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
In actual fact, the only documented case of organized voter fraud was in North Carolina, committed by — surprise! — Republicans. (Technically, it was election fraud.) The state had to have a do-over election for the Ninth Congressional District.
For the upcoming, and all future elections, Republicans will step up their efforts to make it more difficult for citizens to vote.
Ireland became part of the United Kingdom in 1801, but as a conquered country. The population was eighty-percent Catholic, the majority living in poverty. Until 1829, Catholics were not allowed to own property. Most of the land was owned by English, many of them absentee landlords. Their agents managed the properties and collected rent with almost no regulatory oversight. Most Irish farmers were tenants “at will,” subject to eviction at the whims of the owner or the owners’ agents. The farmers produced peas, beans, honey, rabbits and fish, most of it exported. The tenants themselves subsisted primarily on potatoes and water.
