Posts published in “Henderson”

State Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, left the Republican Party this year and registered with the Independent Party of Oregon.

Don't get excited. He's still nuts.

Apparently, he just got tired of being part of a group of off-the-rails, semi-organized psychopaths and decided to go off and be insane on his own. Now he's just Independently crazy.

One would hope the Oregon Republican Party -- with all its recent talk of insurrectionist attacks at the U.S. Capitol being a "false flag" operation as a prelude to a leftist dictatorship -- finally became too wiggy even for G.I. Bo.

Nah.

He's just his own brand of balmy, a unique blend of herbs and spices that makes it impossible for him to work and play well with anyone. That's why he's spent his past 15 years in the Lege mostly playing with himself.

This is the guy who, just last year, followed 11 other Republicans out the door rather than vote on a cap-and-trade bill. When Gov. Kate Brown talked about rounding up the truant lawmakers with the state police, Boquist told State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton to "send bachelors and come heavily armed."

He also addressed Senate President Peter Courtney directly. "If you send the state police to get me, hell’s coming to visit you personally," he said.

For some reason, many people sensed a certain threatening tone in those remarks. It could because Boquist has starred his entire life in a grade B action movie he's written and directed for himself.

After a career in a crack commando unit, he joined the A-Team as a soldier of fortune. Or something like that. You can read all about it in his official bio. Or just ask him. He loves to talk about it.

He's built his entire career on military machismo to the point where he's the only member of the Legislature who can swagger while sitting down. Well, that's not quite fair.

Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, swaggers pretty well too -- showing up at virtual committee meetings with a military base superimposed in the background. Sigh. Boys and their toys. Still, Evans hasn't gone on record threatening to widow anyone.

Confronted with his remarks, Boquist realized Real Men don't accept responsibility or consequences. He promptly sued Courtney and other legislative leaders for having the temerity to feel threatened and placing restrictions on his access to the State Capitol.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane ruled in June that Boquist's words were "those of a bully on the playground" and that the senator had been disciplined for perceived threats, not political viewpoints.

McShane added Boquist "seems to overlook the fact that he sounds more like a character out of a Clint Eastwood movie than he does Mother Teresa."

That goes too far. A few Clint Eastwood movies are actually worth watching. (Who can sit through "The Bridges of Madison County" without a box of tissue? And Clyde the orangutan deserved an Oscar for "Every Which Way But Loose.")

Boquist is more Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme with a dash of Dolph Lundgren for comic relief.

Our political folklore is the richer for it.

However, it's no wonder Boquist feels estranged from almost everyone. The man is the anti-Dale Carnegie as he tromps about the political landscape losing friends and influencing people ... to walk in the opposite direction.

Even his new compatriots at the Independent Party of Oregon want you to know he may have joined their club, but they don't hang out with him at the malt shop.

"With regard to the Oregon State troopers and various other inflammatory rhetoric, those things don’t align with our party’s values," Sal Peralta, the Independent Party's secretary, told the McMinnville News-Register.

Boquist also doesn't hold with the party's stance on environmental issues, the same sort of environmental issues that led to him threaten troopers in the first place.

Perhaps Boquist should just be unaffiliated until U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, and her confederates can start the Whack-a-Doodle Dandy Party. Unfortunately, the majority of the Oregon Republican Party would likely save up their box tops to join as well -- if only to get the super-secret QAnon decoder ring.

Then Boquist would have to leave again. It's a vicious cycle.

At least Boquist keeps us entertained, which I guess is all conservatives can do these days in lieu of actually doing their jobs. And Boquist is definitely a hoot, as seen in his email response to the News-Register (my old paper) about him changing dance partners.

"You represent another corporate special interest owned by the Bladines," he wrote to reporter Dora Totoian, lining her pockets on half-time pay. "If they have a concern about a bill their lobbyist is not conveying, please let me know."

Really? The Corporate Media card? Boquist should check his playbook. Conservatives talk about the Liberal Media. Only liberals decry the Corporate Media. Get it right.

By the way, the vast Bladine empire covers a printing press, small-town newspaper and a couple of specialty publications. Ewing Oil, it's not. Spending a political career defending plutocratic interests and then picking on a small-town family business makes you look like a ... a... what's the word?

Bully. That's it. Thanks, Judge McShane.

