Metro Declares War On Troutdale Property Rights

Joseph Stalin, the first Metro Chair.

Metro Councilors recently voted unanimously to "proceed with enforcement action" against the City of Troutdale.  According to a story on Metro's web site by Metro Chief Propagandist (ok, ok, he's officially known as a Metro staffer) Nick Christensen, the Metro Council decided to punish the City after the Troutdale City Council voted unanimously in November, 2011 to reject changes to the city's code that would have placed extensive restrictions on property that Metro considers "environmentally sensitive". ((You can read a transcript of the November 8, 2011 City Council meeting here- it's agenda item 7).

Barbara Roberts, former Oregon Governor and current Metro Spitter-In-Chief

Christensen's article included a quote by Current Metro Councilor and former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts, who said of Troutdale's refusal to limit property rights, "This is really a spit in your face kind of thing,"

The Troutdale City Council determined that its codes were already compliant with state land use rules.   If Metro has its way, many property owners in Troutdale would lose significant parts of their land for no good reason and without any compensation. That's not good policy except for the Stalinists on NE Grand Ave.

I agree with the Troutdale City Council. Metro is not Troutdale's friend. Want examples? Read these articles:

Land Use Regulation: don't call defenders of property rights zealots 

Metro's Fear And Loathing of Troutdale and Suburbia 

Troutdalians: Bear any Burden, Pay Any Price

Metro Tells Troutdale Where To Shove Its Quality of Life



  Troutdalians have the right to decide how we want our city to look fifty years from now. Not Metro's new urbanist dreamers. Therefore, (to borrow from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address), let every new urbanist know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of Troutdale's high quality of life.
  
Had enough? TAKE ACTION NOW!!! Call or e-mail  Metro NOW and tell them to stop violating your property rights:

Metro Council office
503-797-1540 | 503-797-1793 fax
metrocouncil@oregonmetro.gov

Viewpoint Inn Owners:"Blame Everyone Else First" Poster Boys

 Geoff Thompson and Angelo Simione, the former owners of the View Point Inn who incurred over $3 million in debt,  much of it to local business owners, have now joined the "Occupy Portland" protests. 

Watch this video to see them in action at the protests:

The story of the demise of the View Point Inn has been covered extensively in the media. According to the Gresham Outlook,

"...court documents revealed that Thompson owes upward of $2.9 million to hundreds of creditors — including government agencies, local businesses and people who held or who were planning to hold events at the inn. Of that amount, Thompson owes $2.8 million in secured debt, including a federal tax lien of almost $104,000, at least five state tax liens, at least nine judgment liens and other trust deeds and mortgages. He also owes unsecured debt totaling almost $128,000, as well as money to at least 188 creditors with “unknown” claims."

  Thompson and Simione, who have blamed their business failures on everyone from President Obama to local creditors who had the nerve to insist on being paid for their work, are the ideal poster boys for the essential message of the entire Occupy Wall Street crowd:

"BLAME EVERYONE ELSE FIRST".

How ironic that they're blaming President Obama, because "Blame Everyone Else First" has been Obama's tag line for the past three years as a way to excuse his failures. Blame Bush! Blame the Republicans! Blame the Tea Party! Blame the economy! Blame those who cling to their guns and religion! Blame Congress!
 

I'm sure they'll all be very happy together, blaming everyone else but themselves for their failures.

Occupy Portland: You've Met Them

You already know the people who call themselves "Occupy Portland":

• The co-worker who's always late for work. 
• The bicyclist who flipped you off after you honked your horn because you almost hit her while she blasted through a red light. 
• The waiter that ignored you for your entire dinner, but followed you outside to berate you because you didn't leave a tip.
• The roommate who never washes her own dishes and is always late with her share of the rent.
• The relative who is never on time for family functions.
• The "friend" who has never returned the book you loaned to him.
• The carpooler who never, ever chips in for gas or parking.
• The co-worker who never brings anything to the office potluck, but always first in line at lunchtime.
• The bus driver that kicks moms with their screaming babies off the bus.
• The high school student on the bus or light rail train that refuses to move his man-bag so the old lady can have a seat.
• People that still have John Kerry bumper stickers on their car. 
• Retired California Probation Officers.

