Bluecollar_1

Blue collar guy

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Failing upward. Sue Rieke-Smith went from a disgraceful resignation as superintendent of Tigard-Tualatin schools to an appointed seat in the Oregon Legislature.

We took a closer look at her record — including her votes for transportation packages that relied on a higher gas tax and additional fees, even as ODOT faced serious questions over spending and accountability.

Then there’s her earlier record on student safety, school discipline, and whether parents were kept informed — and the political pipeline that helped move her from one powerful public position to another.

This November, HD 26 voters finally get something they didn’t get when she took office. A choice. Watch the full 13 minute report.

[Rip Wheeler @WheelerRipWA]

The Dirty Little Secret of Wildfire

How America Traded Logging Jobs for a Perpetual Firefighting Economy

For much of the 20th century, the forests of the Pacific Northwest were managed as working landscapes. Private timber companies and federal land managers cut, planted, thinned, and tended the land with the understanding that the trees were an asset to be sustained across generations. Clearcuts functioned as firebreaks. Small crews routinely extinguished ignitions before they became news. The result was a regional economy built on living-wage jobs, steady tax revenue for schools and public safety, and forests that, for the most part, stayed green.

Occasional fires occurred. What did not occur were the annual, multi-hundred-thousand-acre, smoke-choked seasons that have become the new normal.

That changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The northern spotted owl was elevated into the most consequential bird in modern American policy. Scientists and environmental organizations argued that the species required large tracts of old-growth habitat. Petitions, lawsuits, and court orders followed. In June 1990 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the owl as threatened. Federal Judge William Dwyer’s rulings and the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan locked up roughly 24 million acres of federal forest across Oregon, Washington, and northern California.

Federal timber harvests collapsed—often by 80 to 90 percent from 1980s levels in the key regions. Mills closed by the dozens. Supporting businesses disappeared. Unemployment surged. Some communities never fully recovered. Private industrial landowners continued managing their own ground because they still had direct financial skin in the game. Federal and state lands largely stopped being managed for timber production or for systematic fuel reduction at anything approaching the previous scale.

The forests kept growing. Fuels kept accumulating. An ignition that once would have been contained by a small crew with shovels and a radio now found denser, more continuous fuel beds. Large fires (5,000 acres and up) went from relatively rare events in the 1970s to routine occurrences in the 2000s and 2010s. In multiple recent seasons, more timber has burned than the industry harvested in its heyday. The irony is difficult to miss: forests “saved” from chainsaws have been delivered to ash in far greater volume.

Meanwhile, the northern spotted owl’s population has continued to decline across much of its range. Logging was never the primary driver. Competition from the invasive barred owl has proven far more significant, and habitat loss from high-severity fire now ranks high among the threats. The original crisis was urgent enough to trigger listing and sweeping land-use restrictions. The promised recovery under the Northwest Forest Plan has been, at best, incomplete.
The economic and ecological bill arrived in the form of unmanaged fuels and repeated megafires. And that is where the dirty little secret begins.

Once the timber economy on public land was kneecapped, a new industry rose to replace it. Wildland firefighting—suppression, logistics, aviation, camps, contracts, and the supporting apparatus—became a multi-billion-dollar annual enterprise. Agencies and contractors employ thousands. Budgets are large and sticky. In government, “use it or lose it” is not a slogan; it is an operating principle. A quiet fire season is a budgeting risk. Early, aggressive attack on every ignition that could still be handled by a small crew is expensive in the short term and reduces the later need for the full apparatus. Allowing fires to grow until they justify emergency declarations, large incident management teams, and federal cost-share arrangements is, from a certain bureaucratic perspective, rational and financially advantageous.

Local structural firefighters and many ground-level wildland crews do not share this incentive structure. They want the fire out. Once a fire reaches a certain size or complexity, however, control shifts upward to state and federal incident management teams whose metrics, funding streams, and political realities are different.

Neither major political party has shown a strong appetite for fixing the underlying problem. One side treats any expansion of active management or commercial thinning as an assault on old growth and the owl. The other side speaks frequently about forest health but rarely forces the structural changes in litigation risk, planning timelines, and budget incentives that would actually move the needle at scale. Campaign contributions and jobs flow from the existing system. Admitting that the original policy overcorrected and produced a more dangerous landscape remains politically costly.

