Author: North Coast BBQ

Submitted By: pattyrinehart@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

PEACEFUL PROTEST IN NEHALEM, SATURDAY, May 10, noon to 2 PM. Our last peaceful PROTEST in Manzanita drew over one hundred people. Let’s do that again in Nehalem. Please do bring your family, your neighbors, friends, relatives, especially children whose lives will certainly be affected by this “abuse of power”.

Please pay attention to #10 in the article below:

www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics/trump-worst-abuses-of-power/index.html

Again, please join us in Nehalem on Saturday, May 10 between noon and two. Bring a chair, stay as long as you can, wear your layers, and don’t forget your water. Looks like a little rain before noon. Please don’t park in the businesses parking spaces-there is plenty of room to park in the city parking lot and after that we can park up the North Fork Road. After all, there will be many of us. A can or two of food for our North Tillamook County is greatly appreciated. Thanks to all who are protesting. We can’t give up on this. Best.

Submitted By: micktaylorappraisal@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

I don’t know why anyone volunteers to be on boards. My experience with meetings is that they are mildly unpleasant at best.

I bless everyone who wishes to participate in giving their time and energy to govern. And, to all of you running all of the systems that make our community function -from the county, to the city, to the non-profits that make our unique community vibrant and unique, thank you!!!

My friend Christy Kay wants to be on the NCRD board. She wants to give more than she already does to our community by bringing her energy of inclusion and compassion to the NCRD. I think its a great way to blend a pillar of the non-profit compassion centered giver community with the resourced recreation district. Her message and platform of accessibility and inclusion inspires me to want her on that board.

Submitted By: aquietplace@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

On the May ballot we have many opportunities to support quality of life for children and youth in our schools and communities. Supporting Christy Kay is one of them. Christy has deep roots in our community. Christy is passionate about supporting youth through soccer at NCRD, HUGG and other teen programs. NCRD has three identified areas of focus: pool, fitness and youth. Christy will be an extraordinary advocate for strengthening the focus on youth as well as supporting health and well-being for everyone. Please consider voting for Christy Kay for position 5 on the North County Recreation District Board.
Thank you. Cathy Tinker

Submitted By: babbles@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

To readers in BBQ-land,

I have a free subscription to the Hartmann Report.

This one just came into my email inbox.

I am horrified, terrified, and very concerned. as i sign with my usual ending words, my heart is heavy. many decent American citizens are at risk in so many ways, and have no peace. The word “namaste” means “the spirit in me salutes the spirit in you.” Our federal government’s actions are the antithesis of that.

om peace namaste

lucy brook
nehalem resident
U.S. citizen

The Hartmann Report is a reader-supported publication where all weekday articles are free and available to everyone.

America’s Moral Collapse Is Not Hypothetical — It’s on a Plane to Libya
As warlords rake in millions, America exports migrants into a system of rape, slavery, and death…
THOM HARTMANN
MAY 8

Good God.

America stands at a moral precipice, and we’re about to tumble over the edge. The Trump administration is now planning to transport immigrants on U.S. military planes to detention centers in a warlord-controlled part of Libya, a decision that reveals how far we’ve strayed from our foundational values and basic human decency.

If this shocks you, it sure as hell should. The news broke this week that the administration is preparing to send migrants to Libya on military flights as early as tomorrow. And this isn’t just another policy announcement from the daily outrage factory; it’s the latest escalation in a deliberate strategy of cruelty that began during Trump’s first term.

The timing is no coincidence. Just last week, Saddam Haftar — yes, that’s his actual name — the son of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, visited Washington and met with Trump’s advisors including Massad Boulos (Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law) at the State Department. The younger Haftar commands eastern Libya’s land forces and represents his father’s self-styled “Libyan National Army” militia.

This isn’t even the official government of Libya that the Trump family is doing business with; it’s the half of the country that’s run by a warlord who the UN doesn’t recognize!

But let’s back up and ask the most fundamental question: Why the hell are we sending immigrants to prison at all, instead of simply deporting them back to their countries of origin like Obama did?

Crossing the border without authorization is primarily a civil violation, not a criminal offense worthy of imprisonment. These aren’t violent criminals; they’re people seeking safety, work, or a better life. Many were literally fleeing for their lives. Yet instead of processing and returning them through established deportation channels and procedures, Trump is creating a shadow penal system outside of normal judicial oversight. But why?

The answer, as with so many things in this administration, appears to be a toxic blend of profit, politics, and purposeful cruelty.

