My Oregon Adventure

Whew, what a fun time in Oregon!
 
As some of you may have guessed from my last post, I headed off to Yachats for some vacation time.
 
No computer, no phone…and very, very little discussion about politics.
 
In fact, there was none until my mom decided to watch the CBS Evening News one night and we got to arguing about Trump and Hillary.
 
Anyways, it made me think how negative the political atmosphere is, and how much it rubs off on us when we talk about it.
 
So it was damn nice to get away from it all for about 4 days.
 
It wasn’t a long vacation, and I certainly didn’t pay much for it.
 
Thankfully I have a great mom and she got herself, my wife and son and I, plane tickets to Seattle then Eugene, she rented a car, and rented a beach house.
 
Pretty damn nice.
 

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It was nice going back to a place I’ve been going to for about 30 years or so, though this was the first time I got a serious injury.
 
Yeah, that hospital photo up there.
 
That’s from the Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport, and I expect I’ll be getting a pretty hefty bill from them sometime over the next couple weeks.
 
I’m thinking around $1,000 to $1,500, but maybe it’ll be more.
 
I was coming down a trail that I’ve used dozens of times, but somehow I lost my footing.
 
Boom, down I go and my right foot gets wedged between the bank and some old stairs and I hear a ‘pop’ and feel some pain.
 
Boy, my foot did not look good either, and you’re probably lucky I don’t have a picture.
 
Seems I dislocated the foot or ankle or something, or what they call a subtalar dislocation.
 
They did about 3 to 4 X-rays on it, figured out nothing was broken – thank God! – and then popped that sucker back into place.
 
I was very pleased with the care I received and plan on sending a Montana thank you card to the emergency room there.
 
So now I’m on crutches, I’m wearing a brace, and I’m trying not to move around too much.
 
Boy, at the hospital they gave me two shots of some kind of morphine, and that second one after they popped it in really had me reeling.
 
In fact, I puked in the car on the 24-mile drive back down the coast to Yachats.
 
Thankfully there was a plastic bag for me to do that in.
 
The injury happened around sunset – about 8 PM, and which I was trying to watch – and by the time we got back from the hospital it was around 1 AM.
 
Besides the morphine I got six pills of Percocet to take home, plus a prescription for more Percocet and very strong Ibuprofen.
 
I didn’t fill those prescriptions for a couple reasons:
 

• First, I was really surprised how little pain I was in when it happened, after, and even now.

 

• Next, I really don’t like the idea of taking opiates.

 

• Finally, the cost.

 
I’ll be pinching pennies this month in anticipation of my monstrous hospital bill, so I really didn’t need to buy pills I didn’t need.
 

 
Since I was in Oregon I took the opportunity to sample some of their marijuana.
 
Yep, it’s legal there.
 
So I bought an eighth of some sativa and a joint of indica and then a couple days later a joint of sativa.
 
Here’s what that eighth and joint came in:
 

Oregon cannabis containers

 
I paid $7 for a small joint and then $12.50 for a larger one. The eighth, I believe, was about $40.
 
There are tons of cannabis dispensaries around.
 
You go into them and there’s a sort of lobby area and then you show your ID and are allowed into the back room where the pot is.
 
It’s pretty simple if you’re over 21 – show ID, pay, get your pot.
 
I haven’t heard about much new crime or death associated with legalization, but I'm sure it's low to non-existent. 
 
Remember, 56% of Oregonian voters voted for legal pot, or nearly 850,000 people.
 
In the first 3 months of legalization the state collected $10.5 million in tax revenue.
 
They’d been expecting $3 million for the whole year.
 
We know that about half the money goes to regulating the industry. The other half breaks down like so:
 

• 40% to schools
• 20% to mental health/drug treatment
• 15% to police
• 10% for city law enforcement
• 10% for county law enforcement
• 5% for the Oregon Health Authority

 
That’s real money, and it’s going to real agencies with real staff and real problems.
 