Climate change and longer fire seasons are real factors. Drier fuels and hotter summers make everything worse. But denser, less-managed forests on the public estate are the accelerant that policy deliberately chose. Private industrial lands are managed more intensively and still burn, yet the severity is generally lower. Young plantations and certain silvicultural choices create their own risks, but private owners retain a direct financial reason to keep fuels in check and respond quickly. Public lands under the post-owl regime largely do not.

Oregon and the broader region now hold more trees than they did in the 1920s, largely because private landowners continued to replant. They also experience more catastrophic fire. The government did not “save” the forest. It changed who controlled the management decisions and, in the process, swapped a productive industry for a perpetual emergency-response industry. The owl was the symbol. The lasting result is a landscape that burns bigger, rural economies that never fully healed, and a political class with limited incentive to alter the arrangement. Instead of market-driven capital allocation, the new system runs on taxpayer subsidies.

Households and businesses understand that money spent inefficiently is money gone. Government tends to treat the same dollars as an everlasting well. Until the incentives change—until early detection, aggressive initial attack, mechanical thinning where appropriate, and genuine long-term forest management are rewarded more than the sheer size of the suppression effort—the same pattern will continue every summer: more smoke, more lost timber, more money spent, and the same speeches about how hard everyone is fighting the fires that policy helped create.

[Red Wave @RedWaveOR]

Trump isn’t attacking Oregon.

You are.

Kids still can’t read.

Businesses are running for the hills.

Forests keep burning under restricted management
while you wish Smokey Bear a “happy birthday”.

You’re not defending Oregon’s values.

You’re defending a failed and forced ideological experiment.

Voters can see it.
#oregon #wildfires

@HarmeetKDhillon

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

This is one of the most important things Democrat Senator John Fetterman has ever said

He says Bernie Sanders has become dangerous to America

“Bernie Sanders is helping install volatile and dangerous kinds of candidates, and now put Democratic seats at risk — I'm tired of his lectures — and now he claims that he's not a member of the Democratic Party. Why can't the DSA people just run and as their own party”

He’s actually right about this, the Democratic Socialists of America are extremely dangerous, this is their platform

1. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress
2. Abolish the Senate
3. Fully abolish the police and prison system
4. Abolish ICE, legalize migration, and grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status
5. Establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries
6. Defund the Department of War, end all foreign wars, and close overseas military bases
7. End all military and economic aid to Israel; recognize a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital; prosecute U.S. and Israeli leaders for genocide in Gaza
8. Extend full voting rights to all permanent U.S. residents (including noncitizens) and restore voting rights for incarcerated people
9. Enact reparations

[Adam Carolla @adamcarolla]

True

[Mrs B @attackdogX]

Look Gen Z, we hear you. There is an affordability crisis in America.

Everything is too expensive. People can barely live.

But, when we tell you the way to fix it is: mass deportations, you don’t wanna hear it.

I’m not gonna be a jerk & tell you to “just eat ramen”.

I’m gonna not gonna comfort you with a lie & blame billionaires either.

I’m gonna give you the truth:

ALL illegals must go, ALL benefits for illegals must end. Visa abuse must end.

Remittances must end.

Reel in the Nanny state, stop the fraud, waste, & abuse & again:

Mass deportations!

Stop fighting us on these things, stop voting against your own best interests & then whining that you can’t afford rent or food.

Rent is way too high because we have tens of millions of illegals in the country that require housing.

It’s supply & demand.

We know how to fix it, you just have to be on board with it.

Voting for socialism is not the answer. It never has been.

Don’t be an idiot

[CONSTITUTION X 🇺🇸 @ConstitustionX]

🚨🚨 BREAKING: KAMALA HARRIS IS IN FULL-BLOWN PANIC MODE 🚨🚨
She just admitted on camera:
“The president is trying to pass this SAVE Act… you’re gonna have to have PROOF of WHO YOU ARE!”
PROOF. OF. WHO. YOU. ARE.
To VOTE.
In AMERICA.
Kamala is terrified because she knows the truth:
Without fraudulent votes… without non-citizen ballots… without the ability to cheat…
SHE CANNOT WIN IN 2028.
This is not about “voter suppression.”
This is about stopping the biggest election heist in American history.
The SAVE America Act must pass.
It must pass NOW.
It must pass at ALL COSTS.
If we don’t lock down our elections forever,
2028 will be the end of this country as we know it.
Share this like your vote depends on it.
Because it does. 🔥🇺🇸

[Denise 🇺🇸 @NoDMsPerfavore]

In Dearborn Michigan: Muslims DEMAND submission!!

