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COVID-19 is Quacking Like the Flu

If it looks like the flu, and if it walks like the flu, and if it quacks like the flu…

It’s the flu.

COVID-19 is not a medical crisis. It’s a political crisis, and in our everyday lives we are experiencing the economic debacle of the century.

Let’s dig in…

The recent COVID-19 antibody sampling shows that a significant segment of our population has already been infected, thus rendering the COVID-19 death rate even less than standard influenza.

For those under 60, the huge majority of those who have been infected (and therefore now have antibodies) don’t know it. They never got sick.

So, why do our ruling class political opponents (including their media* subculture) continue to insist COVID-19 is equivalent to the 14th century Bubonic Plague?

Here’s why:

  1. Political and media talking-heads crave a compelling story. And tragedy – real or contrived – makes for a compelling story
  2. They’ve painted themselves into a corner and can’t admit their error
  3. It might just topple President Trump
  4. They really do want control over you and me, and causing us to panic is a great way to get that control. Never let a crisis go to waste
  5. It makes 99% of our population – you and me – look like sheep, and they are more than happy to become our shepherds

Call me insensitive for saying this, but people die! Good grief! With all due respect to the dead and the dying, how come passing-on suddenly billed as unique and horrifying? Death comes in many forms and for those over 70 who have underlying  complications, getting the flu in the wintertime has always been one of many possible last straws.

EVERYTHING is more threatening for the elderly.

Both my parents – who were for decades directly under my personal care – died a few years ago, within six months of each other. I was at their bedsides when they took their last breaths. Both were 94 and had lived full robust lives. And yes, each had numerous physical complications when they finally passed.

The body wears out and it gets weak and so it gets vulnerable. Internal systems fail and that’s how it goes. It’s always how its been.

I’m 70, so I’m qualified to make these points. Someone 40 years of age couldn’t get away with what I’m saying here.

Have you noticed that the “media” stopped giving the COVID average-age-of-death statistic? The last time we heard this number was eight weeks ago. At the time, before the political agenda had been pounced upon by the Left, it was reported that the average age of death from COVID was 80.

And there’s no longer any mention of the percentage of COVID deceased who had serious pre-existing medical problems. Back at the beginning of all this, that number was 85%. Yes, ignoring that particular statistic is also politically-driven. (More on pre-existing conditions in a minute.)

It’s really true: in the current flu-season common influenza has killed more Americans than COVID-19, even though the COVID statistics are seriously padded.

Padded? Exactly. The CDC has instructed coroners and medical personnel that if there is even a trace of COVID-19 in the victim – no matter any severe pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, cancer, high-blood pressure, diabetes, pulmonary complications, common influenza – then the death is to be attributed to COVID-19. And the dictate also throws auto accident and drug overdose deaths into the already bloated COVID mortality statistics.

Why? Yes, the hysterics must be propagated for political/semi-political reasons as noted in 1-5 above, but also there’s the standard greed factor: there are mammoth financial benefits for hospitals to nail down a COVID diagnosis for Medicare patients. Compared to standard pneumonia treatment, the hospital receives three to eight times the compensation for a COVID patient: for regular in-house treatment it’s $5,000 for the average influenza patient, while a COVID diagnosis provides $13,000…and rockets up to $39,000 if ventilator treatment is included. (NY governor Cuomo: “We NEED 30,000 more ventilators!”)

In any case, outside of hospital billing protocols, there is a difference between dying from COVID-19 and dying with COVID-19.

What about the medical geniuses who recently discovered that COVID-19 begins to disappear as the heat and humidity of summer approaches? Hardly a revelation, late spring has always been called “the end of the flu season.”

And the alleged high contagiousness of COVID-19? OK, but so what? The standard flu is highly contagious too. Is there anyone above the age of 12 who doesn’t know that?

Precisely how stupid does the far-left think we are?

And the experts keep the fear-ball rolling by reminding us that COVID-19 could very well re-emerge in the Fall. Be afraid! Maybe it will show up again, but I’m guessing not much. Why? Because by October a huge percentage of Americans will have been infected – most without knowing it – and with that infection will have developed immunity. This is exactly what happens with the standard flu. It’s herd-immunity.

Experts always paint a dire picture. If the situation turns out better than they predict (and it almost always will) then those good tidings are due to their advice. Remember the projection that over 2 million Americans were going to die?

So, the deep-state far-Left (socialist political progressives and their lapdog media) endlessly accentuate the somewhat odious name of this particular strain of flu (COVID-19!), all the while insisting it’s NOT a flu. Then they remind us over and over that it emerged from scary-China’s creepy wet markets and/or shadowy bio-labs, and then finally they condescendingly berate anyone who dares disagree with their hand-picked “medical community” spokespeople. And with all that, too many obediently cower in their homes, very occasionally venturing out to prowl around the neighborhood like programmed masked robots. Or maybe a better descriptor is “scared rabbits.”

