#the governor is also bought out by the housing lobby

[idolsgf]

we found a place we really like but of course an offer has already been put in 😖

[thebrewstorian]

Collection Report: McMenamins Brewery Collection, 1983-2015

Oh my gosh, this collection has been in my backlog for YEARS! It has been so long that when my daughter helped with the inventory on the brew sheets she was 11 years-old and couldn't check herself out of summer camp [now she can drive and has taken the SAT], but she could talk with John Richen (brewing manager at the time) about her favorite beer names and things she'd noticed about ingredients.

Go straight to the guide: http://bit.ly/mss_mcmenamins

Learn more about the Oregon brewing industry in my Oregon Encyclopedia article

The McMenamins Brewery Collection is, truly, a gem. We scanned thousands of brew sheets, which is a part of the magic, but I'm also delighted by all the fun ephemera, including a full run of their coasters. I'll also add that the company biography included in this guide is really a love letter to the company, and I thank Fred Eckhardt, John Foyston, and all the other journalists over the past 30 years for recording all the fun quirks about this company.

SUMMARY McMenamins is a family-owned chain of brewpubs, breweries, historic hotels, and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest.

The McMenamins Brewery Collection includes digitized brew sheets, digital images, brochures, coasters, decals, event programs, flyers, newspaper clippings, tap handles, posters, labels, a wooden cask, and a six-pack of Hammerhead beer.

COMPANY BIO

McMenamins is a family-owned chain of brewpubs, breweries, historic hotels, and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest. It was founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, who grew up in Northeast Portland. In 2021, they operated 56 properties, with twelve hotels; dozens of breweries, pubs, and restaurants; movie theaters; spas; music venues; and a coffee roaster, winery, cidery and distillery. Many locations are rehabilitated historical buildings and at least nine are on the National Register of Historic Places. McMenamins only sells its beer in its own pubs, restaurants, hotels, and movie theaters.

Early businesses

Mike and Brian McMenamin both graduated from Oregon State University, Mike with a Political Science degree (1974) and Brian with a Business degree (1980). Mike and two college friends purchased the Produce Row Café, a bar known for all-night, high-stakes poker games, in Portland's warehouse district in 1974 and sold more than 100 types of beer. The building was built in 1951 and opened as a breakfast café for produce dockworkers in 1953; in later years, it was a barbershop. Mike and Brian bought Bogart's Joint, another Portland-area pub on 14th and Flanders. At various points in history, many beer-related activities occurred in this building: Kurt and Rob Widmer brewed in this location, and it was later space occupied by Portland Brewing and Rogue Ales Public House. By 1980, they'd sold Produce Row, Bogart's Joint, and a third tavern, the Stockyard Café.

Mike opened a wine distributorship and Brian opened the McMenamins Pub in Hillsboro. By 1983, Mike’s distributorship had failed, and the brothers decided to try the bar business again. Rather than the smoky, male-dominated taverns common in Portland, they were inspired by the community hubs they’d seen in Europe. They bought the Fat Little Rooster tavern on Southeast Hawthorne and renamed it the Barley Mill Pub; in addition to a varied beer selection, the pub was known for Grateful Dead memorabilia and anniversary parties. The namesake “barley mill,” which can still be found onsite, was used by Chuck Coury at Cartwright Brewing Co., Portland’s first post-Prohibition brewery. It was originally a kitty litter grinder but is now used annually to grind the grain for anniversary ales.

One major event that impacted the trajectory of the beer industry in Oregon in the 1980s was legislation that married production and sales. Fred Bowman and Art Larrance (Portland Brewing), Dick and Nancy Ponzis (BridgePort Brewing) and their brewer Karl Ockert, Kurt and Rob Widmer (Widmer Brothers Brewing), and the McMenamins lobbied to legalize on-site sales. On July 13, 1985, Governor Vic Atiyeh signed Senate Bill 813, the “Brewpub Bill,” into law. It allowed brewers to make and sell beer on the same premises, key for increasing revenue and gaining new customers.

First brewpubs

The McMenamins took advantage of the new law, and by the early 1990s had opened several brewpubs, each with its own small brewing system attached. They opened the Hillsdale Brewery and Public House October 31, 1985 in the Southwest Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale. Not only was it their first brewery, it was also the first brewpub in Oregon since Prohibition. Known as “Captain Neon's Fermentation Chamber,” a nod to Mike McMenamin’s nickname, the first several batches of beer were brewed with old Tillamook dairy equipment. On October 25, 1985, Hillsdale's first brewer Ron Wolf, who had previously worked at Anchor Steam, brewed the first beer in a small copper kettle and called it "Hillsdale Ale.” It fell loosely into the “Special Bitter” classification of beer styles and was a malt extract brew. Hillsdale Ale was brewed 29 times at the Hillsdale location and 14 times at Cornelius Pass Roadhouse between 10/25/1985 and 11/28/1986. In the first year, several brewers moved through the facility and made Hillsdale Ale, including Ron Wolf (who only brewed 13 batches before leaving), Conrad Santos (who replaced Wolf as brew master), Mike McMenamin, Brian McMenamin, John Harris, Scott Barrow, and Alex Farnham (the company’s first female brewer).

In 1986, they purchased a 125-year-old farmhouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, and turned it into the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Later that same year, they opened the Lighthouse Brewpub in Lincoln City. The Fulton Pub and Brewery opened in Portland in June 1988 and the Highland Pub and Brewery opened in Gresham in July 1988.

Eventually, 27 breweries would operate under the McMenamins umbrella and they became a training ground for new brewers, many of whom have gone on to found breweries of their own. Alumni include John Harris (Hillsdale, Cornelius Pass Roadhouse), Jack Harris (Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, Lighthouse Brewery), Jason McAdam (Edgefield, Hillsdale, Crystal Ballroom), Alex McGaw (Fulton, Crystal Ballroom), Ben Nehrling and Kevin Lee (Edgefield, Highland, Kennedy School), and Mark Goodwin (Old Church, Crystal Ballroom).

In addition to serving beer at their brewpubs, the company also hosted festivals, concerts, and other public programming events at their properties, including Dad Watson’s Brew Fest, Edgefield Brew Fest, Highland Pub and Brewery Eurofest, Hillsdale Brew Fest, Lighthouse Brew Fest, Mid-Valley Brew Fest, and the Thompson Barley Cup.

Beer and Other Beverages

The McMenamins’ beers could be unsettling to brewing traditionalists; they used ingredients like apples, spices, and candy bars, as well as lesser used malts like Chocolate and Crystal. They introduced fruit beers to Oregon and early batches featured blackberries from the Hillsdale brewpub parking lot. Hand in hand with their experimentation, McMenamins developed three core beers that are brewed at all their breweries. Terminator Stout (1985) is a dark, English-style brew; Ruby (1986) is a light, raspberry-flavored beer; and Hammer Head (1986) is a classic Northwest Pale Ale. Ruby and Hammerhead are iconic company characters as well; artist Lyle Hehn created Ruby Witch and Hammerhead, and both are staples of murals, posters, and coasters.

Terminator Stout made its debut in 1985 at the Hillsdale Brewery & Public House as the 12th beer brewed. Old Hammerhead, as the strong ale was first called, was brewed January 25, 1986 and was the 37th brew and made with malt extract. John Harris, who later created Mirror Pond for Deschutes Brewery, was the first to make Hammerhead an “all-grain” beer. Harris was hired in 1987, and when they transitioned away from extract brewing, he decided to rewrite the Hammerhead recipe; besides changed the grain, he also added more hops. Ruby, originally called “Ruby Tuesday” before the food chain objected, was first brewed in 1986 and used 42 pounds of pureed Oregon raspberries.

The company made more than beer. They planted 3 acres of Pinot Gris fruit in 1990 and looked to regional vineyards for additional grapes; McMenamins Edgefield Winery was established in 1992 and began by making Rhone-style wines, including grenache and viognier. The Edgefield Winery produces 20 different white, rosé, dessert, and sparkling wines and supplies 350 tons of wine to McMenamins pubs. Also in 1992, and predating the boom by more than 20 years, McMenamins started making cider at the winery and in 2018 sold as much cider by volume as wine.

In 1995, they began experiments with distillation and made brandy under contract by Carneros Alembic, a California distillery owned by Remy-Martin. In 1997, they built their first distillery in an old root vegetable storage barn on the Edgefield property. Their most popular whiskey is Hogshead, but they make several others, including Money Puzzle, which is dry hopped with Teamaker hops (which has 0 IBUs) and is sweetened with blackberry honey harvest from hives on their property.

Historic preservation

The brothers’ love of historic structures directed business growth and community involvement, and preserving important historical buildings is integral to their business. When the McMenamins started, they couldn’t afford new construction, so they purchased old buildings, which came with stories. They employ a small staff of historians to research and document the history, and those are in turn incorporated into each property’s art, murals, menus, place names, and architectural details.

In 1987, the company opened its first theater, the Mission Theater Pub, in downtown Portland. The converted 1890s Swedish Tabernacle, a church-turned-union hall, was also the state's first theater pub. In 1991, McMenamins turned a 1927 art deco theater that was slated for demolition into a second pub and movie house. These businesses were significant and ushered in a new way to watch movies with beer and food.

In 1987, the brothers purchased Edgefield, which was built in 1911 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They paid $560,000 and invested another $2.5 million to transform the farm's 80-year-old buildings into a multi-utility complex. Edgefield was once the Multnomah County Poor Farm, a self-sufficient facility with a meatpacking plant, power station, large rooming house, and infirmary. When the remodeled Edgefield Manor opened in 1991, the meatpacking plant was a brewery, power station a pub with a movie theater, infirmary a winery, and rooming house a 100-room hotel. There was also a meeting space, catering operation, restaurant called the Black Rabbit, herb and flower gardens, four liquor and cigar bars, distillery, golf course, and amphitheater. One of the more outstanding features of Edgefield, and something that would become the McMenamins' signature, was the extensive art installations created by local artists. Art popped up in surprising places throughout the complex (on ceilings, exposed heating pipes, eaves, fuse boxes) and showed local subjects (former residents, Northwest Indians, 19th-century brewers, the Columbia River Gorge). Within a few years, the company had a set of 12 freelance artists ready to work on new property acquisitions. Edgefield brewery is still the company's largest property.

In 1997, they purchased the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, which had been vacant for 30 years, and filled it with murals depicting the building's history, a brewpub, and a bar. The building was famous for its swaying dance floor, which sat on ball bearings. The Crystal Hotel was built in 1911 and became a dance hall and concert facility that hosted national music acts. Around the same time, they partnered with the Portland Development Commission and invested $4.5 million to remodel the Kennedy Elementary School. What was once a boarded-up building was transformed into a 35-room multi-use hotel with an onsite brewery, restaurant and four bars, a movie theater, a jazz hall, cigar bar, and soaking pool.

In 1999, the McMenamins opened McMenamins Hotel Oregon in downtown McMinnville, Oregon. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and had been a hotel since its first two stories were erected in 1905; five years later, two more floors were added. In 1932, the hotel was renamed Hotel Oregon. In addition to renovating guest rooms, the McMenamins renovation added two bars and an art gallery with old photographs and new paintings that showed the history of the hotel and McMinnville.

Many property renovations followed. In 2000, they opened the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon, which was formerly a Masonic home built in 1922. In 2001, they opened the 27 room Olympic Club Hotel and Theater, which was an expansion of the McMenamins Olympic Club Pub in downtown Centralia, Washington. The original Oxford Hotel was built in 1908 and Olympic Club was built in 1913. In 2003, they reopened the Rock Creek Tavern in Hillsboro, Oregon, which they had purchased in 1995 when the original tavern burned down. In 2016, the Anderson School in Bothell, Washington opened. The original Anderson School was built in 1931 and opened in 1936. In April of 2018, McMenamins opened their latest project, the Kalama Harbor Lodge in Kalama, Washington. Other properties include the White Eagle Saloon & Hotel in Portland, which was built in 1905; Boon’s Treasury in Salem, built in the 1860s; and Old St. Francis School in Bend, which opened in 1936.

ARCHIVAL COLLECTION INFORMATION The brew sheets and some event materials were provided to the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2015 and 2016 for digitization. The original items have been retained by McMenamins.

In addition to the brewery activity and the various beers released by McMenamins, this collection also contains information on events organized by the company, such as homebrew competitions and festivals. The cask held in the collection was used at the Oak Hills Pub and is decorated with a pen drawing created by brewer Chris Haslett. The photographs show art installation, artists, and property renovation.

The brew sheets and some event materials were provided to the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2015 and 2016 for digitization. The original items were retained by McMenamins.

Physical and electronic records are available for use in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center reading room.

[elopez7228]

Scenic Route 10/47

Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774 

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

Rey woke up cold and aching. It hurt everywhere—her neck, her back, her feet. The back of the car was certainly large enough to sleep in, but it had been an unrestful sleep. Every little thing had made her jump last night. Every headlight that zoomed by was the blonde woman. Every torchlight flitting across the alleys of the campground was looking for her. Every time the dog barked, someone was surely approaching.

She was tired, sore, and already contemplating defeat. She had left London to escape depression. But instead of a sunglasses-and-cocktails vacation, she had found herself in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, 7,500 kilometers away from home. And top it off, she was being chased by a strange woman. Her luck was six feet under and her paranoia through the roof.

She wished that Leia Skywalker (and even Rose to a certain extent) had warned her about what she was getting herself into because she had no clue what to do now. Last night she had seriously imagined leaving the car in a garage somewhere and taking a flight from Jackson Hole to San Francisco. Ciao, stalkers and bizarre favors.

But what about BB8? Rey had taken responsibility of her. Taking her on a flight would require veterinary clearance, a doggie carrier, and all sorts of other complications that she had neither the energy nor the means for.

Her gut feeling told her that this setup had been deliberate on Leia’s part. With a dog in tow, her safest bet was by driving that car back. Unless she could abandon the dog in the woods somewhere...

BB8 chose that exact moment to nuzzle against her, begging for affection.

“You were in the loop about this, weren’t you?” sighed Rey as she scratched the dog between the ears. “You’re the dog equivalent of a honey trap, you conniving little traitor.”

But seriously—it was just a dog, not a KGB spy. She would be fine...

Rey got out of the car and stretched. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and then look for some breakfast.”

She dug out the box of cookies she bought last night and ate one, occasionally giving bits and pieces to BB8 after making sure they were chocolate-free. She let BB roam free this time, sensing that she wouldn’t try to escape from now on.

Tent folded and loaded into the car, Rey packed the rest of her things. BB8 chased an errant squirrel, helped herself to some treats, and took care of business. Rey watched the dog play in the tall grass as she continued checking her phone for messages. A while ago she had even left a voice message to Ben.

Rey here, British and susceptible. Sorry for my reaction the other day, my life is complicated. I saw your band was passing through Jackson Hole on the 5th of July. I’m in the neighborhood, I might come around. Bye.

That message would likely cost her dearly. How was she going to justify contacting Ben again after the scene she had caused at the Four Seasons? To be honest with herself, she hadn’t seen an alternative last night, sitting there on the cold ground. Her family and friends were thousands of kilometers away. Leia Skywalker had disappeared on her.

Whether she liked it or not, Ben Solo was the only person she had maintained contact with since landing, and the only person who had really done her any good without expecting anything in return. She hoped she wasn’t bothering him.

To be fair he had also called her ex and meddled in her personal life when he barely knew her, but due to the circumstances she tried her best to forgive him for that. She had wanted to turn the page on that particular incident and banish Ben Solo from her thoughts forever—before that mysterious blonde woman showed up.

Since then Rey had fretted about traveling alone, with no one to turn to in times of trouble. It’s not like she needed a protector. She just needed a friend, if only for the comfort of knowing that she wasn’t alone. That several hundred kilometers down the road, there would be someone on the other end of the line if she ran into a problem. But it was 7 AM and he hadn’t answered.

In his defense, Rey had texted him around midnight. Maybe he just hadn’t seen it yet.

“All aboard, BB8!”

The dog jumped into the back seat and started chewing methodically on her rubber duckie. The resulting (absurdly loud) squeaking noises made Rey smile.

Hitting the road again, Rey regretted not taking a bathroom break or a shower, or using the washing machines available at the entrance of the campsite. She reeked of dog, sweat, and old car. Strangely enough, it made her laugh. The woman Finn had known had always been a belle, sporting manicured nails and designer perfume. If only he could see her now—he would hardly recognize her.