In Dearborn Michigan, Muslims are now demanding that CHRISTIAN CHURCHES stop ringing their bells on Sundays. This is real and their reasoning should terrify every Christian American.

Muslims are saying “According to Sharia Law, church bells cannot be louder than our Islamic call to prayer. We are the majority in this city and you HAVE TO respect us, our laws, and our religion.”

They are not asking for equality, they’re demanding submission. Roughly 45,000 Muslims participated in the walk for Arbaeen in Dearborn on Sunday. In small numbers, Islam is “a religion of peace” that stays very private. But once an overpowering amount of Muslims control a certain area, they’ll make their presence known, in staggering numbers, as a show of dominance.

The Dearborn heights police department is THE VERY FIRST police department in the country to have Arabic language and writing on its uniforms. With that in mind, do you think that these police officers would defend the constitution and arrest Muslims for attacking and assaulting a white Christian republican man?

These people have moved to America, settled in a Christian country, and now that they have the demographic majority in that one city, they’re demanding that Christians silence their own churches to comply with Islamic laws that they brought with them from the Middle East.

This is exactly what’s happening, right now, in Europe. First they ask for tolerance, next they demand accommodation, and then they enforce submission.

The city of Dearborn already has a Muslim mayor and majority Muslim city council. However, the rest of the politicians in Michigan are letting it happen because they’re afraid of losing that voting bloc. You will NEVER get elected to office in Michigan without it.

Imagine for a second, if this was the other way around. If Christians moved to Saudi Arabia, and demanded that Muslims turn off their call to prayer, what do you think would happen? They would be arrested or worse. But in America, we’re just supposed to hand over our culture, submit, and give them whatever they demand because it’s their 1st amendment rights to “freedom of religion.”

As we’ve seen in Spain, one radical liberal policy undid, in 24 hours, what was held for thousands of years after the crusades removed Islam from that country. Ceuta was a happy and peaceful place for Christians… now it’s being overrun by 3rd world savages.

We’ve got to cut out the ☪️ancer before it’s too late!

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

In an entirely predicable turn of events, the Portland City Auditor's office announced that the Safer Portland Initiative failed to gather enough valid signatures to make the November ballot.

The petitioners originally presented 63,315 signatures to the City Elections Division. Deborah Scroggins, the manager of the Elections Division now claims that over 29,000 of these signatures were invalid - a completely unheard of 46% rejection rate.

FieldWorks, the signature gathering company out of Washington DC that handled the petition gathering and works in nearly every state in the US for managing signature gathering, has said that they have never had a petition with this many rejected signatures in their 25 years in business.

The Safer Portland campaign has responded by saying they intend to file a lawsuit against the Elections Division and City Auditor.

Portland's Election Division has a history of bias against non-leftist measures and candidates. Former City Councilor Rene Gonzalez has successfully sued the office on multiple occasions for fines imposed by the office that the judge ruled the city had violated his due process rights. He currently has a federal lawsuit pending against the city.

Unfortunately, suing the corrupt Elections Division won't get the initiative on the November ballot, but the lawsuit's discovery WILL uncover the corruption at the core of this city agency.

Here is what Aaron Schmautz, President of the Portland Police Association had to say:

“The goal of this initiative is to give voters a voice in solving Portland’s public safety crisis. Over 63,000 emerged and have now been silenced by city and county failures and bad actions. After thousands of signatures were removed, data entry errors, questionable verification procedures, haphazard renumbering of signature pages, and no reliable audit trail, the Oregon Secretary of State called for transparency and accountability – yet city and county officials said look away. This is a loss for Portlanders who suffer under a police staffing crisis that is damaging the safety, livability, and prosperity of our city. On behalf of disenfranchised Portland voters, we intend to file legal action challenging this decision and process. We are not seeking a guaranteed court outcome for the initiative, just a fair, accurate and transparent process. Portlanders must have a voice in the direction of our city. The fight for a safer, better Portland for everyone is not over.”