When Trump started shipping migrants to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT concentration camp earlier this year, he and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele struck a $6 million deal to detain about 300 migrants there for one year. Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is openly boasting about the administration’s efforts to find more countries willing to imprison migrants.

“Follow the money” is always good advice in Washington. It’s hardly coincidental that this Libya deportation scheme comes immediately after Saddam Haftar’s visit to Washington. The Trump family has had friendly relations with warlord Haftar’s regime since Trump’s first term, when he shocked the diplomatic community by giving Khalifa Haftar a supportive phone call in 2019 that completely contradicted the State Department’s and the UN’s official position.

“I say this unapologetically,” Rubio declared at a recent Cabinet meeting. “We are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries. We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries — will you do that as a favor to us?’”

Let that sink in for a minute. Our Secretary of State is publicly describing migrants — many of whom have committed no crime beyond crossing a border without permission — as “the most despicable human beings.” This dehumanizing language isn’t accidental; it’s strategic. It prepares the American public to accept increasingly inhumane treatment of migrants by portraying them as somehow deserving of such cruelty.

This is where the brutal reality of warlord-run Libyan detention centers enters the picture, and where it gets even more disturbing.

Human rights organizations have documented horrific conditions in Libya’s migrant detention facilities for years. The country has been in chaos since the 2011 revolution, with rival governments and militias vying for control. The eastern half is controlled by Haftar’s forces, while the western half including Tripoli is run by the internationally recognized Government of National Accord. Migrants caught in this system face unimaginable suffering.

What are these places like? Amnesty International has documented “severe beatings, sexual violence, extortion, forced labor, and inhuman conditions” in these prisons. Detainees report being starved, tortured, and subjected to extortion. Guards have been documented shooting at detainees for sport, causing deaths and injuries. Women have described being coerced into sex in exchange for food or promises of freedom.

The State Department’s own annual report — yes, our OWN government’s report — described conditions in Libya’s detention centers as “harsh and life-threatening” with migrants having “no access to immigration courts or due process.” Doctors Without Borders has documented female detainees being told by guards, “You’re going to die here.”

These aren’t exaggerations or hysterical claims from the left. These are documented realities from respected international organizations, the State Department, and the United Nations. And this administration damn well knows it.

Libya’s detention centers are run by various private armed groups in a fractured country with no stable central authority. Some centers are essentially criminal enterprises run by human traffickers. Migrants are frequently held for ransom, with those unable to pay facing execution. Many facilities have become sites of forced labor, beatings, rape, torture, and murder.

This is the system to which the Trump administration plans to deliver people who came to America seeking safety and opportunity. And for what? A sweetheart deal with the Haftar regime that controls most of Libya’s oil resources?

And now we’re getting reports that ICE is locking immigrants in solitary confinement as punishment for not signing a document agreeing to be deported to one of these Libyan hellholes.

As Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Raw Story:

“It’s deeply distressing and disturbing to think that there would be a time in this country where we would find the worst places to deport people to instead of places where they came from. Their homelands. Not sending them back there but sending them to the worst location we could send them to just to punish them.”

Why is all this happening? Because this is a continuation of the strategy first employed by Trump and his immigration architect Stephen Miller during the previous Trump administration, when they deliberately separated children from their parents at the border. The calculation was brutally simple: If America becomes known for extreme cruelty toward migrants, fewer people will attempt to come here.

It’s deterrence through atrocity. A strategy that says, “We’ll make examples of these people by subjecting them to such extreme suffering that others will be too terrified to follow in their footsteps.”

But here’s what these sadistic bastards don’t get: this strategy doesn’t just harm migrants. It corrupts America’s soul. It transforms us from a nation that, despite our many failings, at least aspired to ideals of human dignity and justice, into one that purposefully inflicts suffering as policy.

As President Biden would say, “This is not who we are.” Except now, under Trump, it apparently is.

And don’t fall for their justifications. The administration claims they’re only targeting “criminals” and “gang members.” But we’ve already seen that this is false. Kilmar Abrego Garcia and a young man known in court only as “Cristian” were among those deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

According to their families and lawyers, their “crimes” amounted to having tattoos that authorities associated with gang membership. Federal judges ordered both men returned to the U.S., but they remain imprisoned.

So, let’s cut the crap: Trump and Miller’s policy of mass detention isn’t about safety or security. It’s about punishment, deterrence, and performing cruelty for political gain the same way dictators around the world run their countries.

And cruelty inflicted like this, now “limited” to immigrants, rarely stays limited; what Trump and the GOP do to the least of us, history says, they’ll ultimately do to all of us.