Come to think of it, thinking about Finn no longer made her balk. Was she simply too tried to be angry? She was just starting down a particularly sharp turn when her phone vibrated. It took every ounce of her willpower not to stop in the middle of the highway to read that text. The Millenium Falcon reached Jackson Hole a few minutes later, and she parked in central town before scrambling for her phone.

Hello, Brit. I see you’ve found my number, Rey. I’m settling in at Jackson H this morning. I’m staying at the Lodge, 80 Scott Lane. I’m free should you want to get coffee sometime—let me know.

It was barely a kilometer away, she could practically walk there. But once again she thought about the blonde trying to break into her car. She would feel much safer parking in the security of a private hotel garage. It only took a few minutes to find the place, a magnificent Swiss chalet complete with exposed beams and stonework. She spotted the infamous black pickup in the parking area and stationed the Millennium Falcon right next to it.

Hello Ben, I found the Lodge. Still up for coffee?

His response was immediate:

You’ll find me in the lobby.

Leia rolled her eyes when another TSA agent approached her as she waited near the baggage claim at Sacramento International Airport. She had been expecting it, but the sheer number of public servants under the First Order’s thumb still managed to surprised her. From the minute she had left the house she had been coincidentally stopped at every traffic checkpoint possible. It was chilling to realize that this sprawling private organization was in some ways above the law.

She had thought about giving up more than once.

What could she do at this age, with only her brother and a handful of rebels behind her? They were up against a massive corporate empire that had the feds in their pocket. But Leia Skywalker had fought her entire life. For the military, for her honor, for the love of her husband, for her son’s education, for minorities’ rights, and for the weary and downtrodden underdogs. Therein lied her definition of the brave: those who defended the defenseless. She could never stop doing that. Leia knew that nothing short of her death would result in her silence.

Leia let the man search her without protest—like every other officer before him. She was wearing a long charcoal dress and heavy ornate bangles of both wrists. Her hair was pinned up in an elaborate braided chignon that added to her height. In her left hand, she carried a cane. It was less for walking and more for leaning on after spending long hours on her feet.

Like every other time, they let her go. He gave her suitcase back after failing to find anything suspicious—the lining was starting to wear. The object they were so eagerly looking for was no longer  in her possession. She smiled knowingly. Knowing that thousands of miles away, an English tourist was on her way.

Leia was greeted by a friendly face as she crossed the line into Arrivals. Her lawyer, Amilyn Holdo. Amilyn was a sixty-something daredevil, her greying hair dyed a striking violet. She was wearing a knee-length taupe skirt suit and violet pumps. Her smile was all dimples. She greeted Leai warmly and grabbed her suitcase.

“How are you, Leia? It sure took you a while—did they hold you up?”

“Like always, Amilyn. My health isn’t what it used to be and they wouldn’t let me go through the baggage claim. Every damn time. I’m forced to just ignore it these days. How’s the mission going?”

“We’ll discuss it in my office, you never know who’s listening. The meeting with Governor Valorum’s staff is in three hours, that gives us some time to plan.” Guiding Leia by the hand, she made her way to the taxi pickup zone.

The law offices of Amilyn Holdo were rather modest. Far from the ornate, high-vaulted, glass and steel monoliths that symbolized the American legal system in popular imagination. A room with a single window and wall to wall bookshelves laden with books and dossiers. Box after box of case files on every available surface, overflowing with papers, binders, envelopes, and notebooks with handwritten memos scrawled on every last page.

Amilyn moved a box stacked on a chair to make space for Leia to sit down. She poured a glass of water for her guest, and rummaged through a small cabinet. She handed Leia a hefty violet dossier held closed by a single strap. “FORCE America: First Order Resource and Capital Extraction”.

All traces of humor gone, the lawyer leaned forward and folded her fingers below her chin. “Tell me everything. Last I heard, you had found someone new?”

“Yes. Rose discovered the perfect candidate. It’s not like we could do it ourselves. We couldn’t use email or the postal service. And we would be spotted from a mile away if we did it in-person. I had to delegate.”

“But who is this girl? How do you know she’s not some FORCE spy?”

“Rose and Paige did a background check, it only took a few hours to clear her. We’re quite certain she’s just a broke tourist. It’s perfect really, FORCE was expecting an activist type, and there’s no way they can stop every single tourist from Colorado to California.”

Amilyn pursed her lips, visibly still unconvinced. “But you gave her the Falcon. Surely it will attract unwanted attention?”

Leia smiled. “They can take the Falcon apart piece by piece is they want, they won’t find a thing.”

“I wish I was confident about this,” she sighed. “This whole operation hinges on the element of surprise. If FORCE finds those documents before the public, we’re back to square one. And this time we won’t get a head start.”

She was interrupted when Leia placed a hand on hers, a comforting gesture. “Hope is like the sun, if you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night. Amilyn, this is the culmination of years of hard work. Have a little faith, they won’t win this time.”

“I hope you’re right, if we fail we won’t be able to recover and—“

“Trust me, Amilyn. This girl is very capable.”

The lawyer smiled begrudgingly, not quite uplifted by her client’s optimism. She chewed on the inside of her cheek in silence, avoiding Leia’s eyes.

“What’s eating you, Amy?”

“It’s—Kylo Ren.”

Leia’s smile faltered. Her face fell as she took a sip of water. “What about him?”

“You know he’s been tracking the Tico sisters. Ironically, that means they can keep tabs on him too...but it seems he left town a few days ago. Almost exactly the same time as the girls, Connix, Milham and the others.”

“FORCE already knew we were on the move. We planned for that. The more we scatter our agents, the more resources they spend chasing diversions instead of cracking our strategy,” Leia responded, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Yes, I know. But Kylo has Snoke’s ear, and Hux’s attention. He knows the inner workings of our organization, he knows you and your brother. And he’s deeply involved with the Order. Are you sure he won’t see this coming?”

Leia’s shoulders sagged, as if burdened by the weight of her grief. She took a deep breath, pausing to find the right words. “Kylo is a brilliant boy. He was swayed by material wealth and prestige. He’ll understand one day. I don’t think he would dare to come after me himself.”

“And you?” Amilyn asked, “If we win, they’ll lose everything. Are you willing to put your own son in prison?”

[apparently-im-a-hufflepuff]

Pedro Albizu Campos

An essay I wrote in 8th grade

    I was in the lobby, I had just bought some pastéles from the hotel restaurant. It was a very sunny day and many rich tourists were leaving to go to the beach. Just as I was about to take a bite of my pastél, all the chatter around me stopped. I turned to look at the the door and in walked two very important men. One had lost the election for Puerto Rican Senate, and the other one was Colonel E. Francis Riggs, he had come when the U.S invaded. Once they had sat down, the people around me started their conversations again. I could only understand some of what they were talking about, but I could tell they were speaking English. It sounded like they were having a normal conversation. They were talking about things like the weather. Then their conversation seemed to get more serious. I could understand they were talking about the position for senate. Colonel Riggs said that he would help the other man win the senate position next time, if he stopped helping with The Sugar Cane Strike. In response Don Pedro, El Maestro, stood up and told him “Puerto Rico is not for sale, at least not by me.” and then he left.

Pedro Albizu Campos was the president of the Puerto Rican National Party from 1930 - 1965. Albizu Campos was considered a hero to Puerto Ricans because he was fighting for their independence. He was considered a terrorist to the U.S because the National Party was using violent protests. He tried to gain Puerto Rican independence by protesting and traveling around South America and the Caribbean and spreading news about Puerto Rico.

Pedro Albizu Campos was born September 12, 1891 in Tenerías de Ponce, Puerto Rico. His father, Alejandro “El Vizcaíno” Albizu Romero, never paid attention to him. His mother, Juliana Campos, was suicidal. She tried to drown both of them in Río Bucaná multiple times. Later, when he was 4 years old, she tried to walk across the river and drown. His mom had drowned and his dad wasn’t around.  Being orphaned at 4 he ran around Puerto Rico barefoot until his aunt adopted him. When he was 7 years old the U.S invaded Puerto Rico. General Miles was one of the first Americans to come to Puerto Rico after the U.S had invaded. He had just finished his speech about how Puerto Rico was part of the U.S. Then 7 year old Pedro Albizu Campos, who couldn’t understand English yet, shouted “¡Que viva Puerto Rico!” 

Pedro Albizu Campos didn’t go to school until he was 12 years old. Even though he started school late, he finished the first 8 grades in 4 ½ years. By the time he was in high school he had caught up with his original grade. He the graduated from Ponce High School in 2 years with a 96% average. He was at the top of his class. He was fluent in many languages. By the time he graduated from college he was fluent in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek.

In 1912, Albizu Campos was accepted into the University Of Vermont. There he studied chemistry. After a year he transferred to Harvard. While at Harvard he taught Spanish at Walpole High School and tutored many other students in chemistry, French and Spanish. He also worked as a translator and was a writer for the Christian Science Monitor. He also met Laura Menses, who was a Quechua Native American from Peru, at Harvard and proposed to her on their third date. Later they had 3 kids; Pedro, Rosa Emilia, and Laura. He was supposed to be the valedictorian of his graduating class at Harvard, but his professors delayed his exams so that he couldn’t graduate on time or give his speech. They delayed his exams because he was going to be the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard, and they didn’t want him to be valedictorian because of his background. During World War I he joined the U.S Army’s Infantry Branch. He was assigned to the 375th Infantry Regiment and became the 2nd Lieutenant. In 1918 he was honorably discharged from the military. He returned to Harvard in 1919 and studied law, literature, philosophy, chemical engineering and military science.

After graduating from Harvard a second time, he was offered many jobs; a clerkship with the U.S Supreme Court, a diplomatic post at the U.S embassy in Mexico, Judgeship in Yauco, Puerto Rico, and an executive position with a U.S corporation. Instead he moved back to Puerto Rico and bought a house in a poor barrio, so he could would know about all the problems regular people had. He joined the Union Party of Puerto Rico and then left in 1921 to join the Puerto Rican National Party. In 1924 he became the vice-president and in 1930 he became the president of the National Party. The National Party wanted all the Puerto Rican land and banks to be controlled by Puerto Rico. They also wanted Spanish to be the first language in the schools and didn’t want to make any payments to the U.S. In 1932 he tried to run for Puerto Rican Senate, but he only got 5,257 votes and lost. After he lost the election, he got many death threats, so he took his family to Peru to keep them safe. Then he traveled through South and Central America, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. In Cuba he created “National Junta Por Independencia De Puerto Rico” (National Board For The Independence Of Puerto Rico).

By 1934, the U.S owned most of Puerto Rico’s sugar cane and coffee farms. Since the U.S owned the farm,s the workers didn’t get paid much money. Albizu Campos led the strike to get the workers more money. During the strike he helped create the Ascoiación De Trabajadores De Puerto Rico (The Workers Association Of Puerto Rico). He then caught the attention of Colonel E. Francis Riggs, who told him that he’d help him win the spot for Senate next time, if he stopped helping with the strike. Colonel Riggs also told Albizu Campos that if he didn’t take stop, he’d take his offer to Luis Muñoz Marin. In response Albizu Campos told him “Puerto Rico is not for sale, at least not by me.” Muñoz Marin ended up winning the spot for Senate. Later he created the Cadets of the Republic, which was a youth nationalist party. He also came to be called Don Pedro or El Maestro (The Teacher). 

Albizu Campos was sent to jail many times during his life. He was found guilty for “conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.” He was sentenced for 10 years and was sent to a jail in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1950 there was a Nationalist attack on a police station and they tried to assassinate President Harry Truman. Albizu Campos was found guilty, even though he wasn’t there, for attempted murder and illegal use of arms. Many people in Puerto Rico protested in response to him getting arrested. The protests led to the Ponce Massacre where the police shot and killed 21 Puerto Ricans including a 53 year old and a 7 year old girl. The U.S also created a law called La Ley De La Mordaza. According to the law Puerto Ricans couldn’t display their flag or sing patriotic songs. Later he was arrested again because two nationalists, Elias Beauchamp and Hiram Rosado, assassinated a police chief. Later Beauchamp and Rosado were killed and it became known as the Piedras (stones) Massacre. In 1950 there were uprisings in towns around Puerto Rico. People were protesting Albizu Campos’s arrest. Blanca Canales, who was 24 years old, led an attack on the governor's mansion in San Juan. Don Pedro was sentenced for 80 years, but in 1953 Governor Luis Muñoz Marin pardoned him. Later an independence group assaulted The Blair House  in Washington D.C and he was arrested again. 

While in jail Albizu campos was tortured with radiation. He was put into Total Body Irradiation (TBI) for five years. He was getting burns, headaches, sores and was feeling sick from the radiation. The prison guards called him “El Rey De Las Toallas” (The King Of Towels) because the only way for him to lessen the pain was to be wrapped in damp towels. The guards put two prisoners in his cell with him and they were getting burns and headaches just by being close to him. Whenever the U.S was questioned about it, they told people that he was crazy. An Argentine newspaper called Verdad (true) had a headline that said “The Apostle Of Puerto Rican Liberty Is Slowly Being Murdered In Jail By Means Of Electronic Rays.” He was tortured in prison until March 27, 1956 when he had cerebral thrombosis and fell into a coma. The prison guards waited two days before taking him to the hospital. He was taken to San Juan Presbyterian Hospital. While there the President Of The Cuban Cancer Association confirmed that he had been exposed to radiation. For the last nine years of his life he couldn’t walk or talk and the right side of his body was paralyzed. He died April 21, 1965 and was buried in the Old San Juan Cemetery.

Pedro Albizu Campos came to be known by many names like Don Pedro, El Maestro and he was also sometimes called the Puerto Rican Malcolm X. He spent most of his life fighting for Puerto Rican freedom. No matter how hard he tried Puerto Rico is still part of the U.S. Even though he didn’t gain the freedom he wanted, he still made an impact on many places. In Ponce, Puerto Rico, there is a statue of him in Pedro Albizu Campos Park. In New York City, Campos Plaza was named after him. In Paseo Boricua, Chicago, in Humboldt Park there is also a statue of him.

After his death the FBI files about the radiation were declassified. People found out that the U.S was torturing not only Albizu Campos, but many other Puerto Ricans. Some Puerto Ricans still feel like they don’t have as many rights as continental Americans. The U.S says that they are waiting for the island to figure out whether the want to be part of it or not. 

Many places in Puerto Rico celebrate Albizu Campos’s birthday. The first time his birthday was celebrated was in Ponce 40 years ago. Now many places in Puerto Rico celebrate his birthday, even though most people don’t know what he did. Some famous people have also tried to spread his message. René Pérez, from the band Calle 13, is one of those people. Some other people are Andres Jimenez and El Jibaro, they wrote a song called Pedro Albizu Campos.

In conclusion Pedro Albizu Campos was a hero to many Puerto Ricans. He turned down many jobs in the U.S so that he could fight for independence. He was also arrested multiple times. Sometimes he wasn’t even there for the event that caused his arrest. He stood up for what he believed in and he was taking a stand until he died on April 24, 1965. If Albizu Campos had never took a stand the world today probably wouldn’t be much different. Puerto Rico is still part of the U.S and many people don’t know who he is. He is also still considered a terrorist to the the U.S, which means people probably won’t be learning about him in schools.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

More than half of the Democratic field crowded into San Francisco this past weekend for the California Democratic Convention, where they tried to stand out in the crowded primary as the clock ticks away for the candidates to qualify for the first debates.

And with less than a week for candidates to hit the threshold to make the debate stage, the Democratic National Committee announced a rule change which leaves Montana Gov. Steve Bullock on the outside looking in. Bullock had qualified for the first debates, in Miami at the end of June, based on polling, but the DNC said on Thursday that two ABC News/Washington Post polls — one of which had put Bullock over the top — would no longer be counted. As of Thursday afternoon, that left 20 candidates who had met thresholds via polling and/or fundraising.

Meanwhile, the mass shooting in Virginia Beach last week brought the issue of gun violence to the fore, and former Vice President Joe Biden seemingly set himself apart from the rest of the crowd when he said he supported the Hyde amendment, which blocks federal funding of abortions. On Thursday, however, he appeared to reverse that position.