Never mind that 25 million Americans are out of work and that we are facing the real possibility of a great depression. The experts have spoken.

It’s true. The actual nasty, manipulative, uncaring SOBs of America inhabit the dank crawl-spaces of the far-Left.

But, for their sheer audacity one must give perverse kudos to these “progressive” knuckleheads.

Nice try lefties, but like all your previous efforts to take control of our lives, this duck has quacked.

Oh, and there’s this. How is COVID-19 different from the flu? Children are virtually immune to it. Influenza? It targets children specifically.

Again: the primary big reveal? Statistically-significant antibody sampling demonstrates that way, way more of us have had COVID-19** than was first estimated by scientific “models.” (In some testing, by factors of 50 to 75.) . Thus, the real-life COVID-19 mortality rate is no higher than any number of flu strains we’ve dealt with over the decades.

President Trump? He can’t be blamed for immediately diving in deep to make sure this was not going to be a Black Death-type nightmare. He’s a courageous take-action man whose primary role is to protect us, and he went with the numbers he had at the time. But now we can see him begin to push back one small step at a time, patiently treating his dubious medical leadership with semi-deference in order to avoid stirring up an insider-war. Yes, elections are on the horizon.

Our President is an amazing human being and leader. Thank God for Donald Trump.
-sam

* The term “media” is without question, a pejorative. No longer are these people about news reporting. They are now plainly exposed as part of the ruling class Democrat progressive far-left. These people don’t like you and me, and their condescension is palpable.

** I (Sam) had all the symptoms of COVID-19 including difficulty breathing, from February 10th through about the 24th. I was horribly sick. And Diana showed the same signs of it in the third week of February, although her symptoms were mild: two days of not feeling so well. 

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We Proudly Endorse Cliff Bentz for Congress in Oregon’s Second Congressional District

We’ve spent months investigating: talking to candidates, endlessly going back-and-forth with voters, conducting  a scientific poll, and finally making our endorsement decision, just yesterday, based on “what matters most.”

And what matters most? Keeping CD2 Republican in November. The added bonus would be a Pro-Trump, pro-life congressman who truly reflects our values.

That’s Cliff. He’s the obvious choice.

Along with our scientific polling results, here’s our nutshell analysis of the four main contenders:

  • Jimmy Crumpacker’s “outsider” baggage would be hotly exploited by Democrats in the general election campaign. Could he possibly win in November? Not likely as his opponent would eviscerate him simply for not having lived in the district.
  • Knute Buehler has a history of far-left positioning despite his duplicitous pretense of becoming conservative just three months ago. Could he win the general election? Questionable. Much of the base will “stay home” because of his history of visceral anti-Trump and pro-choice stances. Go here for the overview. It’s a detailed post I put up two weeks ago, and the points I made still stand.
  • Cliff Bentz? He’s an experienced legislator who played a key role in the heroic Oregon Senate walkouts. A down-home conservative with 12 years of Salem House and Senate legislative experience, he has deep knowledge of CD2 culture and affairs. He’s “one of us.” I’m a CEO and CD2 resident, so I really like this: he’s had thirty years of private business experience, in eastern Oregon. He’s an attorney too, and as our Congressman that would be a very, very good thing. His positions are great and his ability is proven. In the November general election, with proper campaigning of course, he should easily win the seat against the Democrat nominee. He should land nearly 100% of the Republican vote (and CD2 has 11% more Republicans than Democrats).
  • Jason Atkinson has little chance in the primary. He’s too far behind in the polling.

As of last Tuesday, here’s the overall poll numbers and our thumbnail analysis:

  1. Buehler and Crumpacker are at 23% each. Bentz at 16%. Atkinson 6%. See attached poll
  2. Buehler and Crumpacker – each underestimating and dismissing Cliff – are making the tactical error of only campaigning against each other. Buehler is hyper-aggressive and prepared, and is going to win this particular internecine war against Crumpacker.  (Cliff: are you ready for Buehler’s impending ruthless attacks? They ARE coming….)
  3. Crumpacker’s former supporters will scatter, mostly to a split between Bentz and Atkinson. (Why the split? Because Bentz and Atkinson have the same relatively low name recognition in the District: less than 50%).
  4. As things stand now, would Bentz pick up enough ex-Crumpacker votes AND undecided votes to pass Buehler and Crumpacker? Maybe. (Note that over 30% of voters in CD2 are undecided. That’s a lot.)
  5. To win decisively, here’s what Cliff Bentz should do right now: assertively expose the significant weaknesses of Knute Buehler and Jimmy Crumpacker who are both incredibly vulnerable, each for entirely different reasons. (And note that over 50% of CD2 voters are not even aware of Buehler’s and Crumpacker’s massive negatives.)  If Cliff personally exposes the glaring weaknesses of Buehler and Crumpacker, he would open himself up as THE logical alternative and, per our additional (and unpublished) polling, would win in a landslide.