And why isn’t anyone talking about the money? Millions of dollars are being funneled to private detention contractors and foreign governments through these agreements. Who’s profiting? Follow the damn money.

When Trump and Bukele struck their $6 million deal for El Salvador to detain migrants, where did that money actually go? And who stands to profit from similar arrangements with Libya, Rwanda, and other countries reportedly in talks with the administration?

It’s no coincidence that just days after meeting with Libyan warlord Haftar’s son at the White House, the Trump administration is ready to ship migrants to Libya’s hellhole prisons. The stated reason for that meeting was that Libya “would be better positioned to engage with the United States and US companies,” meaning more oil contracts and business deals. (Warlord Haftar now controls most of Libya’s oil wells.) Connect the dots!

These “deportation partnerships” represent a disturbing privatization and internationalization of immigrant detention, moving it further from public scrutiny and constitutional protections. They create a shadow system where basic human rights and due process are easily discarded.

This isn’t just happening to “them”: it’s happening to us. Every time we allow our government to treat any human being as disposable, we diminish our own humanity. Every time we turn away from cruel policies because they don’t affect “people like us,” we chip away at the moral foundations that protect all of us.

And make no mistake: this slippery slope is real and dangerous. The Trump administration has already floated the idea of detaining U.S. citizens abroad. In conversations with El Salvador’s president last month, Trump was overheard saying, “The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You’ve got to build about five more places.”

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the administration’s legal arguments suggest the U.S. government believes it “could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”

This should terrify every American, regardless of political affiliation. When we build systems of unchecked power and cruelty for use against the most vulnerable, history tells us those systems rarely remain confined to their original targets.

So what can we do?

First, we must break through the normalization of cruelty. Call your representatives in Congress TODAY and demand they oppose these deportation schemes. Insist on hearings, investigations, and legislation to block funding for these programs.

Second, support the legal challenges already underway. The ACLU and other organizations are challenging these deportations in court. They need our vocal and financial support.

Third, keep this issue visible. Share accurate information about these detention centers and what’s happening to the people sent there. Don’t let this fade from public consciousness in the endless churn of outrages.

Fourth, demand transparency. Where is the money going? What are the terms of the agreements with warlord Haftar’s regime? Who’s profiting? What oversight exists to ensure humane treatment?

And finally, remember this: America is better than this. We’ve lost our way before, and we’ve found our way back. From the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to the separation of families at the border in 2018, we have periodically succumbed to our worst instincts. But we have also, eventually, recognized our errors and sought to correct them.

The question now is how much suffering we’ll allow before that correction begins. How many people will be condemned to Libya’s hellish prisons — run by a warlord whose son was just welcomed at the State Department — before we say, “Enough is enough”?

Call your representatives today: 202-224-3121. Tell them America doesn’t torture people to send a message. Tell them we are better than this.

Because if we aren’t, what exactly are we defending in this land of the free?

Submitted By: pattyrinehart@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

Many of us remember standing in classrooms at the beginning of our school day to recite the pledge of allegiance-hand over heart. I went to find out about this and what came up from Wikipedia is the following.

This is the first “Pledge of Allegiance” from 1892.

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This is the second: 1892-1923
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This is the third:1923-1924
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The fourth: 1924-1954
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The fifth and current version: 1954 to current times
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Whatever version of this Allegiance you believe in is what brings us all together. This also makes me think of the oath of office all our leaders take:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:— “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”[2]

This goes on for a bit, but perhaps some will find it interesting.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 8:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:– I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 provides that the President must swear or affirm to faithfully execute the Office of President and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution to the best of the President’s ability. Presidents since George Washington have reflected on the oath’s significance and the burden it places on the President. In his second inaugural address, Washington declared that a violation of the presidential oath would occasion not only constitutional punishment, but the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.1 Of the oath, Justice Joseph Story wrote: [t]here is little need of commentary . . . . No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.2

The Constitution requires many officials to swear oaths or affirmations,3 but the presidential oath in Article II is unique because it prescribes verbatim the language an official must use. Government officials generally must swear an oath to support the Constitution, but the Constitution does not demand any exact language.4 Because Article II provides a verbatim presidential oath, misadministration of the oath might elicit questions as to the President’s legitimacy. For example, while President Barack Obama re-took the oath after Chief Justice John Roberts mistakenly reordered words in the oath’s text,5 President Herbert Hoover declined to do so, believing such mistakes to be inconsequential.6 Many presidents have appended the phrase so help me God to the presidential oath;7 this phrase has been included in statutorily defined oaths since 1789, but is not required of the President.8