Here’s the weekly candidate roundup:

May 31-June 6, 2019

Michael Bennet (D)

Bennet met the polling criteria to participate in the first Democratic debate scheduled to take place later this month in Miami. He garnered 1 percent in a national CNN poll on Tuesday, which is the third qualifying poll he has reached 1 percent in.

In the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting in Virginia Beach, Bennet told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” that, “I think the president can make a difference. The House of Representatives has passed background checks to close the internet loophole. This person bought the guns lawfully as we know. Every single fact pattern will be different. We should pass those background checks — 90 percent of Americans support it.”

The Colorado senator spent the weekend campaigning in South Carolina while many of his fellow 2020 rivals were at the California Democratic Convention.

Joe Biden (D)

Biden broke from the other 2020 candidate when his campaign announced that he supports the Hyde Amendment, but he would be open to repealing it. Then, on Thursday, he said that he no longer supported the policy. “I’ve been working through the final details of my health care plan like others in this race and I’ve been struggling with the problems that Hyde now presents,” he said.

The Hyde Amendment was first passed in 1976, three years after the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. It encoded abortion as a protected right, but stipulating that federal funding could not be used to pay for abortions. A few years later, Congress made an exemption for cases in which there was a threat to the patient’s life. An exemption for cases of rape or incest was added in the early 1990s. The law largely affects patients who are on Medicaid, meaning low-income patients have to pay for an abortion out-of-pocket. Many of the other candidates responded by calling for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

Biden also released a $5 trillion climate plan which calls for net zero emission of carbon pollution in the U.S. by 2050. The plan includes $1.7 trillion in federal spending over 10 years; the rest of the spending would come from the private sector.

Cory Booker (D)

The New Jersey senator unveiled a plan to make housing more affordable by offering a tax credit to people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. According to researchers at Columbia University, the refundable renters’ credit would benefit more than 57 million people — including 17 million children — and lift 9.4 million Americans out of poverty.

Booker’s housing plan also includes measures to expand access to legal counsel for tenants facing eviction, reform restrictive zoning laws, build more affordable housing units and combat homelessness through funding grants.

At the California Democratic Convention over the weekend, Booker also addressed the issue of gun violence.

“We are seeing the normalization of mass murder in our country,” Booker said. “It is time that we come together and stand together and take the fight to the NRA and the corporate gun lobby like we have never seen before. We can lead that fight and we can win.”

Steve Bullock (D)

On Wednesday, Bullock announced the first official policy of his presidential campaign, designed to keep foreign money out of U.S. elections. His “Check the Box” proposal would require all 501(c)(4) groups that aren’t required to disclose any of their donors and Super PACs to “check a box” saying that they are not taking money from foreign actors. Lying “will carry the penalty of perjury,” according to Bullock’s policy.

In a Des Moines Register op-ed, the Montana governor wrote, “Trump’s dark money loophole is telling these secretive groups that they don’t even have to disclose the source of their funding to the IRS. It opens the door not only to significantly more spending by corporations and wealthy donors, but also to potential spending by foreign entities.”

Pete Buttigieg (D)

During a MSNBC Town Hall on Monday, Buttigieg said he “would not have applied that pressure” for Sen. Al Franken to have resigned in 2017 over sexual harassment allegations, without first learning more about the claims.

“I think it was his decision to make” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said. “But I think the way that we basically held him to a higher standard than the GOP does their people has been used against us.”

At the California Democratic Convention, Buttigieg leaned into his position as a Washington outsider and said the country needs “something completely different.”

“Why not a middle-class millennial mayor with a track record in the industrial Midwest? Why not a mayor at a time when we need Washington to look more like our best run cities and towns, not the other way around? And why not someone who represents a new generation of leadership?” the 37-year-old mayor said.

Julian Castro (D)

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary unveiled a sweeping police reform plan Monday, aiming to prevent officer-involved shootings, increase transparency and end “police militarization.”

“Even though we have some great police officers out there, and I know that because I served as mayor of San Antonio, this is not a case of just a few bad apples,” Castro said on CNN. “The system is broken.”

Included in the proposal are restrictions on the use of deadly force, the increased adoption of technology such as body cameras, an end to stop-and-frisk tactics and expanded bias training.

Bill de Blasio (D)

De Blasio earned his first union endorsement since launching his presidential campaign. The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council announced their support on Wednesday and even said they would campaign for the New York City mayor in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

John Delaney (D)

Delaney criticized the DNC guidelines which include a 65,000 donor threshold as one criteria to qualify for the presidential debates. He argued that the criteria leaves voters excluded from the process.

“I don’t think we should have a donor standard, I absolutely don’t think the Democratic Party should be about money. Fifty percent of the American people can’t afford basic necessities, I’m running for those people,” he said on MSNBC.

On health care, the former congressman from Maryland was aggressively booed at the California Democratic Convention for denouncing Medicare for all as “bad policy.” His proposed health care plan would keep private insurance as an option.Jeff Chiu/AP

After New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Delaney’s health care plan over Twitter, urging the candidate to “sashay away,” Delaney responded by asking her to a debate, but Ocasio-Cortez declined.

“I think that’s too bad because I think health care is the most important issue facing the American people and she obviously has an issue with my plan, based on that she tweeted that thing at me, and I would have loved to debate it because I think these things should be a battle of ideas,” Delaney said in a phone interview with ABC News.

Tulsi Gabbard (D)

The Hawaii congresswoman reacted to the House passing the “DREAM and Promise Act” which would protect young undocumented immigrants and immigrants with temporary status who were once covered by the Obama-era DACA program. She said on Fox News, “The hyper-partisanship around this issue has gotten in the way of delivering a real solution. This legislation and finding a solution for these Dreamers is something that has had bipartisan support.”

Kirsten Gillibrand (D)

Gillibrand released a plan to legalize marijuana, which called for expunging all non-violent marijuana convictions. Gillibrand said that under her plan, tax revenue from recreational marijuana would be put “towards programs that help repair the damage done by the War on Drugs.”

The New York senator also participated in a town hall on Fox News, where she attacked the network for its coverage of abortion. Gillibrand was asked about her position on “late-term abortion” and she began her response by reiterating her stand that “when it comes to women’s reproductive freedom, it should be a woman’s decision.” She then criticized Fox News for creating “a false narrative” on the issue.

Gillibrand was cut off by moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who said, “Senator, I just want to say we’ve brought you here for an hour.”

Wallace continued, “We have treated you very fairly. I understand that, maybe, to make your credentials with the Democrats who are not appearing on Fox News, you want to attack us. I’m not sure it’s frankly very polite when we’ve invited you to be here.”

Gillibrand said that she would “do it in a polite way,” but she was interrupted by Wallace again who said “instead of talking about Fox News, why don’t you answer Susan’s question?” referring to the question asked by the member of the audience.

Still, Gillibrand attacked the network for their use of the word “infanticide,” calling it “illegal” and “not a fact.” She added, “I believe all of us have a responsibility to talk about the facts.”

Kamala Harris (D)

Harris was rushed off the stage Saturday while speaking at the MoveOn #BigIdeas forum in San Francisco after an activist rushed at her and grabbed the microphone out of her hand. Harris returned to the stage, about a minute later, to chants of “Ka-ma-la” from the audience.

An animal activist group claimed responsibility for the man rushing the stage. He was identified by the group as Aidan Cook. The group’s spokesperson, Matt Johnson, told ABC News that Cook was not detained or arrested; he was simply kicked out.

John Hickenlooper (D)

The former Colorado governor has struggled to gain traction so far. He faced a disruptive crowd at the California Democratic Convention when he said, “If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer.”

The crowd of Democratic activists responded to his message with a chorus of boos and a massive display of waving “Bernie” signs.

Hickenlooper responded to the boos by saying, “You know, if we are not careful we are going to help re-elect the worst president in American history.”

Jay Inslee (D)

The Washington governor has been pushing hard for the DNC to dedicate one of its presidential primary debates to the topic of climate change. DNC spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa, responded in a statement saying, “the DNC will not be holding entire debates on a single issue area because we want to make sure voters have the ability to hear from candidates on dozens of issues of importance to American voters.”

Inslee called the DNC’s decision to not host a climate debate “deeply disappointing.”

“The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field, who want to debate the existential crisis of our time. Democratic voters say that climate change is their top issue; the Democratic National Committee must listen to the grassroots of the party,” Inslee’s campaign said in a press release.

Amy Klobuchar (D)

Klobuchar secured her first Iowa endorsement from State Rep. Ruth Ann Gaines. Gaines said she’s endorsing Klobuchar because of the senator’s “commitment to addressing and prioritizing mental health.”

Seth Moulton (D)

Moulton said in a CNN town hall that if elected, he would seek to change current Department of Justice guidelines which prevent a sitting president from being indicted. The comment came after former special counsel Robert Mueller said that a “longstanding” department policy prevents a sitting president from being charged with a federal crime.

Beto O’Rourke (D)

O’Rourke released a voting rights plan which called for term limits for members of Congress and for Supreme Court justices. O’Rourke is calling for members of the House and Senate to serve for no more than 12 years, and for justices to be capped at one 18-year term. O’Rourke said that after a justice completes their term, they would be permitted to serve on the federal courts of appeals.

The former Texas congressman’s plan also includes measures to increase voter participation, including by making Election Day a federal holiday and by allowing automatic and same-day voter registration.

Tim Ryan (D)

Ryan flipped his position on impeachment, this week, saying he believes Congress has to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump. The Ohio congressman made his announcement during a CNN town hall, saying that Mueller’s statement last week made him support impeachment.

Bernie Sanders (D)

Sanders spoke at Walmart’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, directly criticizing the company for paying its employees low wages and lobbying for a resolution that would give hourly workers representation on the company’s board of directors.

As many Democratic candidates spoke out on abortion rights this week, comments by Sanders in 1972 — prior to the Roe v. Wade decision — resurfaced via Newsweek. He told a Vermont newspaper at the time that it struck him as “incredible” that the male-dominated state legislature, and politicians in general, “think that they have the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body.”

This weekend, Sanders visits Iowa to speak at the Capital City Pride Candidate Forum in Des Moines, he will march with McDonald’s workers who are seeking higher wages and attend the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration in Cedar Rapids, among several other events.

Eric Swalwell (D)

Swalwell talked about his assault weapon ban and buyback plan on ABC’s “The View.” He said that he’s the only candidate calling to “ban and buy back every single assault weapon in America.”

The California congressman also left the door open to drop out of the presidential race and run for re-election for his House seat. Swalwell said he is open to running for a fifth term in Congress, but said he wouldn’t make that decision until December.

Elizabeth Warren (D)

Warren announced on Thursday that her campaign staff has unionized.

“My campaign has submitted their support to join IBEW 2320,” Warren tweeted. Her campaign joins a growing number of others that are showing support for unions and unionizing themselves. The Sanders and Castro campaigns have also unionized and the Swalwell campaign had previously said they were unionizing.

Andrew Yang (D)

During Pride Month, Yang tied his signature universal basic income proposal to the LGBTQ community, noting in a BuzzFeed interview that he’s heard from many people who say they’ve been kicked out of housing and fired from jobs over their sexual orientation. He said it is his plan to give all American adults $1,000 per month, which could help them “adjust if they’re economically singled out.”

Yang will be among the speakers at the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration in Cedar Rapids on Sunday.

[onewithearth]

On Being Environmentally Conscious in the United States.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you are probably aware that President Donald Trump has been taking swift measures to make sure that America ignores climate change warnings and reverse the progress that his predecessors worked to put in place.

Just a few months after being sworn into the Presidential office Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement and later on took away public shared bike services from outside the white house and other things that former President Obama created to encourage United States Citizens to become more environmentally conscious.

It’s quite obvious that President Trump is doing this because he’s being encouraged by Republicans that are being lobbied by the Oil and Fossil Fuels industry. In other words - being bribed and bought by these companies who think they are threatened by policies that protect the environment.

Its quite aggravating to be living in the only nation that hasn’t signed the Paris Agreement. Yes. The only nation. Syria, a nation facing the terrors it is right now agreed to sign it before the United States of America. It really is pathetic.

But here’s the good news. I didn’t find out about this until today, but a lot of states are fighting back against Trump’s decision, specifically Governor’s of certain states. When Trump first left the Agreement, the states of California, Washington, and New York created the U.S. Climate Alliance as a way of saying they support the U.S. joining the Alliance and fighting climate change.

So far 17 governors have agreed, the most recent being North Carolina as a response to Hurricane Florence and realizing that Florence and other extreme hurricanes can be avoided by reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the ocean, and therefore making an environment where more hurricanes can happen.

What should you do with this information? Talk to your government and politicians. Talk to your family and friends about it. Just talk about it more. Sometimes recycling and going zero waste and eating less meat and using your car less aren’t the only things you can do but also talk about these things to people, make it normal, normalize it, make it a trend, make the government want to join and be better like all of the other states are.

The U.S. is a competitive nation. We like to be the best, so encourage your government to be more competitive with environmentalism. Show them the benefits of joining the Climate Alliance. Write letters, make phone calls, ask questions about it at rallies. When a politician comes knocking on your door tell them what you want.

Even if you can’t convince your state government to make these policies, you can still do it at the local level. Some states have not expressed the want to adopt these policies and join but some of the cities in the states have become really eager to join and do something! 

If we can get 17 states to join then we can get more. Just remember to start telling people about it!

[travelingtheusa]

NORTH DAKOTA

28 Aug 2018 (Tue) – We made sandwiches, packed a cooler, and took off for Theodore Roosevelt National Park today.  Unfortunately, the weather was drizzly and overcast all day. That limited visibility of the surrounding area.  Since this is our last day in the area, we just had to deal with it.

     We drove along the loop road, stopping at pullouts to see what we could see.  We hiked two trails then sat at an overlook and enjoyed lunch while the rain picked up a bit.  During our drive we spotted pronghorn, three different herds of bison, several prairie dog towns, Nokotas (wild horses), and an elk.  When we emerged from the park, we fueled the truck and returned to the campground.

 27 Aug 2018 (Mon) – It was cool, rainy, and overcast all day. We decided to keep our activities indoors.  First stop was at Theodore’s Dining Room in the local hotel.  It was a breakfast buffet with very good food.  There were four kinds of eggs (one had crab), bacon, sausage, hash browns, waffles, and granola with fruit.  It was a little expensive but very enjoyable.

     After breakfast, we walked around town a little then toured the Cowboy Hall of Fame.  There were all kinds of stories of horses, cowboys, ranches, and competitions. Videos recounted stories of experiences by early settlers and their descendants.  After the museum, we walked along the main street.  Harold Schafer came to this town in the early-1960s and restored much of the town of Medora.  He renovated/rebuilt many of the buildings in town and bought the existing amphitheater.  He updated the seating and property, and brought a new, flashier show to the outdoor stage.  Medora sits at the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Harold envisioned a popular tourist town that people would want to visit and stay at.

     Medora’s claim to fame is that Theodore Roosevelt came here back in the late-1800s.  He fell in love with the place and bought two cattle ranches.  They say he claimed that the time he spent in the Badlands of North Dakota prepared him for his role as president.  His nickname was Old Four Eyes.  He was disturbed about overhunting of wildlife on the range and the rapidly disappearing buffalo.  Roosevelt wanted future generations to be able to enjoy the Wild West that he knew and loved. As President of the U.S., he was first to set aside national parkland.  During his presidency, he preserved millions of acres of land, thereby ensuring that future generations would be able to enjoy the wonders of nature and the wildlife that inhabits it.

      We drove to the Marquis de Homes, the home of the founder of Medora.  He and his wife traveled from France.  The Marquis was enamored by the stories of the Wild West and he wanted to be a cattle rancher.  He came here, established a cattle ranch and meat packing plant, and named the town after his wife.  His idea was to raise and slaughter cattle at one place, then ship the meat back east. It turned out to be more profitable than driving cattle hundreds of miles.

     We drove into Theodore Roosevelt National Park to the visitor’s center.  We wanted to get some information about hiking trails and the scenic drive. Hopefully, the weather will be more pleasant tomorrow and we can explore the park.

     Last stop was at a local convenience store (the nearest grocery store is 35 miles away) to pick up some groceries.  They didn’t have much so we only picked up water and lunch meat.

