Politics Ballot-initiative effort to move eastern Oregon counties to Idaho gains momentum

I'm old fashioned, I like seeing them in bikinis, dresses or negligee. Naked works, too.

 

' Here in beautiful eastern Oregon.'
' Here in beautiful eastern Greater Idaho.'

Yeah. That works. The 'Greater' before Idaho is what makes it flow together nicely.

Give them what they want.

 

Technically it’d be Western Greater Idaho.

EDIT: Central Greater Idaho

 

The actual thread has eastern in the title.

 

Go ahead and do it. In a few short decades when the extra tax burden bankrupt's them we will purchase it all back along with Idaho. We will then rename it Oregon's Asshole, because: "they got what they wanted and... it rectum!"

 

Hey hey, I did a job there once and have driven through it. A very small town nestled in the woods. Their only worry is a weather pattern that's changing such that they've hac forest fires that threaten them. I imagine that they're going to have more problems with forest fires in the future.

 

this entire movement just can't decide between absurdity or irony as it's foundation. So they doubled down on both and added a healthy portion of sore loser-ism to the formula

when Repugnicans have the power, they are committed to using it heavily and obviously believe a necessary portion of power utilization, is to fuck over the other side as much as possible; make em bleed. Whether it's lying about voter fraud as the path to voter suppression and modern jim crow; or gutting environmental protection while giving away public land to corporations; or casting false loving eyes at the constitution while stabbing it in the back....it's always full steam ahead on fucking over everybody but the 1%, oil companies, defense contractors, and televangelists.

but when the shoe is on the other foot and Democrats take a page out of the GOP playbook and exercise their raw power (often just as stupidly), the repugnicans whine and cry and talk about how unfair things are. Those Dems are just meanies who don't give a shit bout the values of others. Imagine that....isn't there something in that book they all find holy about "reap what you sow"...?

to this movement, I say fuck every one of you and your thin redneck skins. If you want to live in Idaho there are several state highways that go directly there. Load up your moving vans and get your asses out of Oregon...and take all of your fucking cattle with you. I'm tired of stepping in your cow shit when I camp in Eastern Oregon

 

And there's the basic problem. Metro dwellers view Central and Eastern Oregon as their playground. Screw the folks who live there and have to try to make a living primarily off the land. I can't imagine why they aren't happy with the Dems in Salem informing them of the best way to do that.

 

I live in Central Oregon and Say no thank you. If I wanted to live in Idaho I would move.

 

Id rather live in Baker City now days than Greater Portland where instead of cow pucky, its human waste all over the sidewalks and streets.
Clean that stuff up for crying out loud.

 

total bullshit

I've actually lived and worked in Burns and John Day; in Bates. I know plenty of people over there and have a brother who lived in Lakeview and Jordan Valley and Klamath Falls. A sister who lived in La Grande & Enterprise. I'm not stereotyping everybody over there....just the fucking idiots that want to live in Idaho but lack the courage of their convictions to move there

and this playground narrative...which I've heard ad nauseum....is bogus as hell. Much of that land over there is publicly owned. BLM & Forest Service. That belongs to all of us...equally. The whiners who live over there don't have any more right to that land than anybody who lives in the Willamette Valley...or Denver for that matter. You goddamn right that's as much our playground as it is their pasture or their woodpile.

What pisses off so many of them is that they don't get to profit off that land as much as their perspectives tell them they should. That somebody from Albany or Eugene have just as much right to say what goes happens on public land as somebody in Burns. They piss and moan about socialism and welfare, but state money is a one way pipeline heading from this side of the mountains to over there, and that money builds and maintains the roads they drive on, the fences they keep their cattle behind, and the lights they see at night with. And that includes the water they depend on that falls as snow on public land in the winter and turns into irrigation on private land in the summer.

The fabric of their lives & lifestyles is supported by many forms of socialism and public resources mostly funded by the people they hate.

I've seen that bullshit all my life...I'm a native Oregonian. It was illustrated perfectly by those fucking Bundy assholes and their ilk who took over the Malheur Refuge. An Asshole family who racked up over a million dollars in grazing fees on public lands they refused to pay, then went and trashed more public lands protesting how unfair things were.

They wanted the refuge to be given to the local ranchers even though not one single rancher in the area was around when the Malheur was created nearly a century ago. And when the Paiute Tribe, who originally owned that land suggested that if anybody should be 1st in line for that land it would be them, those fucking hypocrite Bundy's said the Paiute weren't entitled because it was "settled law" , it was just tough shit for the Paiutes...stand aside red man and let white men take more. Good god the ignorance and arrogance behind that mindset was the perfect narrative of the venomously stupid thinking behind the takeover considering that there have been about dozens precedents about public land set by the SCOTUS...you know "settled law"

I spent 3 days over there as a volunteer helping clean up the mess those fuckers made. The piles of trash they left behind; the ditches and pits they dug; the infrastructure & equipment they broke and busted and stole. I've spent years doing volunteer work in The Steens and at Hart Mountain. I know the region and I know the people

you say people over there have to "make a living primarily off the land"...that's fine with me. Just as long as the land they are making a living off of is theirs and not mine. I don't even mind significant levels of grazing or logging. But I have just as much right to set what those levels are as they do. So when I see some of them pouting and acting like life isn't fair to them alone because "liberals" participate in democracy, I don't give a shit.