So, we at MOGA2020 enthusiastically support Cliff Bentz! He’s the Republican who can win the general election. And yes, he’s certainly the best man for Congress. But of course he must first win the primary election. (You will receive your mail-in ballot at the very end of this month. Deadline for voting is May 19th.)

Will you join us in helping Cliff Bentz become the next Second Congressional District congressman?

Here’s Cliff’s website and contact information (and when you get to his site, BE SURE to watch the video on the homepage).

Your contribution to his campaign will be used wisely. Thanks!

-Sam (and Diana) Carpenter

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Saving Oregon’s Second Congressional District: Stopping Knute Buehler

Knute Buehler

We can prevent chameleon Knute Buehler from becoming the Republican nominee in Oregon’s Second Congressional District Race. But we can only accomplish this with the hard-and-cold realization that we Republican conservative CD2 voters, as individuals, don’t necessarily have the luxury of voting for our own personal-pick conservative candidate. We must instead, focus our votes on the single most conservative candidate who can win. (And of course some of us have, intuitively and logically, already selected that particular candidate.)

NOT voting for faux-conservative Buehler is not enough to save the district.

If we get caught up in the standard he-said/she-said quibbling about the various conservative candidates – note there are ten total in this race – we’ll forget about the outcast “moderate” Knute Buehler… standing there inwardly smiling, waiting patiently for us to split our huge CD2 conservative voter block into fragments. If we bicker amongst ourselves we’ll hand him the nomination on a silver platter as he wins the nomination with less than half the total vote.

With a little help from his friends, it happened for Buehler in the 2018 gubernatorial primary race. Now, he’s counting on it happening again here in this 2020 congressional primary race.

It’s Knute Buehler’s “split-the-conservative-vote, Part Deux.”

Who, you ask, is the “preferred” conservative candidate? We’re not sure yet. We’ll have a recommendation for you after we’ve carefully unraveled some behind-the-scenes intrigue, and after we get our scientific poll results* back. We should have a recommended candidate by April 22nd, one week before ballots are sent out.

Here’s a key to keeping CD2 Republican: our organization, MOGA2020, has over 26,000 online subscribers within CD2, and with our endorsement and ensuing publicity, we can significantly contribute to securing this truly conservative nominee. If you join us, it’s my bet that together we can channel an additional 10,000 to 15,000 votes to the endorsed candidate. That would be plenty….

Greg Walden won the 2018 CD2 primary race with only 71,500 votes total.

Whomever earns our endorsement, we hope you’ll join us.

And you ask, if we have a truly conservative, qualified candidate, would he (all ten are males) defeat the Democrat in November? Yes. No brainer. We’re talking about the Second Congressional District here, with Republicans out-numbering Democrats by 11%.

Yet if Knute Buehler becomes the nominee he will easily be defeated in the general election, delivering our district to his Democrat opponent…on a silver platter. That will sew things up for the Oregon progressive ruling class, making all five congressional districts in Oregon, Democrat. (I’ll tell you below why Buehler would be bludgeoned in the general election).

In any election – no matter the political party affiliation – half of voters are not paying attention. Distracted and with short attention spans, this huge voting block goes with name-recognition and real-time mass-media. In our CD2 Republican primary race, these “low-information” Republican voters are Buehler’s constituency! With this segment he’ll have plenty-enough votes to win the contest if the other half of us, you and me – the serious, I’m-paying-attention conservative vote – is divided.

THIS is Knute Buehler’s twisted pathway to the nomination!

So, this time around, let’s learn from the past and forego our candidate-of-choice and settle for the best of the three competitive conservative candidates.

Who are they, based on media-attention and campaign contributions? Jason Atkinson (Medford), Cliff Bentz (Ontario), and Jimmy Crumpacker (Bend).

And yes, there are seven other conservative candidates, but it’s our guess they will add up to less than 5% of the total Republican primary vote. Nevertheless, that 5% represents a fourth segmentation of the conservative base…

(The wildcard in this race? There is almost certainly a vote-split scheme, e.g. the 2018 gubernatorial primary race. We’re untangling the intricacies of that right now.)

Before I explain further, here’s a nutshell analysis of Knute Buehler’s past positioning.

Three months ago Buehler rechristened himself a classic conservative. This is in glaring contrast to his 2018 gubernatorial campaign when he identified as a “new kind of Republican.” He was “a new kind” alright: big-government, pro-gay marriage, “common-sense” Second Amendment, and a proponent of leftist climate-change legislation.

Since 2016 he has been viscerally anti-Trump…and in his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, he almost gleefully middle-fingered the Oregon Republican Party Platform.