26 Aug 2018 (Sun) – We packed up and left Bismarck at 10:30 a.m. It was a short hour and a half to our next campground.  About three fourths of the way here, we stopped at a visitor’s center called Painted Canyon.  What an amazing change of scenery!  Behind the center was a landscape of ravines and hills with remarkable colors.  We were driving along looking at flat farm land with wheat fields and sunflower crops.  This was quite a change in geography.  Usually these things change slowly but this was a rapid change. After we left the center, the landscape quickly morphed into colorful hills and canyons.

     We pulled into Medora Campground around noon.  It is a large campground with red dirt roads and campsites. There are some trees to provide shade. The sites are close and the neighbor’s sewer hookup is right outside our door.  They could have laid the campground out better.

     As soon as we were set up, we did the laundry.  The laundry room was a pretty good size with six washers and four dryers.  No one else was in there so we were able to use three washers.

     At 5:00 p.m. we drove to the Pitchfork Steak Fondue across the road.  We had called and made reservations the day before yesterday. When we walked into the dining area, we saw dozens of picnic tables.  They could probably seat 2,000 people.  There were pitchforks with steaks already impaled and waiting to be cooked.  There was also a large buffet area for the sides that were being served with the steaks. We got wine at a small stand, claimed our table, and waited for the meal to start.  There was a small 4-person band playing country music in the center of the pavilion.  When the word went out that it was time to eat, everyone lined up.  We got a stamp on our hand but never had to use it so I’m not sure why we got it.  The buffet included a baked potato, baked beans, Texas toast, cole slaw, broccoli & cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, and ranch dressing.  After loading up on sides, we walked over to the cook area and got our steak.  There were probably a quarter of the people they would usually have on a holiday weekend. Lots of tables were empty or had only one or two couples at them.

     At 6:30 p.m. everyone moved over to the outdoor amphitheater.  It was a huge seating area cut right into the side of the mountain.  The stage had tracks that allowed the scenery to slide sideways and the band stand to slide forward.  The show was every bit as good as Opryland.  It was very professional and the singers and dancers were very talented. There were two co-hosts – Cowboy Chet Wollan and Bill Sorensen.  Wollan sang and danced right along with the accompanying performers.  The comic, Kermit Apio (from Hawaii), was hysterical. I never laughed so hard at a comedian before.  The weather was a little cool.  As the sun set, the temperature dropped and many people had blankets they had brought. We wore jackets but would have appreciated a blanket ourselves.  The show ran from 7:30 to 10:00 p.m.

25 Aug 2018 (Sat) – We went to Fort Abraham Lincoln today. The Custer House was a recreation of the house General Custer and his wife lived in but all the furnishings and clothing belonged either to them or from that time period (1870s).  The CCC built several buildings on the former compound grounds.  There was a large granary, a barracks with mess hall, a stable, and a commissary that had a snack bar, library, gift shop, and restrooms.  We had a hot dog for lunch.  I’m not really sure what it was we ate.  The dogs they gave us were red.  They put some kind of dye in them.  I was afraid they were soy dogs.  We just ate them.  We then drove to the visitors center where they had a replica of the Slant Indian Village. There were six earth lodges.  They were full size mounds made from logs, branches, and dirt.  They were circular in design and had a fire pit in the center of the lodge with an opening in the roof.  

     It rained again last night but there was (thankfully) no thunder and lightning.  I don’t know why it seems to only rain at night here.

 24 Aug 2018 (Fri) – The most ferocious thunderstorm rolled through during the night.  The first boom literally lifted me out of the bed.  I have never experienced a storm like that one.  There was no wind and very little rain but there was lots of lightning.  So much that it was like daylight.  The thunder was explosive and had a concussive effect.  The thunder rumbled for close to a minute.  The storm was both exhilarating and frightening.

     We went to breakfast at Ramkota Hotel in their Seasons Café.  The food was very good and the ambiance was very attractive.  They definitely like dark wood.  We then went to the Dakota Heritage Center right next to the capitol building.  It had a lot of interesting displays, artifacts, and exhibits but it was laid out in a very confusing way.  We left the center and drove to Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch.  Then we stopped in at Captain Jack’s to pick up some wine and at Target to get groceries. We ran out of rice for Bonnie and were giving her dry dog food with her boiled chicken.  Unfortunately, she got diarrhea so we need to put her back on the rice.  She has developed a really sensitive stomach.

     After dinner, we worked on the mapping the route for our Utah caravan next year.

 23 Aug 2018 (Thu) – We left Garrison around 10:30 a.m.  There were a few sprinkles on the way but the weather was basically clear.  In an hour and a half, we arrived at General Sibley Park & Campground in Bismarck. This is a great campground!  The campsites are very roomy but only have electric hookup.  We had to stop on the way in to fill our tank with fresh water.  There are many trees in the campground but all the underbrush has been cut away and the grass mowed so everything looks open.  

     After set up, we drove into the city and took a tour of the capitol building.  It has a two story building with an 18-story tower added on.  We met the tour guide in the lobby and joined two other couples for a tour of the building.  She took us first to the original part.  It was like walking into the land of Oz.  The hallway ceiling was 40’ and set in an art deco style.  We looked into the Senate and the House chambers.  They only meet every other year so they vote in a two-year budget.  How do they legislate an entire state if they only meet bi-annually?  

     Next was a ride up to the 17th floor to the overview.  We walked out on the deck and admired the view of the surrounding area.  It seemed like you could see forever.

    After the tour of the capitol, we took a tour of the former Governor’s Mansion.  Then we went to lunch at the Blarney Stone Pub.  I had Shepherd’s Pie and Paul had a pasta dish.  Everything was very good.  We then found a post office to mail off some post cards then returned to the campground.

22 Aug 2018 (Wed) – We drove around the area today.  First stop was at the Custer Coal Mine.  It was not owned by General George Custer.  The placards at the area didn’t really explain why it got the name it did.  It was a strip mining operation that mined coal.  There was a small pond to look at.

     We then drove to Fort Stevenson.  One building was on site with display items telling the history of the fort. The actual fort is two miles northwest of the site under water.  Nothing of the original fort remains.  This was the last place General George Custer stayed before he rode off to the Battle of Little Bighorn.

     After the fort, we drove around the state campground.  They have over 100 campsites and only three campers. Apparently this is now their slow season.  The campgrounds only fill up on the weekends.  We guessed that is because North Dakota is so far north that many families cannot camp here and make it back home in time for school.  As a matter of fact, the North Dakota state college classes started this week.  Guess it’s the same across the country.  K-12 usually starts the day after Labor Day.

     Next, we drove into the town of Garrison.  It was small but cute.  After lunch at Ye Olde Malt Shoppe, we strolled up and down the main street.  Lots of businesses called themselves Ye Olde ____.  There was also a bottle shop.  In this state, there are no liquor stores.  They are called bottle shops.  These shops are usually attached to a bar where liquor is served.

     Last stop was at Krause’s Market.  It was a small supermarket but we were able to pick up just about everything we needed.  We came home and grilled corn on the cob.  It was just like back home.  The corn was delicious.  Unfortunately, the flies are horrible.  At they aren’t mosquitoes.  After spending most of the meal swatting the flies away, we put a corn cob at the end of the table.  The flies happily swarmed on it and mostly left us alone for the rest of the meal.

     This has been such a lovely campground.  The weather has been perfect.  The haze from the fires out west were washed out by the last storm and we now have partly cloudy to clear skies.  It’s been in the high 40s in the morning and in the high 70s to low 80s during the day. We can sit on the lake shore and watch the birds swimming in the water and the little chipmunk-like animals scramble among the rocks lining the shoreline.

 21 Aug 2018 (Tue) – We packed up and left Minot AFB at 10:45 a.m. The weather was good and we arrived at our next stop in East Totten Trail Campground at 12:15 p.m.  It is an Army Corps of Engineers site on Lake Audubon. This is one of the nicest campsites we have been in for a long time.  We back up right on to the lake shore.  The sites are spacious with plenty of room for the picnic table and barbecue.

     On the other side of the causeway is Lake Sakakawea (we pronounce it Sacajawea everywhere else).  This is the third largest reservoir in the United States.  Garrison Dam is the fifth largest earthen dam in the world.  The lake is 178 miles long and 14 miles wide. The dam itself is two and half miles long and 210 feet high.  We drove around the area looking at the dam and spillway.  There is also the Audubon National Wildlife Refuge on the lake.

     Next stop was at the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery. Unfortunately, we stopped there 15 minutes before the tank buildings were closing.  We rushed through them to look at the fish.  There were burbot, trout, paddlefish, and two kinds of sturgeon. The pallid sturgeon is on the brink of extinction.  The only thing that has saved it is its longevity.  When the dams were built on the Missouri River, it disrupted the spawning habits of the fish.  It took 20 years to realize that the pallid sturgeon were dying off and another ten years to react and get a program in place.  The fish live 80 to 100 years.  They have to capture fish and take blood samples to find out their gender. The hatchery takes sperm from males and freezes it.  When they get females, they get them to lay their eggs (spawn) and then use the sperm to fertilize the eggs.  It sounds like such a complicated process.  Only about 35% of the little fish released into the river survive.

     After looking in the tanks, we went back into the visitor’s center and spoke with the docents in the building.  It turned out that they are volunteering to help out at the hatchery for the season as part of a workkamping program (many people do workkamping).  The husband and wife were both retired servicemembers.  We spoke about travelling around the U.S. and serving in the military.

     When we left the hatchery, we drove into the nearby town of Coleharbor. It was very small and had no grocery store, no post office, no restaurants, no nothing.  We then drove to the other side of the lake to the town of Riverside.  It was basically the same thing – a small town with nothing.  At the entrance to the campground, there is a service station and an eatery.  We had dinner at the Totten Trail Bar & Grill.  

    Later, after we got back to the campground and spent an hour on the phone trying to get the Dish satellite working, we visited with the couple next to us.  They started full timing a year ago.  We exchanged stories of places to see and things to do.

20 Aug 2018 (Mon) – We drove to the Scandinavian Heritage Park this morning.  It claims to be the only park in the world that represents all five Scandinavian/Nordic countries.  There is a visitor’s center at the front of the park and a plaza with the flags of all five nations.  All of them have the same design with different colors – a solid color background with a cross.  Denmark is a white cross on a red field.  Finland is a light blue cross on a white field.  Iceland has a red flag bordered in white on a dark blue field.  Norway’s flag is a blue cross bordered in white on a red background.  And Sweden is a golden yellow cross on a light blue field.  We wondered if all these countries were once a single nation before dividing into separate entities.  Why do they all have the same design?

    At any rate, there were several different items around the park depicting items from the Scandinavian countries: statues of Hans Christian Anderson, Sondre Norheim (the father of modern skiing), and Casper Oimoen (an Olympic skier); a 30-foot tall Dala horse (a Swedish symbol); replicas of the Gol Stave Church from Norway and a Stabbur (storehouse from Norway).  There was a Sigdal House that was dismantled in Norway and shipped to Minot where it was reassembled.  There were various artifacts in different buildings showcasing beautiful handiwork – knitting, woodwork, trolls, etc.  We strolled around the park enjoying the exhibits for two hours.

    We then went to lunch. Unfortunately, there were no restaurants serving Scandinavian food.  That seemed weird.  In fact, most restaurants in the area were national food chain stores – Olive Garden, Appleby’s, etc.  We went to a place called the Starving Rooster, a bar café.  I had a Caesar salad and Paul had some kind of pasta dish.  It was ok but not what we wanted.

    After lunch, we drove to the Dakota Territory Air Museum.  There were a few military aircraft and lots of civilian planes on display.  Other artifacts were on display as well.  One interesting fact we learned was that two days before D-Day, a directive came down from HQs instructing that all aircraft be painted with three white stripes and two black stripes on the wings (top and bottom) and on the fuselage.  They expected the skies to be crowded with aircraft and wanted the pilots to be able to easily identify the friendly planes.  Very ingenious.

    When we returned to the campground, Paul washed the truck and trailer.

 19 Aug 2018 (Sun) – A vicious thunderstorm rolled through last night. It lasted for more than an hour. At times, there was so much heat lightning that it seemed like daytime - split occasionally by bolts of lightning.

     We packed up and left Grand Forks at 9:45 a.m.  The rain cleared out some of the haze and the skies were partly cloudy during our ride to Minot.  We stopped in Rugby to get pictures at the geographical center of North America. The marker was next to a Mexican Restaurant so we bought lunch while there.  They must make out like bandits because of the monument.

     It was more than four hours to the Air Force Base.  When we arrived, the Outdoor Rec office was closed.  We pulled into an open campsite.  There are six back-in sites in a parking lot with electric and water hookups.  A dump station is down the road.  There is a large playground in back of the parking area.  Several prairie dogs holes dot that area.

18 Aug 2018 (Sat) – We’ve been getting alerts about poor air quality.  Fires in California, Idaho, Montana, and Canada are sending smoke and dirt particulates into the air.  The sky has been hazy even though the weather service has been predicting sunny days.

     We packed up and left Monticello at 9:50 a.m.  Traffic was easy and we arrived in about two hours at Grand Forks AFB FamCamp.  The campground reminds me of Fort Drum’s campground.  It’s kind of remote and at the end of the base.  There are only a few campers here.  They have 61 campsites – 21 are full hookup and the rest are for tents (or boondocking).  We have electric and water.  We didn’t bother connecting the sewer since we are only here for one night.  Paul chose a site right next to the bathhouse so we’re trying to use their toilet instead of ours.

     Once set up, we drove about 25 minutes into the city of Grand Forks. It is a pretty old town with lots of historical buildings.  We ate at the Rhombus Guys Brewing Company.  The service was horrendous.  There was a bridal shower going on but the place never called in extra help.  It was almost an hour and a half before we got our food.  People who came in after us got their food before us and we got our food before people who were seated before us.  There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how the kitchen was preparing the food.  They were quick to jump in and serve another beer when Paul finished the first but other than that, the waitress barely came by the table.  It was like she was avoiding us.  Probably embarrassed about the long delay.

     After lunch, we walked along the main street and riverwalk.  A memorial tower had been erected in the park to commemorate five floods that have devastated the town.  There were various high water marks on the tower, the highest point occurring in 1997.  As a result, they built a dike system to hold back rising waters.

     On the way back, we stopped at a department store called Home of Economy (weird name, right?).  There were no coffee makers with thermal carafe so we drove to WalMart.  There, we found a Black & Decker coffee maker just as we wanted.  We bought it and returned to the campground then did our laundry on site.

17 Aug 2018 (Fri) – We drove a half hour into Fargo to go to the Fargo Air Museum.  It was small and contained within two hangars.  There were about a dozen planes.  A lot of the exhibits were devoted to aerobatic planes with a few military aircraft on display.  Many uniforms and military paraphernalia were also on display.  A B25 used by four governors was available for visitors to walk into and look around.  

     We left the museum and drove to the Border Town Bar & Grill for lunch.  We enjoyed a taco lavosh.  It was like a pizza but made with a cracker crust.  It was good.  The waitress had a chip on her shoulder and our service suffered for it.  She was one of two girls serving tables and we guessed someone didn’t show up for work or she might have been directed to do something she didn’t like.  Either way, she was certainly letting the patrons know she was not happy.

     After lunch, we stopped at an RV dealer to look at some ice fishing trailers.  We have seen many up north here and wanted to see what they looked like inside.  They’re kind of cool.  There are bunks and kitchens and bathrooms and sealed holes in the floor.  One just had a toilet seat with a space underneath where you would put a bucket. Another had a regular toilet system with a dump valve.  Some had heat, water, a microwave, and a refrigerator.  All the holes in the floor each had a light directed at the hole.  I guess so you could see into the hole when you fish.  People have been using these “ice houses” as regular campers.  We have spotted several in campgrounds.

     Next, we drove to Bonanzaville.  It is a collection of historical buildings and artifacts dating back to settler days.  It is called Bonanzaville because North Dakota used to be known for its Bonanza farms. There were small farms that were basically self-subsisting and then there were large farms that produced more than they needed.  Those were called Bonanza farms.  We strolled along the streets wandering in and out of the old buildings, admiring the exhibits on display.  It was pretty large and took us a couple of hours to go through everything.  A Telephone Museum showed the progression of telecommunications.  Some kids were having fun playing with the phones.  There were a couple of phones set up to call each other.  You could dial a phone across the room, listen to the clicks and whirs of a switching station, hear the telephone ring, then talk to the person who picked up the phone at the other end.  There was also an air museum, a car museum, and a kind of catchall museum with unusual items on display (a glove stretcher, a wooden fishhook from Alaska, pipes from Norwegian settlers, a square knife strop, a dress lifter for ladies crossing muddy streets, etc.).  It was an interesting afternoon.