And no matter what flag he flies under, Boquist is still a bully. And still nuts.

Oregon Republicans want to you do know that former President Donald Trump did not foment insurrection against the United States government with inflammatory rhetoric.

Nonetheless, they apparently think fomenting insurrection against the United States government with inflammatory rhetoric might be a damn fine idea.

The Oregon Republican Party released a resolution Jan. 19 that insists Democrats and a handful of turncoat Republicans want to establish "a dictatorship void of all cherished freedoms and liberties." President Joe Biden apparently plans to help by clamping down on all political political opposition by labeling conservative groups as terrorist organizations and rounding up critics without due process.

"The entire way of life and the entire economic future of Oregon and America is under attack," reads the resolution.

So now is clearly not the time to convict the former president of incitement to insurrection. Surrounded by enemies and traitors out to stomp us all under their Stalinist heel with their wild accusations of inciting people to insurrection, this is a time to listen to reason and calm down.

This whole idea that a conservative mob was whipped into an hysterical frenzy by Trump or anyone else is pure hogwash. Conservatives are famously sober-minded, peaceful and rational folk not given to fits of emotion. Told that Democrats want to take away all their cherished freedoms and liberties, they would stay home and reserve judgment -- at least until after the "Best of Alex Jones" marathon.

There must be another explanation. And there is. Strap yourself in. It's a corker.

"There is growing evidence that the violence at the Capitol was a 'false flag' operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters and all conservative Republicans," according to last week's resolution. (By "growing evidence," by the way, they mean as reported by such nefariously objective news outlets as the Epoch Times.)

You know, for a bunch of "libtards," those Democrats and their co-conspirators really are tricky devils.

Trump apparently played right into their hands, Even before he was elected in 2016, he said over and over the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged. He did his best to keep the electoral process on the up and up, going so far as to extort the president of Ukraine for dirt on Biden.

As the 2020 election loomed, he pre-emptively blamed mail-in ballots and tried to hobble the postal service. When that failed, and he lost to Biden anyway, he insisted the election was stolen -- in defiance of all the facts. He launched some 86 lawsuits to overturn the results, all but one of which failed. He asked, surreptitiously he thought, Georgia election officials to give him the votes he needed to take back the state.

Before Congress met to certify the election results, he told his supporters to come to D.C. for a rally he promised would be "wild." During the rally, he exhorted the crowd to march on the Capitol to overturn the election. Then those evil Democrats unleashed their master plan.

They replaced hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the original crowd and violently attacked the Capitol. This is where it gets truly cunning. They managed to convince hundreds of genuinely conservative seditionists caught on camera to admit to their crimes.

Of course, Oregon Republicans are not advocating armed insurrection against the legally established government. And neither did former President Trump. They just want you to know that you and everything you hold dear is about to be plunged into a merciless dictatorship, and you will likely be rounded up without charges and separated from your family -- like some sort of Latinx refugee under the previous administration. But they don't expect you to do anything about it.

Fortunately, you don't have to. None of this is going to happen. It's all caca. Even if the guy you supported didn't win, this is still America with our cherished freedoms and liberties firmly intact. No one is going to persecute you for your political beliefs -- unless you are one of the 10 Republican senators who voted for impeachment.

Then Oregon Republicans will call you out by name and liken you to Benedict Arnold.

Again, this is just the Oregon GOP defending their Glorious Leader from charges of inciting the insurrection by reliving every paranoid fever dream that incited the insurrection.

The truly sad part of all this is that the Oregon Republican Party once boasted the likes of Mark Hatfield, Tom McCall, Wayne Morris, Vic Atiyeh and Dave Frohnmayer.

Now they might as well call themselves the Tinfoil Hat Brigade. Of course, now is not the time to sow such division. Our nation needs to heal. Republicans can start by getting some serious psychiatric help and heavy medication.

P.S. Since this piece was filed, all 23 Oregon House Republicans issued a statement Jan. 27 against the party's resolution, saying that "there is no credible evidence to support false flag claims."

The statement continued, "Oregon is in crisis. Vaccines are not going to our most vulnerable, our students are still not in a safe classroom setting, main street businesses are in a tailspin, our health data is a mess and here we are, talking about a political party resolution."

Sorry, folks, this is still your dance. And these the ones what brung ya.