Many of those problems are solved with that influx of money.
 
Montana could see its problems solved as well, but we have hard-heads in the legislature that feel your liberty isn’t as important as their Puritanical beliefs.
 
Mainly I’m talking about fuck-head Jeff Essman, someone Democrats couldn’t even find a candidate to run against.
 
Well, they did, but Motl removed them from the ballot when it was clear they were nothing but bullshit.
 
So that’s Democrats in Montana – incompetent.
 
No, I don’t expect to see an influx of revenue to Montana anytime soon, just more old fogeys in the legislature bickering over what money there is.
 
On a final note, I feel Montana’s marijuana is far superior to the three strains I tried in Oregon.
 
I know this because I’ve had a Montana medical marijuana card for more than 2 years now.

Woops...does admitting that mean my 'political career' is over?

Oh well. At least you know I'm honest with you, and because of that honesty, politics wouldn't be the place for me.
 
Anyways, I won’t have a card much longer, thanks to the incompetence of the Montana medical marijuana industry.

June 2017?

Boy, what a fuck up, Kate.
 

 
I’d like to take a moment to discuss air travel and the TSA.
 
First of all…what does the TSA do…and why do we need them?
 
I got a full search and pat-down in Eugene when leaving Oregon yesterday, and I feel that’s because they want to make sure no one is taking cannabis out of the state.
 
I mean, really…you need to test the residue on your gloves?
 
They’re looking for metal and bombs, and I can’t help but think…why?
 
Remember, it was a Republican that created this new federal agency and pounded us with more bureaucracy.
 
In 2012 we paid $7.6 billion to fund the TSA.
 
Let me ask you – is that making America safer, and if so…how?
 
Personally, I think it’s a huge waste of money.
 
Alas, it’s important to Republicans to decry the size of government so they can get elected, then once they’re safely ensconced in office they build up the very same government they say is so dysfunctional.
 
That’s Republicans – pretending to be something they’re not.
 
We know that George W. Bush was the worst president this country has ever seen, besides James Buchanan and his incompetence in doing anything to prevent the Civil War in the late-1850s.
 
Remember, Bush took us to Iraq, a country Obama promised he’d get us out of, and which Hillary is now poised to assault even further.
 
What a fucking mess, and a small consequence of that is the $7.6 billion we waste on the TSA.
 
Hey, I guess we created some jobs and gave people some benefits, but so what?
 
Private sector, my friend, private sector – that’s where the true jobs and benefits are.
 
I look at TSA agents and I see people that have lost a lot of spark in their lives, find no enjoyment in their jobs, and can barely squeeze themselves into those bright blue shirts.
 
Is it time to end the TSA?
 
It was time a decade ago or more.
 

 
We were supposed to fly out of Seattle at 9:45 but didn’t do so until almost 11 PM.
 
Let me ask you…what is the consequence of this, and who gets blamed?
 
The pilots told us the plane had mechanical problems and then they were delayed flying into Seattle.
 
My, an hour that dozens of people had to sit around.
 
I don’t know about you, but most jobs I’ve had…you show up an hour late and you’re fired.
 
Not so with the airline industry, because there’s nothing citizens can do.
 
How about that talk of a passenger bill of rights…as if our current Bill of Rights isn’t capable of stopping the egregiousness we see from airlines.
 
10 hours on the tarmac, anyone?
 
Personally, I’d like to see legislation come forth that allows passengers to get some money back for each hour – or even minute – that a plane is late.
 
Honestly, if you can’t do your job…why am I being penalized?
 
You took my time, gave me nothing in return.
 
I know a lot of you don’t like my ‘bitching,’ but without that kind of bitching this country will not get better.
 
I’m no Jerry O’Connell, so I won’t be raising a fuss and then leaving the state.
 
Hell, I bet you don’t even know who O’Connell was.
 
I’m not surprised – most Montanans know very little about their recent history, despite young authors like myself putting out books on the subject.
 