Three months prior to the 2018 gubernatorial general election, he proposed spending $50 million in tax-dollars on the “homeless,” when simply enforcing the law would of course solve the problem. And no small thing for CD2 voters, he was adamantly pro-choice…until just three months ago.

It goes on.

(I will digress for a moment because we at MOGA2020 are perplexed: as of this posting, just two-weeks prior to ballots being mailed, NONE of the three viable conservative candidates noted above have even mentioned Buehler’s elephant-in-the-living-room hypocrisy! This is discouraging. Buehler’s past political history is the silver bullet necessary to defeat him. So, what’s up guys? Are you part of the Buehler scheme or are you not paying attention…or, WHAT?)

In any case, Buehler’s personal reinvention as a conservative has been a jaw-dropping mix of audacity and arrogance. Diana and I continue to roll our eyes and shake our heads.

If Buehler wins the Republican nomination next month, why will he will lose the general election on November 3rd? Three reasons:

First, it’s his history. He won the Republican nomination for Secretary of State in 2012, and lost in the general election. Then he won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2018 and lost that general election race, too. (Oddly enough, his opponent in both races was Kate Brown)

Second, more importantly, it’s about character. He’s a mercenary feather in the wind.  Buehler’s sudden stone-cold flip-flop from a Republican progressive (if there is such a thing) to a full-on Republican conservative – last January – has not been overlooked by the 50% of Oregon conservatives who pay attention to politics. This November, virtually all Republicans in CD2 will vote for Donald Trump, but many do not trust the duplicitous Buehler and won’t vote at all in the congressional contest.

Third, most importantly, it’s the issues. In 2018, his sheer exhilaration in being pro-choice and anti-Trump will never be disremembered by this one-half of our Republican base that has been watching state politics closely. Regarding the Life issue, here’s a direct quote from his 2018 gubernatorial campaign: “As Governor, regardless of what happens at the federal level, I will ensure Oregon remains a pro-choice state.” And about being a never-Trumper, for the last four years – up until three months ago, in January – Knute Buehler has said so many hateful things about Donald Trump that it’s hard to know where to begin.

In 2017 Buehler called for a special counsel to investigate President Trump.** And in 2018 he angrily declared that President Trump should withdraw his Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, claiming Kavanaugh was not ethically fit to be a Supreme Court justice. (Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed after the Democrat Left’s unsubstantiated claims, designed to destroy Kavanaugh personally, were utterly debunked.)

All of this has infuriated a huge block conservative Republicans: the ones who have been paying attention. So, in November’s general election if Buehler is the Republican nominee, a huge chunk of the CD2 Republican base will not vote for the man, and he will lose to the Democrat.

He could never win the congressional general election with part of the Republican base. He would need all of it…and that would never happen.

So, it’s a simple thing: if Knute Buehler becomes the nominee on May 19th, say goodbye to CD2. but if we select a truly conservative nominee, we’ll keep the District Republican.

-Sam Carpenter

 

*This will be an unbiased scientific poll conducted between April 16th and 20th. Using the latest available voter database, it will sample 500 CD2 likely Republican voters. And it won’t be a robocall poll. It will be conducted by live polsters thus providing super-accurate results. (With a robocall poll, sometimes it’s not clear that the pollster has reached the intended voter). Expected error rate? Less than 4.4%. Data will be carefully sampled per geography, party, and population density. Publication of the results, if we chose to publish them,  will include complete data metrics. We’ve engaged a highly regarded, impartial Northwest pollster, Triton Polling and Research, Inc. (Note: Diana and I had intended to personally pay for this poll simply because we’ve never before asked for contributions to MOGA2020. But, we’ve had people ask to participate and if you want to be part of this venture, please contact me at samc@makeoregongreatagain.com.  So far we’ve received two $500 contributions, and one for $250. )

** From a Triton scientific poll we commissioned in late 2017:

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Ten Questions for our Neighbors, President Trump, and the Elite Knuckleheads who Have Us Under House Arrest