 

You're getting into a whole bunch of topics that are separate from the issue of fair representation, which is what I was commenting on. The issue of federal range land is a whole separate can of worms that I doubt you'd find consensus on even on the east side of the mountains. What I'm talking about is the urban/rural divide that has grown dramatically over the past 50-60 years. You say that you are a native Oregonian (so am I, BTW), but that's rare in Multnomah County. Almost 60% of current residents were born outside of Oregon and 14% were born outside of the country. Multnomah County is the tail that wags Oregon politics and it's more than 71% Democrat. While you lived on the east side, that's far from the norm and most of the voters in the liberal Portland, Salem, Eugene areas have zero idea of the economic and social realities of issues impacting people east of the Cascades.What we're seeing is a group of folks who feel disenfranchised and generally ignored by a State government that hasn't seen a Republican governor elected since 1983.

Here's a pretty good article on the increasing polarization between the urban Willamette Valley and the rural areas east of the mountains: https://www.registerguard.com/news/20190212/urban-rural-divide-in-oregon-has-become-more-pronounced

 

Interesting. Weird way of getting an In n Out in your state, but more power to them. That whole green area is "Where Stephanie Gets Hatecrimed If She Gets Out Of Her Car" so I'm not sure I'll be visiting much either way.

 

My experience here is much different then yours I guess. I grew up in Portland actually but I had a very democrat heavy extended family that lived in Pendleton / Hermiston and Bend. They all complained about Big city laws, not because of this right vs left thing that you're trying to make it out to be, but because of economic reasons, most of my extended family still lives out there and are STILL democrats... They believed that their "dependence" on the big cities was due to laws and regulations put on them that made it so they couldn't use the resources they had available to make money off of. Kind of like if they had power and said you can't put docks on the Columbia that would have at one point (maybe not now) really wrecked Portlands economy, and if their reason was just well it's our land too. Portlanders wouldn't be happy about that and they shouldn't be.

Do you go to downtown Portland and find homeless people and say hey there are cheap homes in Montana and highways to take you there. So quit complaining about homeless issues! I think that portion of your diatribe is pretty weak... You have to know that getting up and moving is almost never that easy...

I agree with some of what you're saying the Bundy stuff was stupid, and yeah they do have to accept how our "democracy" works, but just because you can call "bs", and go off on republicans doesn't mean you're entirely right either. IMO this is more than a "right vs left" thing and more about economics, but maybe I'm wrong or were both wrong, or both kinda right.

 

you make some fair arguments in parts of your text I edited out

but, why should I feel much sympathy for the people over the mountains who feel "disenfranchised"? Do only republicans live east of the mountains? How disenfranchised do democrats feel who live in Idaho? Are their frustrations any less valid then those of conservatives in Burns or Lakeview? There aren't any political highlights for democrats in Idaho, South Dakota, and Alabama

for that matter, why should I feel any sympathy for members of a political party that has spent the last decade doing anything they could to actually and literally disenfranchise the rights of people of color and democrats with bullshit voter ID laws and gerrymandering? It was so bad in 2016, that the republicans won the popular vote for the US House, 49% vs 48%, but won a 241 to 194 advantage in representatives. Worse, in the Senate, Dem votes were 51.4 million vs 40.4 million for the GOP, but there were 22 GOP senators elected and only 12 Dems. That was the same year Hillary got 3M more votes than Trump

Why should I, as a democrat, spend much time worrying about conservative feelings when the last two republican presidents have gained office after losing the popular vote, only because that stupid, obsolete, and unjust electoral college more and more favors rural and red state voters? Why should the 2 million people in Wyoming, Alaska, & North Dakota have the same number of Senators as the 50 million people in California, Washington and Oregon? Why should I worry about the sensitivities of rural voters when the power they are aligned with and identify with controls the presidency and senate while stacking the courts and trashing the Constitution?

I know those are much broader issues & concerns than what we're talking about, so let me narrow it back down. I'm well aware of the big rural/urban divide. But I know what the genesis and foundation of it is since I've lived over then and grew up in timber towns over here. It's not really about culture issues like abortion. It's mostly a single issue divide: who decides what happens to public lands....everybody with a stake, or narrow interests. That's what the sagebrush rebellion was all about. That was the seed that germinated the violent Posse Comitatus movement. That's been a big push by the Oath Keepers in their militant and provocative actions. And of course, that's what the Bundy's were motivated by when they took over the Malheur; had an armed standoff in Nevada about their refusal to pay grazing rights; and when they trashed native American archeological sights by running roughshod with ATV's in Utah just so they could show how hardass they were

People feel disenfranchised in Burns and Lakeview and Pendelton because they don't get to call all the shots on public land anymore. They can't line up at the public troth to gobble up grazing and timber without resistance from a lot of other citizens who rightly want a say in how public land is used. As I said earlier, I'm just fine with them earning a living off of the own land, but they are really pissed off about is because they have to bargain with everybody else to make profits off of public land. It's that simple

 

Man, you really must have a lot of time for writing.

Not going to spend time trying to convince you on this topic since you seem pretty entrenched in your opinions. I do find it a bit funny how ticked off you are about the electoral college when it was put in the Constitution specifically for the purpose of making sure that the broader interests of rural areas weren't ignored or simply outvoted by more populous areas of the country. You only seem excited about the portions of the status quo that serve your political interests. In other words, you're pretty much like everybody else. It's good to be king. It sucks to be a peasant.

 

Don't bottle it up. Let it out.

 

LOL.

The rest of the state gets less than they put in. The failed blue counties consume the state's entire budget and still have to quadruple the debt every budget.

But nobody is going to get on board with joining the Mormon-controlled state of Idaho. We're simply going to take back the cities politically, through our elective process. The Dem party is crumbling as we speak, and Oregon is the poster child for it's multitude of failures and obscenities.