For All You Protesters out there. . .

A local public defender gives advice to the "Occupy Portland" crowd in the Portland Mercury. Read the entire letter here. (What's Occupy Portland? See local coverage here.)

Read This Before You Protest: An Open Letter to Occupy Portland from a Public Defender

"Dear Occupy Portland:
I don’t disagree with many of your goals and aims. I think that the banks and large corporations and mortgage fraudsters that made a killing off the crash need a few less bailouts and a few more criminal charges to thin out their ranks. But I am nothing if not a realistic and practical person. I want you to temper your idealism and righteous rage with a nice slap of reality. So if, in fact, you gather enough people and present your version of Tahrir on the Willamette, things are going to get bad. And I want to give you a heads up about some things you may not have been thinking about."

Tax The Rich Only Works If Government TAKES IT ALL

Our nation's socialists have finally run out of other people's money. But it looks like they're in denial about it. Billionaire Warren Buffett's idea to tax the rich more and more was, of course, seized upon by Democrats as proof that billionaires are more then wiling to finance our nation's out of control spending.  But once again, it's been proven that no amount of "tax the rich" can solve our debt problems-- unless the government TAKES ALL THE MONEY!!

Buffett's New York Times Op-Ed said "it was time to "stop coddling the wealthy" and urged Congress to raise taxes on millionaires. Sounds great, doesn't it? Except for one little problem. According to a study by the Tax Foundation, 

"...calculations indicate that taxing these individuals at an effective rate of 100 percent would only net the government $186 billion, reducing the deficit by 12 percent and the debt by an additional 2 percent. In fact, the only way for the government to solve its fiscal issues with revenue would be to confiscate every single dollar from every single American making $200,000 or more per year, the study said."

Every single dollar. Every. Single. Dollar.   Our nation's socialists have finally run out of other people's money

Fair Share? Even 100% Corp Tax Isn't Enough!!

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress keep saying that U.S. corporations need to “pay their fair share” in order to resolve our national debt problems. They want more revenue a.k.a more TAXES from those evil corporations. And that leads us to the big question: Is our national debt a spending problem or a revenue problem?


Democrats want U.S. companies to pay their “fair share” to close the deficit gap. Ok! Let’s give it the old Democrat try. Let’s really STICK IT to those evil corporations and their Lear jets, tax breaks, etc. Are you ready? Here we go!



Let’s target the biggest U.S.corporations, the ones with annual gross revenues of over $40 billion per year. There are over 60 of these giant corporations in the U.S. (They’re listed below, along with their 2010 profits listed in billions of dollars. )


Remember now, we’re going to force these evil corporations to pay their “fair share”. Let’s not beat around the Bush. Let’s go all the way. Let’s tax their annual net profits at 100%. That’s the kind of fair share that any Democrat would be happy with. How much would a 100% tax on the net profit of these largest companies raise for one year? A whopping $204.8 BILLION dollars!!!


Wow, you’re thinking! $204.8 billion dollars would not only stick it to those corporations, but it would also would pay for everyone's health care, plus feed the poor children, and pay for all those public employee pensions, right? And it would solve our debt ceiling problems, too! That's the fair share President Obama is talking about, right?


There’s just one little problem. Currently, U.S. Government spending outpaces revenues by $118 BILLION per month. That’s right. The U.S. spends $1.4 TRILLION per year more than it receives in revenue. Even if Congress taxed 100% of the annual net profits of every U.S. company with over $40 billion in annual gross revenue, it would pay for less than TWO MONTHS of our monthly deficit of $118 billion per month. Think about that.
 

Even if our largest corporations were taxed the equivalent of 100% of their annual net profits, it still wouldn’t be enough to solve our nation’s debt problem. Clearly, we have a spending problem. And no additional “fair share” of new corporate taxes proposed by Obama and the Democrats will put even a small dent in our national debt.