Speaking of books on the subject, I had 3 sales of Soldiers and Statesmen.

Come hell or high water or lackluster sales, the writing will continue.
 
I’ll be starting the final volume very soon, and I’ll do that by researching Stan Stephens.
 
Know what I know about him?
 
Nothing.
 
I guess I know he was governor from ’89 to ’93, but little else.

Remember, I was in first grade at Jim Darcy Elementary back during the election of 1988.
 
I think it’s important for Montanans to know that stuff, so I’ll keep writing on this site.
 
I know that bothers many of you, and that’s fine.
 
I know many of you want me to leave, or stop writing, and that's fine.

​To me, it tells me I'm gaining traction.
​
A year or two ago I got real tired of Men’s Health magazine, mainly because it seemed all the issues were about the same.
 
Plus it was getting boring to me.
 
So I cancelled my subscription and now I never even think about that magazine.
 
That’s a good strategy for those that don’t like this site or don’t like my tone or attitude or whatever.
 
Don’t read it – very simple.
 
Speaking of simple, what the hell’s with recent Montana political happenings?
 

​In Other News

I see Gianforte is trying to get Bullock’s plane taken out of action.
 
This issue doesn’t affect me or any other low-income individuals, as Bullock isn’t visiting us anyways.
 
Besides, if I can drive, so can you.
 
Driving is a great time for the governor to get his paperwork done, phone calls too.
 
But don’t tell that to Democrats, because to them, this is just a stunt.
 
I have to say, we know full-well that this issue would not have been renewed had Bullock just been up-front about his use of the plane.
 
I’m talking about going to see Sir Paul.
 
Again, we know of that flight because of the anonymous woman that called me to tell me of the governor’s alleged affair and the cover-up afterward.
 
Gianforte is getting to the edges of this scandal, but really, there’s nothing there.
 
Don’t you think his back East political opposition research firms would have found something out by now?
 
Personally I think the DGA money trail is where to look, but what the hell do I know?
 
Right now the $1 million annual cost of Bullock’s plane will remain a silly issue.
 
Please remember that it could turn into a very serious, national-attention-getting issue very soon.
 
I feel October will be the time.
 
Gianforte has the money, however, and if there was something…don’t you think he would have found out by now?
 
So we’ll see what happens.
 
Never know – I might get another anonymous phone call and we could see some serious changes in Montana politics that could affect a whole generation or more.
 
On a final note I’d like to show you two images.
 
First, we see Josh Manning giving his speech in front of the Capitol a week or so ago.
 

 
Now, at the same press conference we see Eric Stern.

​Remember, there’s always a Richelieu in the background.
 

 
Hard to see, huh? Here, take a closer look:
 

Eric Stern, Montana

 
Ah, there he is…the man that Brian Schweitzer brought into Montana and the man that Montana Democrats can no longer stand.
 
Brian abandoned Montana Democrats in 2014 by not running for Senate, and I’ll be the first to bring that up should he try for another run at governor.
 
You can blame Walsh for Daines and you can blame Bullock for Walsh, but to say that Brian gets no blame?
 
That’s silly.
 
I’m not sure young Montanans need more has-beens telling us what to do.
 
We already have parents.
 
It’s time to focus on the future, not the past.
 
It’ll be good to see Stern’s ass out of the Capitol come January.
 
Hell, I wouldn’t mind voting for Stapleton just so we know for sure there will be no Democrat holding that office to hire him again.
 
So they’re standing there watching their boy Jason give his speech – which no one bothered to attend, as just like Gianforte and the plane, it’s a political stunt – though we do see two women around Stern.
 

• Who are they?

 

• Why is that brunette looking so pissed?

 

• And finally…that’s all you could dredge up for this press conference?

 
Pretty lame.
 
But remember, it’s stunts like these that the gubernatorial election cycle is made up of.
 
The stunts change little, for most have already made up their mind.
 
I’ll likely be voting for Ted Dunlap, myself.
 
And with that, have a good Saturday!