Although Article II sets forth the text of the presidential oath, it omits other details, including who shall administer the oath and when and where the oath shall be administered. By common practice, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court administers the oath at a President’s inauguration. The practice of receiving the oath publicly began with George Washington’s inauguration. A joint committee of Congress appointed to organize the inauguration emphasized the importance of having the oath administered to the President in the most public manner such that the greatest number of the people in the United States, and without distinction, may be witnesses to the solemnity.9 President John Adams was the first President to receive the oath from the Chief Justice.10 Several Vice Presidents who became President through succession were administered oaths outside the nation’s capital and by people other than the Chief Justice.11 For example, President Calvin Coolidge, who succeeded President Warren G. Harding after his death, received the oath from his father, a notary public, at his father’s residence in Vermont.12

The presidential oath’s language mirrors other provisions of the Constitution—such as the President’s obligation to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed13—though much of the language in the presidential oath appears nowhere else in the Constitution. The significance of the oath’s unique text has been a matter of debate for centuries. James Madison’s notes suggest that even delegates to the Federal Convention of 1787, where the Constitution was drafted, lacked a shared understanding of this language: while debating whether the text of the oath should include a promise to preserve protect and defend the Constitution, Delegate James Wilson of Pennsylvania suggested that the general oath required by Article VI would render such text unnecessary.14

I believe somewhere here our President and all of us who spoke the Pledge of Allegiance so many years ago have a conflict of interest.

Submitted By: pattyrinehart@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

Friends of North County Recreation District will be selling Mother’s Day Flower Bouquets on Saturday. No sales on Friday and Sunday this week but stay tuned for next week. Friends will be giving all mothers the Day Off from picking and arranging. Spring Flower Bouquets will be available at the Manzanita Grocery & Deli this Saturday for Mother’s Day. Pick yours up on Saturday morning starting at 10 AM. Bouquets will be $10. Thank you for supporting Friends of NCRD!

Submitted By: afscmelocal2734@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

The proposed increase to the Transient Lodging Tax from 10% to 14% is appropriate, and necessary to retain and support critical County services. This proposal has the support of AFSCME Local 2734–Tillamook County Employees Union.

The proposed increase of 4% over time would go toward supporting the Sheriff’s Office and emergency communications services. This, in turn, eases the pressure on the County General Fund, which also employs +/- 34% of our Union local. These workers provide crucial legal, electoral, taxation, permitting, Veteran and Victim advocacy and support, and Short-Term Rental administration services to residents, visitors, and business owners alike.

We reject the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association’s unacceptable proposed solution to re-allocate the 30% of the TLT currently dedicated to our County Road Department, which funds the salaries of +/- 15% of our Union local. These workers maintain over 200 miles of roadways and bridges–the infrastructural conduit for tourism and all other industries that benefit from operating in our County.

Our County Parks Department, whose operating costs are partially funded by the TLT, employs +/-8% of our Union local, who provide hospitality and recreation services in our County Campgrounds. This is a service in high-demand in an international tourism destination like Tillamook County.

Combined, these workers represent just shy of 60% of our Union local, and we believe our jobs have value–cuts to services benefit no one in this equation.

Simply put, services rendered must equate to services paid, and a small increase borne by the customer is fair.

When workers feel valued and secure in our jobs and supported by the public we serve, we are able to focus on providing quality services without the looming threat of job insecurity. Thus, what is good for Tillamook County workers is in turn good for Tillamook County. A vote for this increase is a vote of support for Tillamook County Union workers–both Tillamook County AFSCME Local 2734 and our Union siblings in the Sheriff’s Department Teamsters Local 223.

A vote for this increase is a vote to keep layoffs off the table because Tillamook County works when we do!

Vote YES on County Measure 29-183 today!

Thank you,

Local 2734–Tillamook County Employees Union

American Federation of State, County, And Municipal Employees

Submitted By: jettkeyser@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

A Fortune Cookie

Inertia

Long ago at a local Double Happiness
I opened a fortune cookie with this note,
“You’ll accomplish more if you start now.”
The message was and remained strangely
arresting. As I held the little note in my
two hands, I drifted back into a dream,
decades old. A sequence opened where
I was kneeling in a garden that was clearly
neglected. Immediately, I realized it was
my garden, the dream offered an awakening.
As awareness returned, turning to the note,
then to our table, I felt gifted. If the opposite
of loneliness is presence, we can all abandon
wishing. A begging bowl will often remain
empty. Danger lies in not stopping.
The inertia of what is not seen brings gravity.
“You’ll accomplish more if your start now.