TOP US COMPANIES (Exceeding $40 Billion in annual revenues)	Profits (billions)
WalMart	$14.3
ExxonMobil	$19.3
Chevron	$10.4
ConocoPhillips	$4.8
General Electric	$11.0
Berkshire Hathaway	$8.0
General Motors	$0.0
Ford Motor Company	$2.7
Hewlett Packard	$7.7
AT&T	$12.5
McKesson Corporation	$1.3
Bank of America	$6.3
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation	-$71.9
Cargill	$0.0
Verizon	$3.6
JP Morgan Chase	$11.7
Koch Industries	$0.0
IBM	$13.4
Cardinal Health	$1.2
CVS Caremark	$3.7
United Health Group	$3.8
Citigroup	-$1.6
Wells Fargo	$12.3
Valero Energy	-$2.0
Kroger	$7.0
Procter & Gamble	$13.4
AmeriSource Bergen	$0.1
American International Group	$0.1
Costco	$1.1
Marathon Oil	$1.5
Walgreens	$2.0
Home Depot	$2.7
Target Corporation	$2.5
Apple Inc.	$5.7
Boeing	$1.3
Microsoft	$14.6
Phillip Morris International	$6.3
Archer Daniels Midland	$1.7
Johnson & Johnson	$12.3
State Farm Insurance	$0.7
Medco Health Solutions	$1.3
WellPoint	$4.7
PepsiCo	$5.9
United Technologies	$3.8
Dell	$1.4
Pfizer	$8.6
Best Buy	$1.3
United Parcel Service	$2.1
Lowe's	$1.8
Lockheed Martin	$3.0
Goldman Sachs	$13.4
Dow Chemical	$0.1
Sears Holdings	$0.2
Intel	$4.3
Caterpillar	$0.9
Chrysler	$0.0
Bunge Limited	$0.4
MetLife	-$2.2
Safeway	-$1.1
SuperValu	$0.4
Kraft Foods	$3.0
Cisco	$6.1
TOTAL	$204.8
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
Source:  http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/full_list/

DEQ testing versus Dairy Queen. What's the Difference?

We did the DEQ/ vehicle registration renewal thing this afternoon. Excuse me, but why haven't we already privatized this vehicle emissions  testing? The kid just plugged the cord into our car's computer system and printed out the results. Just like the kid does at Dairy Queen when you order your swirl cone. Oh, yeah, the DEQ kid could operate a debit card machine just like the kids at Dairy Queen. No skill required.   $21 is too much to pay for such a simple task.

One guy sits on a stool at the DEQ entrance. We couldn't determine what his value-added was. The other guy inside the testing area just does his Dairy Queen thing- I don't see any value added there that should cost $21 per vehicle.  Except for their state employee wages+PERS, plus the overhead for the building and facilities. Private auto service departments could do this while you got your oil changed or other work for a FRACTION of the cost. Our state can no longer afford this  government make-work program.

Helen Thomas, Hitler's BFF.

  Comments about Jews from well intentioned, tolerant and reasonable progressive White House reporter Helen Thomas. . .

Kulongoski/Democrats NOW Say Oregon's About To Suffer Decades of Pain? PLEEEZ.

It's takes my breath away to see the Oregonian's front page headline this morning. It also angers me to my core. "State faces decade of pain", says the headline. "Oregon risks 10 years of crushing, multibillion-dollar budget shortfalls unless it immediately puts the brakes on spending and starts offering fewer services, cautions a new report released Thursday. This is no attack by anti-tax or anti-government factions. The warning comes from Gov. Ted Kulongoski's "reset Cabinet," a group of trusted advisers he appointed to assess the state's long-term fiscal outlook and suggest changes."

Yes, I am angry and flabbergasted at the hypocrisy  of the democrats. THEY CAUSED THIS MESS.  Are you people for real? It didn't take a special governor's committee to figure this out.  Throw these bums out of office in November. Throw them out for good!