16 Aug 2018 (Thu) – We pulled up stakes and left Monticello, MN, at 9:20 a.m.  It was 220 miles to Casselton, ND, about 20 miles west of Fargo.  The hotel is a Days Inn but the adjacent campground is called Governors Drive RV Park.  The sites are close and paved with gravel.  We have a pull through with full hookups.  There are about 40 campsites in the campground.

     We stopped at a rest area around noon to make lunch.  When we were finished with our sandwiches, we continued on to our destination.  The weather was perfect and the traffic was mostly not a problem (we had a brief hold up for some construction on I-94).  We checked in at the desk in the hotel and then got set up.  Then we drove to Fargo to pick up some groceries.  We also stopped in at the Information Center and got a map and other brochures about the state.  There was a wood chipper with a fake leg in it for visitors to take pictures with.  This is intended for those persons who watched the movie, Fargo.  In the movie, a crook puts his unfortunate partner in the wood chipper.  The sheriff comes along just as he’s pushing the last leg into the machine.  The funny thing about it all is that the movie was not filmed in Fargo at all.  It was filmed in a town up on the Canadian border and in Minnesota.  The clerk recommended Kroll’s Diner for lunch.  We went to the diner.  It was a 50’s style diner with a counter on one side and booths on the other side. We had a cheese button (similar to a pierogi but four times the size and deep fried) and something unpronounceable. It was like a thin slice of meatloaf inside a pastry that was deep fried.  After lunch, we picked up groceries at WalMart then returned to Casselton.

[xtruss]

The Great American Tax Haven: Why the Super-rich Love South Dakota

It’s known for being the home of Mount Rushmore – and not much else. But thanks to its relish for deregulation, the state is fast becoming the most profitable place for the mega-wealthy to park their billions.

— By Oliver Bullough | Thursday, 14 November 2019 | Guardian USA

Illustration: Guardian Design

Late last year, as the Chinese government prepared to enact tough new tax rules, the billionaire Sun Hongbin quietly transferred $4.5bn worth of shares in his Chinese real estate firm to a company on a street corner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the least populated and least known states in the US. Sioux Falls is a pleasant city of 180,000 people, situated where the Big Sioux River tumbles off a red granite cliff. It has some decent bars downtown, and a charming array of sculptures dotting the streets, but there doesn’t seem to be much to attract a Chinese multi-billionaire. It’s a town that even few Americans have been to.

The money of the world’s mega-wealthy, though, is heading there in ever-larger volumes. In the past decade, hundreds of billions of dollars have poured out of traditional offshore jurisdictions such as Switzerland and Jersey, and into a small number of American states: Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming – and, above all, South Dakota. “To some, South Dakota is a ‘fly-over’ state,” the chief justice of the state’s supreme court said in a speech to the legislature in January. “While many people may find a way to ‘fly over’ South Dakota, somehow their dollars find a way to land here.”

Super-rich people choose between jurisdictions in the same way that middle-class people choose between ISAs: they want the best security, the best income and the lowest costs. That is why so many super-rich people are choosing South Dakota, which has created the most potent force-field money can buy – a South Dakotan trust. If an ordinary person puts money in the bank, the government taxes what little interest it earns. Even if that money is protected from taxes by an ISA, you can still lose it through divorce or legal proceedings. A South Dakotan trust changes all that: it protects assets from claims from ex-spouses, disgruntled business partners, creditors, litigious clients and pretty much anyone else. It won’t protect you from criminal prosecution, but it does prevent information on your assets from leaking out in a way that might spark interest from the police. And it shields your wealth from the government, since South Dakota has no income tax, no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax.

A decade ago, South Dakotan trust companies held $57.3bn in assets. By the end of 2020, that total will have risen to $355.2bn. Those hundreds of billions of dollars are being regulated by a state with a population smaller than Norfolk, a part-time legislature heavily lobbied by trust lawyers, and an administration committed to welcoming as much of the world’s money as it can. US politicians like to boast that their country is the best place in the world to get rich, but South Dakota has become something else: the best place in the world to stay rich.

At the heart of South Dakota’s business success is a crucial but overlooked fact: globalisation is incomplete. In our modern financial system, money travels where its owners like, but laws are still made at a local level. So money inevitably flows to the places where governments offer the lowest taxes and the highest security. Anyone who can afford the legal fees to profit from this mismatch is able to keep wealth that the rest of us would lose, which helps to explain why – all over the world – the rich have become so much richer and the rest of us have not.

In recent years, countries outside the US have been cracking down on offshore wealth. But according to an official in a traditional tax haven, who has watched as wealth has fled that country’s coffers for the US, the protections offered by states such as South Dakota are undermining global attempts to control tax dodging, kleptocracy and money-laundering. “One of the core issues in fighting a guerrilla war is that if the guerrillas have a safe harbour, you can’t win,” the official told me. “Well, the US is giving financial criminals a safe harbour, and a really effective safe harbour – far more effective than anything they ever had in Jersey or the Bahamas or wherever.”

Those of us who cannot vote in South Dakota elections have little hope of changing its laws. But if we don’t do something to correct the imbalance between global wealth and local legislation, we risk entrenching today’s inequality and creating a new breed of global aristocrat, unaccountable to anyone and getting richer all the time – with grave consequences for the long-term health of liberal democracy.

South Dakota is west of Minnesota, east of Wyoming, and has a population of 880,000 people. Politically, its voters enthusiastically embrace the Republicans’ message of self-reliance, low taxes and family values. Donald Trump won more than 60% of the vote there in 2016, and the GOP has held a super-majority in the state’s House of Representatives since the 70s, allowing the party to mould South Dakota in its image for two generations.

Outsiders tend to know South Dakota for two things: Mount Rushmore, which is carved with the faces of four US presidents; and Laura Ingalls Wilder, who moved to the state as a girl and wrote the Little House on the Prairie series of children’s books. But its biggest impact on the world comes from a lesser-known fact: it was ground zero for the earthquake of financial deregulation that has rocked the world’s economy.

The story does not begin with trusts, but with credit cards, and with Governor William “Wild Bill” Janklow, a US marine and son of a Nuremberg prosecutor, who became governor in 1979 and led South Dakota for a total of 16 years. He died almost eight years ago, leaving behind an apparently bottomless store of anecdotes: about how he once brought a rifle to the scene of a hostage crisis; how his car got blown off the road when he was rushing to the scene of a tornado.

In the late 70s, South Dakota’s economy was mired in deep depression, and Janklow was prepared to do almost anything to bring in a bit of business. He sensed an opportunity in undercutting the regulations imposed by other states. At the time, national interest rates were set unusually high by the Federal Reserve, meaning that credit card companies were having to pay more to borrow funds than they could earn by lending them out, and were therefore losing money every time someone bought something. Citibank had invested heavily in credit cards, and was therefore at significant risk of going bankrupt.

William ‘Wild Bill’ Janklow, the former governor of South Dakota in 1988. Photograph: Per Breiehagen/Life Images Collection via Getty Images

The bank was searching for a way to escape this bind, and found it in Janklow. “We were in the poorhouse when Citibank called us,” the governor recalled in a later interview. “They were in bigger problems than we were. We could make it last. They couldn’t make it last. I was slowly bleeding to death; they were gushing to death.”

At the bank’s suggestion, in 1981, the governor abolished laws that at the time – in South Dakota, as in every other state in the union – set an upper limit to the interest rates lenders could charge. These “anti-usury” rules were a legacy of the New Deal era. They protected consumers from loan sharks, but they also prevented Citibank making a profit from credit cards. So, when Citibank promised Janklow 400 jobs if he abolished them, he had the necessary law passed in a single day. “The economy was, at that time, dead,” Janklow remembered. “I was desperately looking for an opportunity for jobs for South Dakotans.”

When Citibank based its credit card business in Sioux Falls, it could charge borrowers any interest rate it liked, and credit cards could become profitable. Thanks to Janklow, Citibank and other major companies came to South Dakota to dodge the restrictions imposed by the other 49 states. And so followed the explosion in consumer finance that has transformed the US and the world. Thanks to Janklow, South Dakota has a financial services industry, and the US has a trillion-dollar credit card debt.

Fresh from having freed wealthy corporations from onerous regulations, Janklow looked around for a way to free wealthy individuals too, and thus came to the decision that would eventually turn South Dakota into a Switzerland for the 21st century. He decided to deregulate trusts.

Trusts are ancient and complex financial instruments that are used to own assets, such as real estate or company stock. Unlike a person, a trust is immortal, which was an attractive prospect for English aristocrats of the Middle Ages who wished to make sure their property remained in their families for ever, and would be secure from any confiscation by the crown. This caused a problem, however. More and more property risked being locked up in trusts, subject to the wishes of long-dead people, which no one could alter. So, in the 17th century, judges fought back by creating the “rule against perpetuities”, which limited the duration of trusts to around a century, and prevented aristocratic families turning their local areas into mini-kingdoms.

That weakened aristocratic families, opened up the British economy, allowed new businessmen to elbow aside the entrenched powers in a way that did not happen elsewhere in Europe, and helped give the world the industrial revolution. “It’s a paradoxical point, but it wasn’t a bad thing when the scion of some family from out in the counties came down to London and pissed away his fortune. It was redistribution of wealth,” said Eric Kades, a law professor at William & Mary Law School in Virginia, who has studied trusts.

English emigrants took the rule to North America with them, and the dynamic recycling of wealth became even more frenetic in the land of the free. Then Governor Janklow came along. In 1983, he abolished the rule against perpetuities and, from that moment on, property placed in trust in South Dakota would stay there for ever. A rule created by English judges after centuries of consideration was erased by a law of just 19 words. Aristocracy was back in the game.

In allowing trusts to last for ever, South Dakota did something genuinely revolutionary, but sadly almost everyone I contacted – from current governor Kristi Noem to state representatives to members of the South Dakotan Trust Association – refused to talk about it. For an answer to the question of what exactly prompted the state to ditch the rule against perpetuities, I was eventually directed to Bret Afdahl, the director of the state administration’s Division of Banking, who wanted the question in writing. A week later, back came a one-word response: “unknown”.

Initially, South Dakota’s so-called “dynasty trusts” were advertised for their ability to dodge inheritance tax, thus allowing wealthy people to cement their family’s long-term control over property in the way English aristocrats had always wanted to. It also gave plenty of employment to lawyers and accountants.

“It’s a clean industry, there are no smokestacks, we don’t have to mine anything out of the earth or anything, and they’re generally good paying jobs,” said Tom Simmons, an expert on trust law at the University of South Dakota, when we chatted over coffee in central Sioux Falls. Alongside his academic work, Simmons is a member of South Dakota’s trust taskforce, which exists to maintain the competitiveness of the state’s trust industry. “Janklow was truly a genius in seeing this would be economic development with a very low cost to the government,” he said. (By “the government”, he of course means that of South Dakota, not that of the nation, other states or indeed other countries, which all lose out on the taxes that South Dakota helps people avoid.)

As the 1990s progressed, and more money came to Sioux Falls, South Dakota became a victim of its success, however, since other states – such as Alaska and Delaware – abolished the rule against perpetuities, too, thus negating South Dakota’s competitive advantage. But, having started the race to the bottom, Janklow was damned if any other state was going to beat him there. So, in 1997, he created the trust taskforce to make sure South Dakota was going as fast as it could. The taskforce’s job was to seek out legal innovations created in other jurisdictions, whether offshore or in the US, and make them work in South Dakota.

Thanks to the taskforce, South Dakota now gives its clients tricks to protect their wealth that would have been impossible 30 years ago. In most jurisdictions, trusts have to benefit someone other than the benefactor – your children, say, or your favourite charity – but in South Dakota, clients can create a trust for the benefit of themselves (indeed, Sun Hongbin is a beneficiary of his own trust). Once two years have passed, the trust is immune from any creditor claiming a share of the assets it contains, no matter the nature of their claim. A South Dakotan trust is secret, too. Court documents relating to it are kept private for ever, to prevent knowledge of its existence from leaking out. (It also has the useful side effect of making it all but impossible for journalists to find out who is using South Dakotan trusts, or what legal challenges to them have been filed.)

Leona Helmsley with her dog, Trouble.Leona Helmsley with her dog, Trouble. Photograph: Jennifer Graylock/AP

This barrage of innovations has allowed lawyers to create structures with complex names – the South Dakota Foreign Grantor Trust, the Self-Settled Asset Protection Trust, etc – which have done two simple things: they have kept the state ahead of the competition; and they have made South Dakota’s property protections extraordinarily strong. “The smart people want privacy,” explained Harvey Bezozi, a Florida financial adviser and tax expert who blogs under the name Your Financial Wizard. “South Dakota offers the best privacy and asset protection laws in the country, and possibly in the world, for the wealthy to protect their assets. They’ve done a pretty good job in making themselves unique; a real boutique place where the people in the know will eventually gravitate to.”

Among those in the know were the lawyers of Leona Helmsley, the legendarily mean hotel heiress, who coined the phrase “only the little people pay taxes”. When Helmsley died in 2007, she left $12m in trust for the care of her dog, a maltese called Trouble. Trouble dined on crab cakes and kobe beef, and the trust provided her with $8,000 a year for grooming and $100,000 for security guards, who protected her against kidnappings, as well as against reprisals from the people that she bit. When a New York court – not entirely unreasonably – decided to restrain this expenditure, trustees moved the trust to South Dakota, which had crafted “purpose trusts” with just such a client in mind. Other states impose limits on how a purpose trust can care for a pet, on the principle that perhaps there are better things to do with millions of dollars than groom a dog, but South Dakota takes no chances. The client is always right.

Despite all its legal innovating, South Dakota struggled for decades to compete with offshore financial centres for big international clients – Middle Eastern petro-sheikhs perhaps, or billionaires from emerging markets. The reason was simple: sometimes the owners’ claim to their assets was a little questionable, and sometimes their business practices were a little sharp. Why would any of them put their assets in the US, where they might become vulnerable to American law enforcement, when they could instead put them in a tax haven where enforcement was more … negotiable?

That calculation changed in 2010, in the aftermath of the great financial crisis. Many American voters blamed bankers for costing so many people their jobs and homes. When a whistleblower exposed how his Swiss employer, the banking giant UBS, had hidden billions of dollars for its wealthy clients, the conclusion was explosive: banks were not just exploiting poor people, they were helping rich people dodge taxes, too.

Congress responded with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), forcing foreign financial institutions to tell the US government about any American-owned assets on their books. Department of Justice investigations were savage: UBS paid a $780m fine, and its rival Credit Suisse paid $2.6bn, while Wegelin, Switzerland’s oldest bank, collapsed altogether under the strain. The amount of US-owned money in the country plunged, with Credit Suisse losing 85% of its American customers.

The rest of the world, inspired by this example, created a global agreement called the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Under CRS, countries agreed to exchange information on the assets of each other’s citizens kept in each other’s banks. The tax-evading appeal of places like Jersey, the Bahamas and Liechtenstein evaporated almost immediately, since you could no longer hide your wealth there.

How was a rich person to protect his wealth from the government in this scary new transparent world? Fortunately, there was a loophole. CRS had been created by lots of countries together, and they all committed to telling each other their financial secrets. But the US was not part of CRS, and its own system – Fatca – only gathers information from foreign countries; it does not send information back to them. This loophole was unintentional, but vast: keep your money in Switzerland, and the world knows about it; put it in the US and, if you were clever about it, no one need ever find out. The US was on its way to becoming a truly world-class tax haven.

The Black Mountain Hills of South Dakota. Photograph: Posnov/Getty Images

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) still ranks Switzerland as the most pernicious tax haven in the world in its Financial Secrecy Index, but the US is now in second place and climbing fast, having overtaken the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Luxembourg since Fatca was introduced. “While the United States has pioneered powerful ways to defend itself against foreign tax havens, it has not seriously addressed its own role in attracting illicit financial flows and supporting tax evasion,” said the TJN in the report accompanying the 2018 index. In just three years, the amount of money held via secretive structures in the US had increased by 14%, the TJN said. That is the money pouring into Sioux Falls, and into the South Dakota Trust Company.