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

On July 26th on a 80+ degree day during a citywide burn ban, Portland Fire & Rescue responded to Portland City Councilor Mitch Green's home due to a "medium to large" fire in his backyard. Green set the fire himself in order to burn a brush pile on his property, which was in direct violation of the burn ban. PF&R was forced to extinguish the fire.

On the day of Green's backyard fire, Oregon and Washington had passed 1 million acres burned by forest fires. There is no indication that Green was fined for him flouting the burn ban.

Green has yet to comment publicly about his backyard fire.

[Jeffery Mead @the_jefferymead]

This woman has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she was just sued for over $29,000 in unpaid credit card debt..

Guess who paid it off? Her family..

She’s a democratic socialist who wants to abolish police also. And this is who Dems are likely to try and make the next governor of Wisconsin…

[The Optimistic Jerry is on it @GerardKapraun]

When they say "Creating Jobs", it is not what you think.
See. Creating government jobs suck tax dollars while creating private sector jobs generate tax dollars.
Big difference.

[Mr Pool 3.0 @real_EBS_]

HOLY SH*T 🚨 Trump’s White House just posted a video of Sen Chuck Schumer demanding Voter IDs

PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT

[🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸 @Real_RobN]

HERE IT IS:

CONSPIRACY THEORY NO MORE!

EDISON RESEARCH CONFIRMS:

States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.

Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide.

Including over 1 million votes switched from President Trump to Biden in Pennsylvania alone.

📝 BAN ALL VOTING MACHINES.

[David j Harris Jr. @Davidjharris17]

Stephen Miller: "A vote for any Democrat ANYWHERE, for ANY office, is empowering a party that wants to strip this country to the BONE, to take away our security, our defense, our way of life!"

Thoughts?

[DogeDesigner @cb_doge]

ELON MUSK: “The reason I went so hardcore for Trump was because, to me, this was a fork in the road. If they had another four years, they would legalize enough illegals in the swing states to make the swing states not swing states, they would be blue states. Then they would win the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. And then they will keep importing more illegals to cement that outcome. Basically what happened in California.

It would have been the end. That's why I went so hardcore for Trump. I invite people to do their research. The more they do their research, the more they will see that what I'm saying is absolutely true.”

[Matt Couch @RealMattCouch]

This should be fixed IMMEDIATELY and we should get back to speaking English as a nation.. We shouldn't cater to those who do not want to learn our ways.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

In an article today in the @wweek, Secretary of State, Tobias Read (a Democrat), came out and admonished the city auditor’s office over it’s bungling of the signature verification process of 1PDX2026 (the Safer Portland initiative).

“What I have seen in recent days regarding the 1PDX2026 initiative signature verification process reflects poorly on our state’s entire election system,” Read wrote to City Auditor Simone Rede. “I have seen complaints about a lack of transparency with stakeholders and the public, which especially concerns me. It is clear there has been a breakdown somewhere in this process.”

The elections office has been involved in multiple issues of politically motivated attacks on moderate candidates in the local elections of 2022 and 2024.

In this particular count, the elections office admitted to “data-entry errors” which led to chain of custody issues.

Deborah Scroggins, manager of the city’s Election Division, said she was “surprised” receive the complaints from Read, saying, “we look forward to informing [Secretary Read] of the facts that dispel Chief Petitioners’ false and politically motivated claims.”

Of course, the Chief Petitioners are “politically motivated,” Deborah. This is a political issue (safer streets) that the vast majority of Portland residents are concerned about.

But Deborah, if you have an ethical bone in your body, you would know that it is the Elections Office that shouldn’t be politically motivated in the way it does its job, and your office has shown this to be the case over and over again.

Talk about massive projection and gaslighting the public.

Leftist Portland bureaucrats have had carte blanche over this city for decades. It’s time to clean house.

[Beth Dutton @1BethDutton]

So not only did Seattle's Police Chief Shon Barnes not pass a background test, his primary residence is in Chicago.

No wonder he wasn't available with all the other "dignitaries" at the press conference 5 hours after the deadly shooting in Seattle last night.

According to the Associated Press, his family's primary residence is in the Chicago area. He frequently travels back and forth from Seattle to Chicago to see them.