  1. Who REALLY is running this country? Is it “expert” Ruler-of-the-Universe Dr. Anthony Fauci who has been SO wrong about everything over the last 8 weeks? Or is it you, President Trump who has been so correct about everything for the last 4 years?
  2. Right now, isn’t America any dictator’s promised land (think of the leaders of Iran, China, and Venezuela)? Without having to use tanks and guns, convince everyone that it’s wise not congregate in public. Get citizens to  “follow-the-rules,” to be silently compliant, and to pressure their neighbors to be that way too. Never mind the Bill of Rights. (Hey! this is an emergency!) Yes, America, we’ve indeed convinced ourselves that being under house arrest is a smart thing to do.
  3. Is this not a Grand Slam for Democrat Progressives? Big government dictates, political correctness, virtue signaling, social shaming, putting-conservatives-in-their-place, and yes, absolute control of the part of the population that sees things differently (and heck, everyone else too). The scary part of this? We quietly complied. The progressive test is completed and the question is answered: social lockdowns work in America. For whatever reason the progressive Left can dream up, stay-tuned for the next lockdown.
  4. Why can’t WE decide to stay home? Why can’t WE decide whether or not to let our kids go to school? Why are pot shops and liquor stores open and yet on Easter Sunday we can only celebrate our faith in the church parking lot?
  5. Anyway, why can’t WE decide if we want to congregate or not? If Fauci-enthusiasts want to isolate themselves, they should do that, but don’t tell Diana and me to stay home. We’ll decide for ourselves.
  6. Where are the antibody tests? Is it possible MOST Americans have already developed immunity?  In early February, I (Sam) was sick with what we surely thought was the flu. Went to the doctor, took the swab test…and it was NOT the flu. And get this: I had been having a bit of trouble breathing at night, and a dry cough. Doctor sent me home and I recovered nicely right after. A few weeks ago, Diana was feeling low for a couple of days with the same symptoms, but with 10% of the severity. We’re both convinced we’ve already had COVID-19 and that we won’t get it again. Our bet is that a HUGE swath of our population has already had it no matter whether they know it or not, and so they have developed immunity. Are the progressive elitists who are holding back the antibody tests doing it to protect their new-found power, to cover for the unnecessary social-distancing lockdown, and/or to not look stupid?
  7. Immunity ID cards? What is this, Nazi Germany? Don’t ever talk about that idea again.
  8. WHO exactly is dying? When COVID-19 first started getting newsworthy, we were given the average age of death as part of the statistics (it was 80 as I recall), AND we were given the percentage of deceased patients who already had other serious physical maladies (most did). For weeks now, we’ve not heard those statistics? Why is that?
  9. Do you elites think you can continue to talk to us like we’re children? Do you think we’re permanently corralled; that we’re going to continue to “follow the rules?” Do you not see that we’ve now had enough of this ? Not four to eight weeks from now. NOW!
  10. And do you Dr. Andrew Fauci-worshiping elites not see that in shutting down the economy, you are destroying our country? Of course you do. And most of us know you simply don’t care. It’s about power with you people. It’s always been about power.

To President Trump: We love you man, but it’s NOW time to take back control. We understand you have to be careful with this; to give the extra benefit-of-the-doubt to “the smart people,” but now you’ve done that sufficiently and if this goes too much further, you’ll have begun to abdicate power. It’s not like you to do that. We’re with you 110% unless you further fold to these Ruling Class elites. We know you’re physically and mentally worn out but NOW it’s time to bristle; to make these people sit down in the corner and to put yourself – and us, your constituents – back in charge. We ask you to begin this process NOW, before it’s too late. We want to get on with our lives…You’re a good man, President Trump. Do what you have to do. We’ve got your back, major-league.

-sam and diana carpenter

 

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Summary-Report of Oregon Republican Party State Central Committee Meeting

3/28/2020
Summary-Report
of
 Oregon Republican Party State Central Committee Meeting
 (and National Committeeman Election)
Salem, Or March 21, 2020

Subtitle: 63 Republican Knuckleheads

By Sam Carpenter

Overview: twenty-year incumbent National Committeeman Solomon Yue has been elected for an additional 4-year term

This was an intra-party/closed election. One hundred twenty-nine Central Committee members participated. At the end of my 6-minute “stump speech” presentation (which most delegates never saw or heard due to a “last-minute audio/technical problem”), I asked my supporting delegates to vote for John Lee. Although very few delegates heard my actual request that they vote for John, or my explanation of why I thought it was vitally important they do so, the request was carefully explained to delegates by Vance Day just before the voting. So, in the end, except for two of my delegates who didn’t get the message, John ended up with our combined vote.

Why did I do this last-minute maneuver? If I had not done it, we would have had a conservative-split-vote outcome…which is THE standard fallback for the establishment Oregon Republican Party contingent. John and I had quietly agreed upon this strategy weeks before the election (and it is why delegates never got a personal “can-I-get-your-vote” phone call from me in the weeks before).

But Yue defeated John by a 63-56 vote in the decidedly pre-ordained “election.” Some ballots were not counted. Others were not delivered to delegates in the first place. For technical, rush-rush, and exhaustion reasons, as I mentioned, there were two supporting delegates who never heard my request to vote for John. (They voted for me, effectively voting for Yue.) In another case, it seems a delegate voted twice, once for herself and once for her infirm husband. If all had been able to vote and proper protocol had been followed, John would have won. But, then again, even with that, it is my opinion that the numbers would have been tweaked behind-the-curtain in Yue’s favor and John would have lost anyway.