“The easy takeaway is that people are trying to hide. But wanting to be private, to be confidential, there’s nothing illegal about that,” said Matthew Tobin, the managing director of the South Dakota Trust Company (SDTC), where Sun Hongbin parked his $4.5bn fortune. We were sitting in SDTC’s conference room, which was decorated with a large map of Switzerland, as if it were a hunting trophy.

Tobin added that many foreign clients had wealth in another jurisdiction, and worried that information about it could be reported to their home country, thanks to CRS. “That could put them at risk. They could be at risk of losing their wealth, it could be taken from them. There’s kidnapping, ransom, hostages. There is risk in a lot of parts of the world,” he explained. “People are saying: ‘OK, if the laws are the same, but I can have the stability of the US economy, the US government, and maintain my privacy, I might as well go to the US.’” According to the figures on its website, SDTC now manages trusts holding $65bn and acts as an agent for trusts containing a further $82bn, all of them tax-free, all of them therefore growing more quickly than assets held elsewhere.

When I spoke to the official from one of the traditional tax havens, who asked not to be identified, for fear of wrecking what was left of the jurisdiction’s financial services industry, he was furious about what the US was doing. “One of the bitter aspects of this, and it’s something we haven’t said in public, is the sheer racism of the global anti-money laundering management effort,” he said. “You will notice that the states that are benefiting from this in America are the whitest states in the country. They’ve ended up beating the shit out of a load of black and Hispanic places, and stuffing all the money in South Dakota. How does that help?”

I put those comments to a South Dakotan trust lawyer who agreed to speak to me as long as I didn’t identify them. The lawyer was sympathetic to the offshore official’s argument, but said this is how the world is now, and everyone is just going to have to get used to it. It is, after all, not just South Dakota and its trust companies that are sucking in the world’s money. Banks in Florida and Texas are welcoming cash from Venezuela and Mexico, realtors in Los Angeles are selling property to Chinese potentates, and New York lawyers are arranging these transactions for anyone that wants them to. Perhaps under previous administrations, there might have been some appetite for aligning the US with global norms, but under Trump, it’s never going to happen.

“You can look at South Dakota and its trust industry, but if you really want to look at CRS, look at the amount of foreign money that is flowing into US banks, not just into trusts,” the lawyer said. “The US has decided at very high levels that it is benefiting significantly from not being a member of CRS. That issue is much larger than trusts, and I don’t see that changing, I really don’t.”

We have no idea yet what this means in the long term, because the revolution in trust law that began in South Dakota and spread throughout the US is only a generation old. But the implications are ominous.

Here is an example from one academic paper on South Dakotan trusts: after 200 years, $1m placed in trust and growing tax-free at an annual rate of 6% will have become $136bn. After 300 years, it will have grown to $50.4tn. That is more than twice the current size of the US economy, and this trust will last for ever, assuming that society doesn’t collapse altogether under the weight of this ever-swelling leach.

If the richest members of society are able to pass on their wealth tax-free to their heirs, in perpetuity, then they will keep getting richer than those of us who can’t. In fact, the tax rate for everyone else will probably have to rise, to make up for the shortfall caused by the wealthiest members of societies opting out, which will just make the problem worse. Eric Kades, the law professor at William & Mary Law School, thinks that South Dakota’s decision to abolish the rule against perpetuities for the short term benefit of its economy will prove to have been a long-term catastrophe. “In 50 or 100 years, it will turn out to have been an absolute disaster,” said Kades. “Now we’re going to have a bunch of wealthy families, and no one will be able to piss away that wealth, it will stay in the family for ever. This just locks in advantage.”

So far, most of the discussion of this development in wealth management has been confined to specialist publications, where academic authors have found themselves making arguments you do not usually find in discussions of legal constructs as abstruse as trusts. South Dakota, they argue, has struck at the very foundation of liberal democracy. “It does seem unfair for some people to have access to ‘property plus’, usable wealth with extra protection built in beyond that which regular property owners have,” noted the Harvard Law Review back in 2003, in an understated summation of the academic consensus that South Dakota has unleashed something disastrous.

And if some people have access to privileged property, where does that leave the equality before the law that is central to how society is supposed to function? Another academic, writing in the trade publication Tax Notes two decades ago, put that unfairness in context: “Perpetual trusts can (and will) facilitate enormous wealth and power for dynastic families. In the process, we leave to future generations some serious issues about the nature of our country’s democracy.”

With Washington unconcerned by what is happening, and the rest of the world incapable of doing anything about it, is there any prospect of anyone in South Dakota moving to repair the damage? The short answer is that it is too late. Two-dozen other states now have perpetual trusts too, so the money would just move elsewhere if South Dakota tried to tighten its rules. The longer answer is that South Dakotan politics appears to have been so comprehensively captured by the trust industry that there is no prospect of anything happening anyway.

The state legislature is elected every even-numbered year, and meets for two months each spring. It last updated the law governing trusts in 2018, and brought in Terry Prendergast, a trust lawyer, to explain the significance of the changes. “People should be allowed to do with their property what they desire to do,” Prendergast explained. “Our entire regulatory scheme reflects that positive attitude and attracts people from around the world to look at South Dakota as a shining example of what trust law can become.”

There were a few questions from the representatives, but they were quickly shut down by Mike Stevens, a Republican lawyer, and chairman of the state’s judiciary committee. “No more questions. I didn’t understand perpetuities in law school, and I don’t want to understand it now,” he said, laughing.

Susan Wismer, one of just 10 Democrats among the House’s 70 members, attempted to prolong the discussion by raising concerns about how South Dakota was facilitating tax avoidance, driving inequality and damaging democracy. Her view was dismissed as “completely jaded and biased” by a trust lawyer sitting for the Republicans. It was a brief exchange, but it went to the heart of how tax havens work. There is no political traction in South Dakota for efforts to change its approach, since the state does so well out of it. The victims of its policies, who are all in places like California, New York, China or Russia, where the tax take is evaporating, have no vote.

Wismer is the only person I met in South Dakota who seemed to understand this. “Ever since I’ve been in the legislature, the trust taskforce has come to us with an updating bill, every year or every other year, and we just let it pass because none of us know what it is. They’re monster bills. As Democrats, we’re such a small caucus, we’re the ones who ought to be the natural opponents of this, but we don’t have the technical expertise and don’t really even understand what we’re doing,” she confessed, while we ate pancakes and drank coffee in a truck stop outside Sioux Falls. “We don’t have a clue what the consequences are to just regular people from what we’re doing.”

That means legislators are nodding through bills that they do not understand, at the behest of an industry that is sucking in ever-greater volumes of money from all over the world. If this was happening on a Caribbean island, or a European micro-principality, it would not be surprising, but this is the US. Aren’t ordinary South Dakotans concerned about what their state is enabling?

“The voters don’t have a clue what this means. They’ve never seen a feudal society, they don’t have a clue what they’re enabling,” Wismer said. “I don’t think there are 100 people in this state who understand the ramifications of what we’ve done.”

• This article was amended on 20 November 2019 because an earlier version misnamed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act as the Financial Assets Tax Compliance Act.

[bigyack-com]

DealBook: Is This the Next Leader of the Fed?

Good morning. Fears about the spread of the coronavirus whacked stock futures this morning — and led to the cancellation of Mobile World Congress. More on that below. (Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

The race to be the next Fed chair is getting interesting

Judy Shelton, who has been nominated to the central bank’s board of governors, is scheduled to testify before the Senate today.She is a contentious choice for the job, Jeanna Smialek of the NYT notes:• Ms. Shelton has questioned whether America needs the Fed at all.• She favors pegging the value of the dollar to something like gold, an idea the U.S. abandoned decades ago.• She’s seen as open to bending her ideological positions to please President Trump, eroding the Fed’s political independence.But she appears to be moving into a prime position to become the next Fed chair if Mr. Trump wins re-election, Ms. Smialek adds. The president has openly derided the current chairman, Jay Powell, and could well pick someone more in tune with him ideologically when Mr. Powell’s term is up in 2022. Washington speculation had focused on a different candidate for Fed chair: Kevin Warsh, who was on the central bank’s board during the financial crisis. Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Warsh before, but some wonder whether a strong performance by Ms. Shelton today would give her the inside track.____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.____________________________

Is ‘Beyond Petroleum’ for real this time?

BP announced yesterday that it plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050, an ambitious target for one of the world’s biggest energy companies. What that actually means, however, is up for interpretation.The oil giant’s proposal is its latest climate-minded initiative, with a twist. Not only is the company seeking to reduce its own carbon emissions, it said, but it also wants to offset the emissions from use of the oil and gas that it produces.The proposal is more complicated than it looks. It has to do with the “scope” of emissions targeted by the plan: The bulk of pollution created by BP’s products are generated when customers burn the fuels, which are called Scope 3 emissions. BP’s net-zero pledge covers only its more direct operations, although the company plans to reduce Scope 3 emissions significantly.

U.K. regulators investigate Barclays C.E.O.’s ties to Epstein

Barclays disclosed this morning that British financial regulators have opened an investigation into ties between its chief, Jes Staley, and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.The context: The two men had known each other since at least 1999, when Mr. Staley led JPMorgan Chase’s private bank, where Mr. Epstein was a client. The financier had helped funnel dozens of wealthy clients to Mr. Staley, and the two men stayed in touch even after Mr. Epstein was accused of sexually abusing scores of women.Mr. Staley has the backing of the Barclays board, for now. The bank said he had been “sufficiently transparent” about the nature of his ties to Mr. Epstein, and the C.E.O. said that he hadn’t had any contact with the disgraced financier since taking up his post in December 2015.

Mobile World Congress was canceled. Does anybody care?

Mobile World Congress, the annual jamboree for the telecom industry in Barcelona, was canceled yesterday over fears about the coronavirus outbreak. It raises an interesting question: Do these kinds of conferences matter?Last year, MWC drew around 110,000 attendees (including 7,900 C.E.O.s) from 200 countries. Cancellation of this month’s edition was inevitable, after major exhibitors like Nokia, Ericsson and Amazon pulled out over the past week or so.This presents a natural experiment in the value of industry events, seen by some as essential for networking and deal making and by others as price-gouging junkets. Thousands of meetings that would’ve taken place at MWC this year now won’t happen, which could have knock-on effects later in the year. (Or not.)The view from a veteran: We spoke with Ben Wood, a telecom analyst at CCS Insight in London who would have made his 23rd consecutive appearance at MWC this year.• For the companies that blow huge portions of their marketing budgets on MWC, “if you find that you can cope without going, and the costs associated with it, you may choose to deploy your resources in different ways,” he told DealBook.• That’s harder for small companies that rely on “serendipitous moments” with big buyers or potential partners wandering the halls of events like MWC, he added.No touching. In the meantime, conference etiquette will change. The organizers of a big tech event in Amsterdam now underway praised attendees for “safe greeting practices such as fist or elbow bumps.” Generally speaking, it must be said, handshakes are incredibly unhygienic.

Credit Suisse’s chief leaves on a defiant, awkward note

Tidjane Thiam delivered his final earnings call as the Swiss bank’s chief this morning, after being pressured to resign amid controversy over a spying scandal.He presented the growth in net income of 69 percent as the result of his changes in the structure and strategy at the company. “We’ve built something of quality, the numbers are coming through,” he said at a press conference.There was a notable moment of reflection on his uneasy tenure at the bank, notes the NYT’s Amie Tsang, who was listening in on the call. “There are differences within Switzerland in how people feel about me,” Mr. Thiam said. “Every second I’ve done the best I could. I am who I am, I cannot change who I am.”

How Marc Benioff sold Trump the trillion-tree idea

President Trump has openly dismissed climate change activists as “prophets of doom.” But Marc Benioff of Salesforce managed to win him over on one particular environmental initiative, Lisa Friedman of the NYT writes.Mr. Benioff pitched Jared Kushner, a top White House adviser and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, about the initiative to plant one trillion trees to help offset carbon emissions. The idea eventually — and unexpectedly — wound its way into Mr. Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month.“Trees are the ultimate bipartisan issue,” Mr. Benioff told the NYT. “Everyone is pro-tree.”There are two lessons to draw from this:• Successfully lobbying Mr. Trump is an unconventional process that involves back-channeling with trusted advisers.• The idea of one trillion trees appears to have taken hold with the president because, as Ms. Friedman notes, “it was practically sacrifice-free.”

Jeff Bezos’ latest takeover: David Geffen’s L.A. mansion

The Amazon chief has continued his real estate splurge with two new acquisitions, according to Katy McLaughlin and Katherine Clarke of the WSJ:• David Geffen’s palatial Los Angeles home, which Mr. Bezos bought for $165 million — setting a record for the city in the process.• A plot of undeveloped land in the L.A. area, purchased from the estate of the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.They follow Mr. Bezos’ $80 million purchase of the top four floors of a Manhattan apartment building last year, reportedly with the goal of turning them into a gigantic pied-à-terre.It’s a windfall for Mr. Geffen, who bought the L.A. mansion — the former estate of the movie mogul Jack Warner — for $47.5 million in 1990.

The speed read

Deals• The parent company of T-Mobile reportedly wants to renegotiate the price of its takeover of Sprint. (FT)• The venture capital firm Battery Ventures has raised $2 billion for its two latest funds, which will focus on investments in enterprise software companies. (Bloomberg)• Meet the Korean hedge fund that scored big by backing “Parasite,” the movie that won the Academy Award for best picture. (Bloomberg)Politics and policy• Moderate Democratic leaders are slowly warming up to Mike Bloomberg as Senator Bernie Sanders becomes the front-runner in the party’s presidential race. (NYT)• Larry Ellison of Oracle is doing a rare thing in Silicon Valley: hosting a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Recode)• The Education Department is reportedly investigating Harvard and Yale over their sources of foreign funding. (WSJ)Tech• The Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, has reportedly said in private conversations that he expects a criminal antitrust case in Silicon Valley in the next few months. (Hollywood Reporter)• Read up on Mark Zuckerberg’s approach to crisis management. (Wired)• Britain plans to give its media regulator additional oversight over internet content. (NYT)• Huawei of China is said to be in talks to fund research into 5G wireless technology at the London School of Economics — for £105,000, or $136,000. (FT)Best of the rest• Massachusetts’ attorney general sued Juul yesterday, accusing the vaping company of buying ads on youth-focused websites to target young nonsmokers. (NYT)• The coronavirus outbreak cost Bernard Arnault his title of world’s richest man. (Fortune)• Charlie Munger on the world today: “There’s too much wretched excess.” (CNBC)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Read the full article

[thebrewstorian]

This is the [incomplete] story of Oregon beer, part 2

This is the second part of the story of Oregon beer. 

Read This is the [incomplete] story of Oregon beer, part 1

This talk is based on an Oregon Encyclopedia article I wrote.

Last February I gave a talk at the Oregon Brewers Guild dinner. None of us knew what was ahead for public health, the economy, and social change. I love giving talks and will certainly repurpose this one, but for now, here are the slides and script with a few additions to reflect the pandemic shut down and updated screenshots from the beer guides.

https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/beer_research

https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/brewingarchives

In the spring of 1980, Charles and Shirley Coury, who had owned a vineyard for 13 years in Forest Grove, opened a brewery Portland. They called it Cartwright Brewing Company (Cartwright was Shirley’s maiden name) and their first offering was 150 cases of a mild, English-style ale called Cartwright Portland.

Coury found century-old beer beer-making recipes in “beautiful, old brewing textbooks” in the stacks of the Multnomah County Library. He also made Legal Lager and Deliverance Ale, the latter an attempt to raise money to keep the business open. The beer was nearly $1 per bottle, which was more than customers expected to pay; but the price point wasn’t the issue, the inconsistency was. Although Cartwright closed in 1981, it roused consumers’ appetite for a locally made, small-batch beer, but it also inspired the brewers who came a few years later.

The mid to late 1980s were an exciting time for Oregon Beer. 