Obama And His Merry Bunch Of Idolators

" Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people. The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern. There is no point a nation's having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not."

Read the rest at telegraph.co.uk.

Congressman Blumenauer sent me an unsolicited e-mail. Here's my reply.

Congressman Blumenauer,

Thank you for letting me know where you stand regarding the issue of health insurance reform. With all due respect, if you were truly interested in health care "reform", as you put it, you democrats could easily pass legislation RIGHT NOW to eliminate pre-existing condition qualifiers on health insurance. You could also pass legislation RIGHT NOW that would allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines without state insurance mandates.

Congress already could  have, with the stimulus, porkulus, TARP money etc. you democrats have already wasted, actually PURCHASED private health insurance policies for EVERY American for an entire year! And yet the democrats, who at this very moment have enough votes to pass anything they want without interference from Republicans, can't get ANYTHING passed. So don't blame Republicans for delay tactics or partisanship. As someone in the blogosphere said, right now Republicans couldn't delay or stop even a clown car.

Want to help small businesses? Forget about your sham health care takeover of the American economy. Instead, take your hands out of the pockets of small businesses and lower their taxes! You're stunned about skyrocketing health care premiums? I AM STUNNED about the democrat proposed tax increases and massive  future deficits in the TRILLIONS of dollars, which make the health care premium increases you mentioned look like chump change.

Congressman, YOUR democrat party and YOUR trillion dollar deficits are what's frightening. With all due respect, if you want to help small businesses in Oregon, vote to end the continued deficit spending of trillions of dollars that we don't have!!!! Remember, you work for us. We don't work for you.

Sincerely,

Robert Canfield

----

Congressman Earl Blumenauer wrote:

February 24, 2010

Dear Mr. Canfield:

In an effort to bridge the political gap and build momentum for comprehensive health insurance reform, President Obama will hold his health care summit tomorrow at the White House, which I'll be streaming live on my website http://blumenauer.house.gov. Tune in and watch at 7am Pacific.

As I've made clear over the last year, health insurance reform is too important not to pass. In the last few weeks, I've been stunned at the news accounts of skyrocketing premiums while the five largest health insurers are enjoying record profits. It's hard to reconcile the fact that 50% of Oregonians are delaying necessary medical care because they can't afford it, while the biggest insurance companies made a combined profit of $12.2 billion last year - a 56% increase from the previous year. This puts people's health at risk and hampers growth at a time when we're working to recover the economy. I recently spoke with small business owners, and they're struggling to hire people because they've been hit with rate hikes ranging from 20 to over 120 percent!

For the last year, I've been working to make sure the millions of Americans without health insurance get the coverage they deserve. This is something I won't give up on, and with the blueprint President Obama unveiled on Monday, it's clear he won't either.

Despite health care opponents calling to scrap the bills passed by the House and Senate, now is the time to push past partisanship, work together, and negotiate on legislation that will improve the lives of all Americans. I'll be watching tomorrow, hoping to see forward momentum rather than the delay tactics that have stalled action on health insurance reform.

Sincerely,
Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress

Speaker Dave Hunt and the 2010 Special Session: Season of the Long Knives

(h/t to Victoria Taft)

"We Have No One Left To Tax"

It's Your Ox They'll Gore

(hat tip to Craig L. Myers)

Beware of Obama's Magic Elixir

The U.S. Is a Conservative Nation

From Gallup:
"Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group."
See the polling data here.

Yes We Can

Obama's Words and Actions Don't Match Up

Sometimes Even The Mainstream Media Gets It Right

From Newsbusters: "ABC Rues How Conservatives and Citizen Journalists Are Derailing Obama's Agenda"

"Some of the conservative complaints do play into larger concerns about this President, concerns that show up in his slipping poll numbers on health care reform and big government spending."

Portland Tea Party 9/7/09

See more pictures of this event on my Facebook page.