A tiny cabal of 63 Oregon Republican Party loyalists have determined the fate of this state…and the infuriating and unbelievable conclusion we’ve drawn is that, as illustrated yet again in this latest internal election, facts don’t matter to these ORP Ruling Class loyalists. (See five slides, below.) Never mind that our grassroots organization, MOGA2020 has ten times more online subscribers than the ORP, over 100,000. And never mind that 95% of the 704,000 Oregon conservative voters support our positioning – which means just 5% support the tiny RINO Ruling Class that has, over the last twenty years, effectively strangled the ORP to death. And in its slow demise the ORP has incrementally delivered state leadership to Democrat progressives.

And with this election, they confidently assume they will be conducting this impotent Oregon Republican Party for the next decade.

To the Republican Party nationally, Oregon is a bigger joke than ever before.

In the face of the ORP’s immediate self-congratulations regarding the “great success of this innovative, ground breaking, new-way-of-voting,” this report is my view of what happened in the election. Also, included here is a re-creation of my muted 6-minute stump-speech presentation. The 63, led by Solomon Yue, will continue to be our leaders/spokespeople unless the election can be voided and this leadership can be removed and replaced.

Trouble is…and our exit from Oregon Politics

Trouble is, there are few conservative leaders/fighters left, and Diana and I are simply no longer willing to carry this political grassroots leadership-load by ourselves. So, this is our last post regarding the ORP. We’re not sticking our necks out any further. We’re exiting Oregon politics. We hope someone will pick up where we left off. It IS worth the fight.

We’ll leave our website and Facebook Pages up and continue to blog, but not about the ORP.

BTW, it’s a bit strange how my personal political exit-decision came about. This last Wednesday morning at 4:00AM I awoke in my usual gung-ho/let’s-fight-back/never-give-up mode. All morning and into the afternoon, I churned away non-stop at a multitude of political-related tasks when, at precisely 3:05PM (I remember glancing at my watch), something swept over me just after reading yet another moronic email message from an ORP establishment clone. As per-usual for the “moderate” cadre, the message ridiculed me personally. I’ve dealt with these verbal-vomit attacks for a decade, but this time – in that very moment – it was all of a sudden just flat-out OVER for me. I immediately got up from my desk and told Diana, who was quilting in her sewing room at the time, that I was DONE. I’ve been hammering at this for so long, always feeling strong no matter what…and in one moment it was totally over for me. Yes, that particular insulting message was no more slanderous than the thousands I’ve received over the years, but it was the straw that broke this camel’s back regarding making any further efforts to fix the ORP.

Maybe it wasn’t what this guy said…it was the usual arrogant, nasty dribble. Maybe instead it was the extra-large, screaming type-face.

Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, Diana was not displeased with my spur of the moment decision to walk away from the ORP politics, but continue to blog.

Other key points/conclusions

  1. The meeting was horribly mismanaged and therefore the voting results should be voided.
  2. Candidate presentations were not audible due to “technical difficulties.” Also reason enough to void the election results
  3. For years, there has been a degree of unethical behavior involving Solomon Yue and a handful of ORP Executive Committee enablers. Yet again, reason enough to ask for their resignations or to remove them by SCC recall.

In my view: pertinent details of the meeting and election process:

  • Again, Candidate presentations were not audible to delegates who listened by phone. This was the majority of delegates. The remaining seven hours of online meeting were audible. (But…there were notable exceptions, including delegates waiting to make motions or to discuss points who were kept in silence until called upon…and many times they were never called upon thus leaving them in a mute isolation-limbo until they finally gave up and rejoined the conference call).
  • And this, again: we candidates only were allowed 6 minutes to make our respective cases, and even that sliver of time was taken away by the “technical failure.” (My thoughts? BS. It wasn’t technical failure. It was deliberate silencing).
  • Roberts Rules of Order: My understanding is that this protocol is to be used to conduct all meetings, including elections. The number of violations of those Rules in this meeting were astronomical. It was a hodgepodge. The Rules are called upon only when they are tactically useful for obtaining sitting OPB Officers’ objectives.
  • The meeting was a confused fiasco: three ballots were cast that were not counted, two people never received ballots and didn’t vote, delegates “raised their hand” electronically and/or tried to make motions and were too-often never acknowledged (as noted above). Motion voting never came close to including the full list of credentialed delegates, with sometimes only 90 votes being cast.
  • It took a full six hours to get to the election. (Who of us would not go borderline insane after six-hours on the phone?) By the time the voting process began at 3:00PM, delegates and candidates were exhausted and frustrated.
  • Who was the audio/video “technician” in charge of the entire meeting? It was ORP Chairman Bill Currier, who had promised me personally the day before the meeting that “the only person in the room during your presentation will be the technical assistant.” In that conversation, he never indicated to me that that technical assistant would be Bill Currier (and at the time, it never occurred to me he would have the audacity to do something like that). Actually, Bill Currier was in charge of ALL computer, online and data systems/protocols including who received a ballot, actual voting protocol, number-crunching, etc. He was “everything for everything.”
  • It seemed odd that Currier did not altogether postpone the meeting because of the health risks of the Coronavirus emergency. Everybody else living in the real world had postponed their organizations’ get-togethers. ALL the individuals in our small meeting room, perhaps ten total, were in VERY close quarters with at least two suffering from what appeared to be the cold/flu. On second thought, this was not odd at all. See next point:
  • One former long-term Executive Committee insider (not in attendance at this meeting) said Currier and the Executive Committee top-leadership actively sought to NOT postpone the meeting, because “they knew exactly how it would turn out before the meeting even For this reason, it HAD to happen.”
  • The electronic format gives multiple options for number-manipulations. (Yes, Judge Vance Day oversaw the meeting protocol but Judge Day would be the first to tell you he is not a software/hardware IT technician, and that he wasn’t brought in to perform those duties.) Bill Currier had hands-on control of EVERYTHING.
  • Why exactly was the voting delayed for six hours? Technical snafus, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, silly delegate pontification and multiple petty objections from “establishment” delegates (including discussion and voting on silly trivia e.g. whether it was OK for me to nominate Marylin Shannon for National Committeewoman). In my mind, these interminable, frustrating delays were intentional, promulgated so the election could be rammed through the exhausted delegate contingent at the very end.
  • In the weeks before the meeting, as candidates dealing with the ORP bureaucracy, we had inexplicable delays and roadblocks and were given horribly outdated delegate contact information – with no email addresses – and had to send posts through Becky and/or Tracy to be delivered “when they had the time.” Over the course of the last month before the election, there were three different “updated” delegate lists delivered to us in near-unusable formats (including PDF, and another via a long email listing). And when I questioned that and other delays and obfuscations, both Bill Currier and Tracy Honl literally called me names and belittled me. (It’s all documented: they would never call me back and instead used email in their tirades.)
  • In his role, Judge Vance Day did a fine job, keep things calm. Good guy. I’m positive he didn’t know this was all rigged…that more votes would be cast than credentialed, that some would not be able to vote, that credentialing itself would be a mess, that candidates would not get to make presentations that were audible, that the voting itself would be so chaotic, that Roberts Rules of Order were employed sporadically, etc. etc.
  • If this meeting is to be analyzed for effectiveness, it should be done by an outside group, not by the ORP brass who have, of course, already labeled the meeting a huge success. They are already lobbying to have the next SCC meeting, in June, to be held in the same way. Electronic voting invites fraud. Everyone knows that.

Can legal action be taken to reverse the vote? YES. And it can also be done another way, without attorneys. And it would not be a big stretch to shut these people down so they can never do this again. I’ve talked to two lawyers about it. The question is, does anyone “out there,” in the grassroots, have the cajones or resources to take this on? Also, another thing, and I’ve referred to this already, too: there is the possibility of criminality – perpetrator and accessories – that I hope will be investigated (see Slide #4, below).

Following are the elements of my 6-minute presentation.

Introductory note: I was distracted in the very beginning of my talk when candidate John Lee interrupted the proceedings, loudly declaring that “Delegates can’t hear Sam!” Bill Currier told John to leave the room and instructed me to continue. In proceeding, I had to assume the audio was fine and that John had been mistaken. At this point I was thoroughly distracted because I knew the audio was probably NOT fine. There would be 6 minutes only and so I could only hope for the best. But with the interruption and confusion, I had to discard part of my presentation. I had been preparing this mini-speech for weeks! It was my only chance to make my arguments to delegates, “in person.” In the end, it was true: almost no one heard what I had said. John had been completely correct. Do I think this “technical snafu” was deliberate? Yes. And I’ll mention this again: after being on line for 6 hours, delegates just wanted the meeting to be over, no matter the unintelligible candidate presentations. There is no question in my mind that the frustrating, endless meeting blather was – in itself – the major element of the distraction/silencing strategy. No matter, this election result should be voided and an electronic meeting format should not ever be used again.

  • My first point in the presentation: “Are you satisfied with the ORP? If not, vote for change today.”
  • I meant to add the following but due to the technical confusion right at the beginning (you can see it in the video), I had to skip this: “If there is consistent organizational failure – corporate, military, sports team – leadership is removed and replaced. The workers, troops, or athletes are not dismissed.”
  • I said, “there will be an important announcement at the end of my presentation; do NOT miss it.”

My short talk then revolved around the brief explanation of five separate charts (see below) that, together, illustrate the broad failure of ORP Executive Committee leadership since Solomon Yue became the de facto leader twenty years ago.

Chart #1: Fundraising: the ORP raised over $5,000,000 in 2000 just before Solomon Yue took power. In shocking contrast, the ORP raised barely $200,000 in 2020. Look at the steep and steady downward trend over Yue’s twenty-year tenure.