Richard and Nancy Ponzi, also winemakers, opened Columbia River Brewing (later called BridgePort) and brothers Kurt and Rob opened Widmer Brewing (they added “Brothers” to the company’s name a few years later). Karl Ockert, a recent UC Davis graduate with a degree in winemaking, joined the Ponzis summer 1983 at their vineyard. He and Ponzi were interested in beer and began planning a brewery and portfolio of ales. One became their namesake: BridgePort Ale. Others followed: the award-winning BridgePort India Pale Ale, Blue Heron Pale Ale (named after Portland's official city bird), and a barley wine named "Old Knucklehead." BridgePort was acquired by The Gambrinus Company, owned by Carlos Alvarez, in 1995. Brewery operations ceased in February 2019, and the brew pub closed the next month.  

Kurt Widmer enjoyed homebrewing and full-flavored beer. After seeing Chuck Coury’s brewery he knew he had a chance at success. His brother quit his job, his father came out of retirement, and his sister in Germany joined as a partner. Their first beer was a Dusseldorf-style Alt and in 1986, they introduced their "Hefeweizen" to America. Rather than a traditional Hefeweizen characterized by distinctive yeast flavors, this was an unfiltered version of their existing wheat beer (Weizenbier) and used Cascade hops. They served it with a slice of lemon to accentuate the citrus flavors of the Cascade hops. In 2007, Redhook Ale Brewery and Widmer Brothers merged to form a new company called Craft Brewers Alliance, which was later renamed as Craft Brew Alliance. In January 2019, Widmer Brothers Brewing closed its taproom after 22 years. In November, 2019 Anheuser-Busch purchased the remainder of CBA.

Fred Bowman started homebrewing after receiving a “How To” guide from high school friend Jim Goodwin, who was also a talented jazz musician. They brewed test batches in Bowman’s basement and were soon joined by high school friend Art Larrance. In 1984, Bowman and Larrance had a franchise agreement for Portland Brewing Company to produce Bert Grant’s Scottish Ale and Russian Imperial Stout and had leased the 58-year-old Holly Farms creamery building in Portland, but they needed more money before they could open. The two raised $125,000 with a common stock offering and leased equipment from Imperial Leading in Lake Oswego. “Mac” MacTarnahan invested $25,000 and in 1992 they named MacTarnahan’s Pale Ale after him; it became the Portland Brewing’s flagship brew. By 1998 the company was in financial trouble, and that year MacTarnahan bought $3.5 million in debt in exchange for stock. Portland Brewing Company merged with Saxer Brewing Company of Lake Oswego in 2000. In 2004, MacTarnahan, then 88 years old, sold the company to Pyramid Breweries of Seattle. In 2008, Pyramid was acquired by Magic Hat Brewing Company, which was subsequently bought by North American Breweries and then by the Costa Rican company Florida Ice & Farm Company.

McMenamins is famous for brewpubs, music, and hotels. Many of their locations are in rehabilitated historical properties and at last nine are on the National Register of Historic Places. McMenamins was founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, who grew up in northeast Portland, Oregon. Their influence began in 1974 with the opening of Produce Row Café, which soon made a name as one of Portland's first bars devoted to quality imports and craft beer. Don Younger’s Horse Brass Pub, which opened in 1976, was also an essential component in increasing consumer access and awareness of imported and local beer, as well as provided a community space to share beer experiences. In 1985, the McMenamins opened Oregon’s first brewpub in the Southwest Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale with brew master Carlos Santos. They didn’t adhere to a style and their beers were often unsettling to brewing traditionalists; they used ingredients like blackberries, apples, blueberries, spices, and candy bars. Their first theater pub, and the first in Oregon, was the Mission Theater & Pub (1987). The company then entered the broader hospitality business starting in 1990, when they converted a 74-acre site (that at one time served as the Multnomah County Poor Farm) into McMenamins Edgefield.

One major event that impacted the trajectory of the beer industry in Oregon in the 1980s was legislation that married production and sales. 

Before 1985, brewpubs were essentially illegal in Oregon. The state’s post-Prohibition laws said alcohol manufacture and retail could not occur on the same premises; instead, breweries had to work with a third-party distributor to add taps and sell their product. Bowman, Larrance, the Ponzis, the Widmers, and the McMenamin were instrumental in lobbying to legalize the marriage of production and on-site sales. 

In early 1985 House Bill 2284 proposed a brewery-public house license that would allow the brewing and selling of malt beverages at the same location; however, wholesale beer suppliers feared new brewpubs would cut into business and launched a counter campaign. On May 9, 1985 HB 2284 was tabled and died. The second bill, SB 813, proposed a bed and breakfast license to permit the sale of beer and wine, as well as a brewery-public house license for manufacturers producing less than 25,000 barrels of malt beverage. On July 13, 1985, Governor Vic Atiyeh signed Senate Bill 813, the “Brewpub Bill,” into law. It allowed brewers to make and sell beer on the same premises, key for increasing revenue and gaining new customers.

Although growth over the next 10 years was slow, throughout the 1980s, four other breweries opened in other parts of the state: Full Sail Brewing (Hood River) and Oregon Trail Brewery (Corvallis) in 1987, and Deschutes Brewery (Bend) and Rogue Ales (originally in Ashland) in 1988. Portland has always had the largest concentration of breweries and Central Oregon has seen exceptional growth, but breweries have opened in new areas to attract diverse consumers. Examples include Calapooia (1993, Albany), Cascade Lakes Brewing Company (1994, Redmond), Terminal Gravity (1996, Enterprise), Barley Brown’s (1998, Baker City), Walkabout Brewing (1997, Medford), Ninkasi (2006, Eugene), Fort George (2007, Astoria), and Block 15 (2008, Corvallis).

A maturing industry needed skilled brewers and since its establishment in 1995, Oregon State University’s Fermentation Science program in the Food Science and Technology department has led brewer education. Homebrew clubs and organizations around Oregon have also provided training for future professionals. Founded in Portland in 1979, the Oregon Brew Crew is one of the oldest and largest home brewing clubs in the United States; it is appropriate that their meetings are held at F.H. Steinbart, a homebrew shop founded in 1918 and the oldest in the country. Other pioneering clubs include the Heart of the Valley Homebrewers (1982, Corvallis) and the Cascade Brewers Society (1982, Eugene).

The Oregon Brewers Guild fills an important role as a non-profit advocate for the state’s breweries; founded in 1992, it is one of the nation's oldest craft brewer associations. Two other important organizations to support increased gender equity in brewing started in Oregon. The Pink Boots Society was founded in 2007 by Teri Fahrendorf, former brewmaster at Steelhead Brewing in Eugene, as a professional organization to support women in the brewing industries. In 2011, Pink Boots members created Barley’s Angels as an educational community for consumers; it became its own organization in 2012.

In addition to more breweries to choose from, consumers had other ways to engage with beer. The Oregon Homebrew Festival, established in 1982, is the Pacific Northwest’s oldest homebrew competition; others followed, including the KLCC Brewfest Homebrew Competition and SheBrew. The Oregon Brewers Festival (established 1988) is one of the nation’s longest running and largest craft beer festivals; others throughout the state include the Portland Craft Beer Festival, the Festival of Dark Arts in Astoria, Bend Brewfest, and Mt. Angel's Oktoberfest.

The increasing popularity of homebrewing and accessibility of imported beers certainly had an impact on the preferences and palates of consumers, as did writing about beer in the public press. Fred Eckhardt was a well-known advocate, critic, educator, mentor, and historian, and his written work on beer and brewing encouraged generations of people to think about beer in new ways. Inspired by a 1972 visit to Anchor Steam Brewery, Eckhardt became an avid proponent of tasteful, complex craft brews. He urged people to focus on flavor, style, and experience in the Oregonian, and also wrote regular articles in national industry publications like Celebrator Beer News and All About Beer. He rose to prominence with his 1970 A Treatise on Lager Beers, a guide to homebrewing and the evolution of lager beer, and 1989 The Essentials of Beer Style. 

The Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives acquired his papers in 2015, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to preserve and provide access to materials that document such important moments in this history.

In more recent years, as print publications have folded, blogs, podcasts, and news aggregate sites have dominated Oregon beer news and information. Reporting about the beer industry has changed a lot in the past year, and I am grateful that there are still web sites like New School Beer and Brewpublic, as well as notable journalists and authors like Jeff Alworth, Denny Conn, and John Abernathy reporting on local issues.

Electronic, paper, oral histories? I’m interested in collecting all the things that document the industry. In the last year we’ve added collections from the Oregon Brewers Guild, Widmer Brothers Brewing, the Pink Boots Society and Barleys Angels.

We have Fred Eckhardt’s papers, as well as Denny Conns and a collection of research materials from Pete Dunlop. Other collections include Master Brewers of America District Northwest Chapter Records, the Oregon Hop Growers Association, and scanned collections from both Fred Bowman and Art Larrance.

Find a list of all collections and oral histories on the OHBA guide. 

[yasbxxgie]

The Curious Case of the Black Male Escort Found Dead Inside a Wealthy Democratic Donor’s Home

On July 27, 2017, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore was found in the bathroom of a West Hollywood, Calif., apartment belonging to Ed Buck, 62. Moore was young, black and poor. Buck was white, wealthy and powerful.

That’s all we know.

Moore’s family is searching for answers. Buck has not spoken publicly about the incident. Police have not charged anyone with a crime, even though multiple reports have surfaced that Buck had a predilection for young, black men. Even after a number of young, black male sex workers have stepped forward with apparent photographic evidence that Buck was one of their clients. Even after each one of those men separately told the same story: Not only did Buck have a fetish for black men, but he was known in West Hollywood’s gay community as someone paying top dollar for the company of 20-something black escorts ...

But only after injecting them with drugs.

West Hollywood is known as the “symbolic heart” of LGBTQ Los Angeles. During the 1930s, gay men and women gathered in bars in the then-unincorporated part of the city to skirt federal and state Prohibition laws. In 1967, two years before New York City’s Greenwich Village Stonewall riots put the fight for gay and lesbian rights on the map, a protest organized by the Personal Rights in Defense and Education organization kick-started the West Coast movement in West Hollywood.

Since then, the West Hollywood area has been incorporated as a city and is known nationwide as a home for a thriving, affluent gay population. The city is a liberal enclave and has recently rebranded itself as WeHo.

Buck was born in 1954 and came out to his parents at the age of 16, according to WeHoville. In the 1980s, after living and traveling as a male model and actor, Buck began working in Arizona for a company that provided information for driver’s licenses. According to WeHoville, in a 1987 interview with the Arizona Republic, Buck said that he saw so much potential in the struggling company that he bought it out of bankruptcy for $250,000. Five years later, he sold the company for more than $1 million profit.

In 1987 Buck, described by the Arizona Republic in the same article as a “millionaire, self-acknowledged homosexual and registered Republican,” launched himself into politics by leading an effort to impeach Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham.

Even though Buck’s campaign led to the successful impeachment of the governor, Buck left the Republican Party because of its intolerant stance on LGBTQ issues. According to the profile in WeHoville, after arrests on narcotics and public indecency charges, Buck eventually left Arizona and moved to West Hollywood.

It was in West Hollywood that Buck became a major political backer. He helped Democrat John D’Amico win a seat on the West Hollywood City Council and pushed for the nation’s first ban on the sale of fur products.

Although donations to political action committees don’t have to be disclosed, Buck gave $2,700—the maximum amount possible—to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and online sources show he has donated more than $250 million to Democratic candidates. A quick Google Images search turns up pictures of Buck with some of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the country, including Clinton and California Gov. Jerry Brown.

In 2017, Gemmel Moore relocated from Texas and moved to West Hollywood. Numerous friends of Moore confirmed his struggles with drugs, which, many say, were fueled by the fetishes of one of his most frequent clients—Ed Buck.

Moore’s roommate and best friend, Samuel Lloyd, alleges that Buck had an unhealthy obsession with Moore. “He went out there searching for other men that were struggling and on the streets and had no money ... men who had never experienced drugs before,” said Lloyd at an October 21 community meeting. “This is the kind of guys Ed Buck searched for.”

Lloyd added that Moore had grown afraid of Buck in the days before his death, saying that “Gemmel was scared of this man. He came and he laid in my arms and he was scared. Scared that this man was going to hurt him.”

Lloyd said that Moore went to West Hollywood police a number of times to warn them about Buck to no avail.

Lloyd’s allegations seem to be backed up by other men who provided photographic evidence of Buck’s drug use with male escorts. Damar Love provided the WeHo Times with photographs of himself inside Buck’s home. According to the Times, the pictures appeared to have been taken at the same apartment where Moore’s body was found and show Love sitting next to a glass pipe often used to smoke crystal meth.

Love told the WeHo Times that he serviced Buck at least three times. He stated that Buck insisted that Love turn off his cellphone and demanded that he do drugs before their encounter. In an interview with the WeHo Times, Love stated:

When I get there, I always want my money up front, and that’s how it always started. Initially, when I got there I understood that he was already well under the influence because he told me he had already been up for two days and was still doing drugs as far as liquid GHB, shooting meth—crystal meth, and smoking it. When he insisted that I get high and continue to get high, that’s when I started to do my research on him ... I was like, “Why are you insisting that I be high?”

Writer Jasmyne Cannick says she met with Love along with journalists from ABC 7 and the Los Angeles Times and provided a partial transcript of the interview, in which Love says he went to the police with this information:

So I go there [West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station] and I basically let them know I’m coming from an older friend’s house—at the time I didn’t want to speak his name. But I did initially say that I feel like I was drugged. And because I was talking rapidly and constantly looking around tryin’ to watch my back to see if someone was approaching me the only thing they would say is, “You’re tweaking. You’re under the influence and if you don’t get away from here I’m going to take you to jail for being under the influence.” They didn’t care to ask who it was or where did it happen, and I said, “Well just let me write a statement down; you guys can give me a number for that I can use if I need to come back it’d be available.” He said, “OK.” He gave me a paper. I wrote it down. Sat there for about 10 minutes and because I was still rambling about the situation they did not want me standing in the front lobby of the department; they told me to leave.

Another alleged client who only goes by the name of “Brian” provided screenshots from the website Adam4Adam of conversations with Buck arranging an encounter. Yet another man named “Blake” has provided screenshots to Jasmyne Cannick from a man using the name “Bucked,” purported to be Ed Buck. Blake provided screenshots and photos from inside an apartment that appears to resemble Buck’s home.

Buck’s neighbors and associates have allegedly fallen prey to the bullying and erratic behavior of the wealthy donor. In a 2002 petition for a restraining order, therapist James E. d’Jarnette told a court that Buck harassed him for days after d’Jarnette informed the wealthy donor that he wouldn’t prescribe amphetamines, the WeHo Times reports.

Former Councilman Steve Martin said that people in the West Hollywood community often complained about Buck’s temperament. “If there was ever anybody in West Hollywood whose bed you expected a dead body to turn up in, it was Ed Buck,” Martin told the WeHo Times.

Perhaps the most damning evidence comes from a journal that Moore’s mother says belonged to Gemmel Moore discussing his fear of Buck.

“I honestly don’t know what to do,” the journal excerpt reads. “I’ve became addicted to drugs and the worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to thank he gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful but after all the troubles I became addicted to the pain and fetish/fantasy.”

In the entry, Moore goes on to say, “If it didn’t hurt so bad I’d kill myself, but for now I’ll just let Ed Buck do it.”

When police arrived at Buck’s home to investigate the death, they found drug paraphernalia, according to the Los Angeles coroner’s office. Video also shows another young black man looking for Buck showing up at Buck’s home and being turned away by police taping off the scene.

Despite this abundance of evidence and more, including cellphone records, West Hollywood authorities have not charged Buck with a crime and have indicated that Buck is not a suspect.

Moore’s family have asked the investigators to grant immunity to witnesses who come forward, but the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said that it cannot grant immunity—only prosecutors can.

In addition to the launch of Justice 4 Gemmel, Moore’s mother has enlisted the help of human rights advocate and attorney Nana Gyamfi.

Through all of this, Ed Buck has remained silent. And free. He dispatched his attorney to a West Hollywood City Council meeting to urge citizens to stop the ongoing “character assassination.”

Meanwhile, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore is still dead.

[narcisbolgor-blog]

Trump Adviser Tony Perkins Just Got a Global License to Spread His Anti-LGBT Hate

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), is the Alex Jones of the Christian Right: hyperbolic, outrageous, thin on facts, and thick on melodrama.

And now hes going on the governments payroll, as a member of the U.S. Committee for International Religious Freedom (CIRF). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appointed Perkins to the role yesterday, for a term of two years.