Chart #2: Relative Republican/Democrat power in our Salem legislature. Nearly at par with Democrats in 2000 when Solomon Yue joined party leadership, by 2018 both chambers had become Democrat supermajorities. See the constant trend downward:

Chart #3*: In 2018, 25% of House seats had no Republican nominees. Two years later in 2020, that “vacancy” rate was down to 10%. See map comparison below*. ORP leader Solomon Yue, and the Executive Committee, expended zero energy in making that happen, with Chris Barreto, the National Committeewoman, stated on social media (and I’m only very slightly paraphrasing) that “the ORP historically has not put any effort into finding candidates in districts that had a 15% or higher Democrat majority.” With our large database of conservative Oregonians, and super-active use of social media, Diana and I pretty much singlehandedly made it happen…from outside the ORP. (How do we know this? From feedback from new candidates who subscribe to our blog. They told us.)

Chart #4: For those with an intact soul and a functioning brainstem, this is a simple thing to understand. Through his role as ORP National Committeeman, Solomon Yue receives free guest passes to important Republican events in Washington, DC. He then sells those passes for profit through his private company, Republicans Overseas, of which he is CEO. Sales range up to $10,000 per individual (see chart below or website at www.republicansoverseas.com/membership). None of this income is returned to the ORP to assist Republican candidates. Some people would call this unethical, if not illegal. My recommendation? investigate all of this NOW, including making a FOIA request for Yue’s various intermingled corporations in which financials and other documentation are not available via the regular public domain.

Chart #5: Facebook is the gold standard for measuring an organization’s “reach.” Page statistics answer the question, how many constituents, customers and potential customers does the organization engage?** Below are the four most active political Facebook pages in Oregon, listed in order of number of total “subscriptions” (Page Likes).

  1. Note our Make Oregon Great Again Page listed at the top. It has 93K subscribers. Drop down to the ORP Page. It has 17K subscribers.
  2. Again, note Make Oregon Great Again Page at the top of the list. See “Engagement** this week.” In the week we measured, March 7th through the 15th, we actively engaged over 89K Oregon Republicans. The ORP engaged 5K, even less than CD2 primary candidate Knute Buehler.

After quickly explaining the above charts, I stated:

  • “without a change in ORP leadership NOW, in November the legislature will maintain their super-majorities and the ensuing redistricting in 2021 will destroy conservatism in this state for the next generation.”
  • Then I gave my announcement, taking one full minute to ask all my delegates to vote for John Lee. I said, paraphrasing, “John is the best man for the job, (experienced – he is the current ORP Treasurer, determined, fair-minded, patient, tenacious, likeable, etc.).” Why didn’t I ask my delegates to vote for John before election day? Two reasons. First, so I could maintain the gravitas of a candidate to the very end, and second, to be able to give the stump-speech presentation which I felt was compelling enough to get John over the top. This had been our strategy from the very beginning.
  • I also did NOT get a chance to say the following, because of the time-limitations/fiasco: that “I am not at my best on a committee (impatient with BS, I hate meetings, I just want to get the job done, etc.). I am best at leading an organization (I’m decisive, don’t put up with BS, would better serve as a general, head coach, governor, etc.)”
  • I said, in reference to ORP leadership’s new-found Donald Trump enthusiasm, “the ORP gave virtually no support, and hardly mentioned Donald Trump for two and a half years, until the second week of February 2019 in the ORP Executive Committee officer elections when I challenged the incumbent officers with a full slate of pro-Trump candidates. Our investigation of the ORP website, ORP press releases and the ORP Facebook Page was detailed, thorough and documented, back to the beginning of 2015” I added that, in contrast, “I had publicly endorsed Donald Trump in April 2016.”-

Diana and I are incredibly tired. We did our best to help fix our state Party, and we have great supporters everywhere, on the front lines and in the rear echelons. We’re done now with beating our heads against that particular wall. But moving on, if there is no actual Republican political grassroots leadership to carry on this fight against the Ruling Class, we are going to completely lose Oregon to Democrat progressives.

So, we encourage someone else “on our side” to boldly take up and continue this fight NOW. It’s a fight worth fighting. Contact me.

In the meantime, we’ll still be here in the background. -sc

*  Note that this representation of the 2018 final “vacant” tally is actually the 2020 map one week before the 2020 filing deadline. Both maps had exactly 15 “vacant” districts, 25% of the total of 60, but the specific districts illustrated on the March 3rd 2020 map differ slightly from the actual 2018 final map.

** Facebook engagement is the total number of Likes, Shares and Comments on a Page. For more detailed information about these Facebook-provided statistics, including information regarding Kate Brown and Knute Buehler Page statistics, see our homepage message on our website at www.makeoregongreatagain.com.