Perkins isnt your usual Christian fundamentalist.To get a sense of him, here are some choice cuts from Perkins long playlist:

While running a Senate campaign back in 1996, Perkins bought a robocall list from former KKK Grand Wizard David Dukes company, later admitting he used a shell corporation to cover it up.This wasnt a fluke: In 2001, Perkins spoke to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization.

In 2010, Perkins wrote that the high rate of suicide among gay teens was due not to societal homophobia but because they know they are abnormal.Fortunately, Perkins continued, homosexuality could be cured through the power of Jesus Christ.In 2016, Perkins tried to have the debunked and abusive practice of conversion therapy included in the Republican Party platform.

In 2011, Perkins called LGBT activists Intolerant, Hateful, Vile, Spiteful Pawns Of The Enemy [i.e. Satan].Meanwhile, Perkins called Ugandas Kill the Gays bill, which provided the death penalty for homosexuality, an attempt to uphold moral conduct.

In 2014, Perkins said that a holocaust against American Christians was imminent, and that LGBT activists were about to begin hauling out boxcars. He has made the holocaust claim several times.

In 2015, Perkins chose not to report a sexual assault by a protg, Wesley Goodman, on a teenage boy, instead telling the boys parents the issue would be handled with prudence. He cut ties with Goodman, but reportedly covered up the assault.

That same year, another Perkins protg, Josh Duggar, was exposed as a former child molester, porn addict, and Ashley Madison-using adulterer. Duggar had headed the lobbying arm of the FRC, which the Southern Policy Law Center lists as a hate group.

Its widely understood that the FRC engineered Trumps ban on transgender people in the military; the FRC is now in court fighting not to release records of their contacts with the White House, most likely since they would undermine the security rationale for the ban. Perkins has said it would be better to disband the entire military rather than have trans people in it. He also said that because Target stores now allow trans people to use gender-appropriate restrooms, those restrooms look like crime scenes that are a live rendition of CSI.

Perkins frequently hosts Islamophobic conspiracy nut Frank Gaffney on his radio show.On the show, Gaffney called President Obama a Sharia law proponent and made fun of his name.

Perkins himself has said that only militant Muslims are actually practicing Islam; moderates are not.For that reason, Perkins said, the U.S. Constitution does not protect Muslims.Perkins also spread the myth of no-go Muslim neighborhoods in the United States.FRCs vice president, Jerry Boykin, has been more straightforward, saying that Islam is evil.

In 2015, Perkins blamed Hurricane Joaquin, which devastated the Bahamas, on Gods wrath against abortion and same-sex marriage.Then in 2016, his own home was destroyed in a flood.

I could go on and on and on.Sometimes its hard to know how seriously to take Tony Perkinshow much he believes this garbage, and how much is just for the headlines (and fundraising).But what does any of it have to do with international religious freedom?

As with Perkinss new colleague, former governor Sam Brownback, there are two main concerns about putting such an extreme individual on an important State Department committee: weaponizing religious freedom against women and LGBT people, and waging a global counter-jihad against Islam.

First, the main responsibility of the office of International Religious Freedom is the production of anannual reportdetailing the status of religious freedom in every country in the world. Its a valuable resource that makes the protection of religious freedom a real priority, rather than just empty words.

But remember that in Perkins view, its a violation of religious freedom to have to obey non-discrimination laws: not just cake-bakers having to bake cakes for gays, but any corporation required to provide spousal benefits to a same-sex couple, or any individual barred from uttering hate speech (like Perkins).

Remember, Perkins thought the 'Kill the Gays' law was a good idea.It follows that cracking down on American hate-preachers like Scott Lively is a violation of 'religious freedom.'

Now plug that redefinition of religious freedom into the international arena. Nations that forbid discrimination against women or LGBT people might now be censured for violating religious freedom. Crackdowns on incitements to violence would be as well.

Remember, Perkins thought the Kill the Gays law was a good idea.It follows that cracking down on American hate-preachers like Scott Lively is a violation of religious freedom.

Additionally, Perkins, like Brownback, is part of the longtime alliance of Russian Christian conservatives and American Christian conservatives to define the family under international law in narrow, heterosexual, patriarchal terms.

That means womens rights and LGBT rights are anti-family, and since the family is the bedrock of religious values, theyre anti-religious too.

It is entirely foreseeable that Perkinss CIRF will support the hate groups persecuting women and LGBT people around the world, and oppose the human rights groups that have defended them.

They will do this by appropriating money, by characterizing human rights defenders as anti-religion crusaders, and by helping State Department officials around the world protect the discriminators and attack their victims.

As we reported in January, the Trump Effect hasalready affected LGBT people and other vulnerable populations worldwide. Regimes that havetortured LGBT people in Kenya, ormurdered them in Cameroon, orimprisoned them in Chechnya and Russiahave since acted with impunity, knowing full well that this "America First" government will not intervene to save them.

Nor, obviously, will its religious freedom team, filled with those who believe homosexuality destroys society and ought to be punished by death.

Second, Perkins and Brownback share the deluded and counter-factual view that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world.To be sure, there is indeed discrimination against Christians, and it is deplorable.Under President Obama, CIRF regularly reported on and censured such actions.

But Muslims are also discriminated against: in Myanmar, for example, where the largest ethnic cleansing of the 21st century has been perpetrated against Rohingya Muslims; or in Saudi Arabia, where the Sunni majority regularly persecutes the Shiite minority.

Is someone with woefully inaccurate views about Islam, and whose deputy thinks that the entire religion is evil, really going to protect the religious liberty of Muslims around the world?Of course not: Perkins believes that when Muslims practice their religion, they engage in terrorism.

Finally, Perkins has found a way to tie together these two threads of virulent anti-LGBT rhetoric and virulent anti-Islam rhetoric.In 2014, he told Rick Santorum that Christians are persecuted abroad because the United States began to normalize behavior that had long been considered inappropriate and that there is a correlation between the increase in persecution abroad and the increase of intolerance from our own government here at home.

Thats right: ISIS is beheading Christians in Syria because Colorado told a baker to bake a cake.Apparently, they were just waiting for permission.

Come to think of it, maybe it doesnt matter how much Perkins believes this stuff after all. The consequences of such ignorance will be deadly either way.

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

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[lorajackson]

Michigan conservatives hail protest success – and set sights on Trump's re-election

Protesters backed by rightwing donors believe their growing movement can ‘dwarf the Tea Party’ and keep Trump in the White HouseIt started with a Zoom call.Five members of the Michigan Conservative Coalition – a rightwing non-profit with ties to the Trump administration – decided they needed to do something to protest against Michigan’s stay-at-home order, designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.Over a video chat in mid-April, they conceived a “gridlock” protest outside Michigan’s state capitol. It led to thousands of people blocking streets with their cars and hundreds assembling, in contravention of social distancing guidelines.The rally had a bigger impact than they could have imagined. Promoted by wealthy rightwing groups, pushed by Fox News, and tacitly endorsed by Donald Trump, the Michigan protest has sparked copycat rallies across the US with further protests planned, and is spiraling into a movement which one conservative activist said could “dwarf the Tea Party”.“We were blown away,” said Meshawn Maddock, a co-founder of the Michigan Conservative Coalition and a member of the advisory board for Women for Trump – an official arm of Trump’s re-election campaign.“We’ve organized some pretty big things, but I don’t think Michigan … I don’t know that the nation has seen anything like what just happened.”The rally was also supported by the Michigan Freedom Fund – which has received more than half a million dollars from the family of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos – but soon even bigger groups were jumping on board, each with their own rightwing agendas to promote.FreedomWorks, a conservative special interest group which pushed the Tea Party movement, opposed Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, and has downplayed climate change, has directed resources to the movement. The group now hopes to turn the anti-lockdown protests into a movement which could help re-elect Trump in November.The Tea Party Patriots, another group forged amid the Tea Party movement of 2009, has also weighed in, promoting the rallies to its 3 million members nationwide, while a group of gun-enthusiast activist brothers bought up webpages in an effort to further the movement’s aims.The Tea Party supported lower taxes, but was also accused of representing a racist reaction to the election of the first black president. It is also a prime example of “astroturfing” – where corporations jumped on to an activist group presented as a grassroots movement. It had some undoubted success, particularly in electing a number of extremely rightwing Republicans to office during the midterm elections, but some of those behind the current protests say this movement could eclipse it.“This movement that’s starting right now has the potential to even dwarf the size of Tea Party,” said Noah Wall, the vice-president of advocacy at FreedomWorks.“The Tea Party was started in response to excessive government spending and bailouts in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. This is affecting Americans across the board. You don’t have to have an opinion on government spending to not want to be forced to stay at home and not be able to work.”Wall stressed that activists are organizing the protests, but FreedomWorks is pulling out all the stops to help them do so. The organization has set up an online “planning guide” for people to hold anti-stay-at-home rallies, complete with printable rally signs and tips on promoting the events online.Meanwhile, it has promoted the events to its 5 million members through emails and social media posts.The influence of rightwing groups has rarely been made clear to the aggrieved Americans heading out to the protests.Maddock and her Michigan Conservative Coalition co-founder Marian Sheridan claimed the Michigan rally was bipartisan, despite scores of protesters waving Trump 2020 campaign signs and sporting Maga hats. Others paraded Confederate flags.Sheridan is the grassroots vice-chair of the Michigan Republican party, and said although this wasn’t an official Republican protest, “I’m sure that the party supports this”.“There were lots of our legislators at the rally,” Sheridan pointed out.Tony Daunt, the executive director of the DeVos-backed Michigan Freedom Fund, downplayed the group’s involvement in the rally – saying it was limited to spending $250 to advertise the event – but he did attend the protest.“The rally was, I think, a huge success,” Daunt said.Daunt and the Michigan Conservative Coalition said they had supported Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s initial stay-at-home order until she introduced stricter measures on 10 April, including limiting the number of people allowed in stores.Polls show a majority of Michiganders support Whitmer’s handling of the crisis. More than 2,800 people have died from coronavirus in the state – the third highest tally in the US – with African Americans accounting for 40% of the deaths.Despite minorities having been most affected by coronavirus in the state, the Michigan crowd appeared to be majority white.Fox News covered the Michigan event throughout the day, with hosts including Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro – neither of whom have risked abandoning social distancing to attend a protest – championing the effort.Fox News���s bombardment of anti-lockdown messaging soon reached a particularly influential audience member. “Liberate Michigan!” Trump tweeted two days after the Michigan protest, minutes after another favorable report by Fox News. On Sunday, he denied the protesters had put people at risk.“They’ve got cabin fever,” Trump told reporters at a White House briefing. “They want their lives back. These people love our country. They want to get back to work.”As Trump and Fox News, plus other rightwing outlets, cheered the Michiganders, plans for rallies in other states began to emerge. Since the Michigan effort, protests have taken place in Maryland, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia – a rally organized, in part, by a Virginia gun rights group.Other protests, promoted by FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, are planned in Alaska, Delaware and Kansas.Jenny Beth Martin, honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots, stressed that the protests had not been organized by the top of the organization, but by Tea Party Patriots activists in different states.“They let us know about reopen events that are happening in their own state,” Martin said. “As long as the event is listing that the social distancing guidelines must be followed then we are sharing the event with our supporters in the geographic area by email.”That possibly underplays the Tea Party Patriots’ influence, given it has 3 million supporters and hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers. Wall, at FreedomWorks, was also keen to stress it did not organize events, but the organization’s ability to reach its 5 million members is hardly a small matter in promoting the events.In any case, the protests and the fawning news coverage by the rightwing media serve as a handy shot in the arm for less-publicized work both organizations are doing behind the scenes.FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have joined with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a controversial rightwing network that pushes policies by creating model legislation, to create a “Save Our Country” coalition, which is quietly lobbying Trump to reopen the economy. The protests are likely to help them make their case – potentially having consequences that far outweigh the few thousand who have turned out to defy stay-at-home orders.In the meantime, FreedomWorks is hoping to turn the rallies into a force in electoral politics, another avenue the original organizers did not conceive.“We train activists on how to influence elections. Any new members who are interested we will absolutely be providing training and resources for them to get involved and be able to affect the elections,” Wall said.“What’s happening in the coming weeks will absolutely affect the November elections.”

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[mastcomm]

Is This the Next Leader of the Fed?

Good morning. Fears about the spread of the coronavirus whacked stock futures this morning — and led to the cancellation of Mobile World Congress. More on that below. (Want this in your inbox each morning? Sign up here.)

The race to be the next Fed chair is getting interesting

Judy Shelton, who has been nominated to the central bank’s board of governors, is scheduled to testify before the Senate today.

She is a contentious choice for the job, Jeanna Smialek of the NYT notes:

• Ms. Shelton has questioned whether America needs the Fed at all.

• She favors pegging the value of the dollar to something like gold, an idea the U.S. abandoned decades ago.

• She’s seen as open to bending her ideological positions to please President Trump, eroding the Fed’s political independence.

But she appears to be moving into a prime position to become the next Fed chair if Mr. Trump wins re-election, Ms. Smialek adds. The president has openly derided the current chairman, Jay Powell, and could well pick someone more in tune with him ideologically when Mr. Powell’s term is up in 2022.

Washington speculation had focused on a different candidate for Fed chair: Kevin Warsh, who was on the central bank’s board during the financial crisis. Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Warsh before, but some wonder whether a strong performance by Ms. Shelton today would give her the inside track.

Is ‘Beyond Petroleum’ for real this time?

BP announced yesterday that it plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050, an ambitious target for one of the world’s biggest energy companies. What that actually means, however, is up for interpretation.

The oil giant’s proposal is its latest climate-minded initiative, with a twist. Not only is the company seeking to reduce its own carbon emissions, it said, but it also wants to offset the emissions from use of the oil and gas that it produces.

The proposal is more complicated than it looks. It has to do with the “scope” of emissions targeted by the plan: The bulk of pollution created by BP’s products are generated when customers burn the fuels, which are called Scope 3 emissions. BP’s net-zero pledge covers only its more direct operations, although the company plans to reduce Scope 3 emissions significantly.

U.K. regulators investigate Barclays C.E.O.’s ties to Epstein

Barclays disclosed this morning that British financial regulators have opened an investigation into ties between its chief, Jes Staley, and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The context: The two men had known each other since at least 1999, when Mr. Staley led JPMorgan Chase’s private bank, where Mr. Epstein was a client. The financier had helped funnel dozens of wealthy clients to Mr. Staley, and the two men stayed in touch even after Mr. Epstein was accused of sexually abusing scores of women.

Mr. Staley has the backing of the Barclays board, for now. The bank said he had been “sufficiently transparent” about the nature of his ties to Mr. Epstein, and the C.E.O. said that he hadn’t had any contact with the disgraced financier since taking up his post in December 2015.

Mobile World Congress was canceled. Does anybody care?

Mobile World Congress, the annual jamboree for the telecom industry in Barcelona, was canceled yesterday over fears about the coronavirus outbreak. It raises an interesting question: Do these kinds of conferences matter?

Last year, MWC drew around 110,000 attendees (including 7,900 C.E.O.s) from 200 countries. Cancellation of this month’s edition was inevitable, after major exhibitors like Nokia, Ericsson and Amazon pulled out over the past week or so.

This presents a natural experiment in the value of industry events, seen by some as essential for networking and deal making and by others as price-gouging junkets. Thousands of meetings that would’ve taken place at MWC this year now won’t happen, which could have knock-on effects later in the year. (Or not.)

The view from a veteran: We spoke with Ben Wood, a telecom analyst at CCS Insight in London who would have made his 23rd consecutive appearance at MWC this year.

• For the companies that blow huge portions of their marketing budgets on MWC, “if you find that you can cope without going, and the costs associated with it, you may choose to deploy your resources in different ways,” he told DealBook.

• That’s harder for small companies that rely on “serendipitous moments” with big buyers or potential partners wandering the halls of events like MWC, he added.

No touching. In the meantime, conference etiquette will change. The organizers of a big tech event in Amsterdam now underway praised attendees for “safe greeting practices such as fist or elbow bumps.” Generally speaking, it must be said, handshakes are incredibly unhygienic.

Credit Suisse’s chief leaves on a defiant, awkward note

Tidjane Thiam delivered his final earnings call as the Swiss bank’s chief this morning, after being pressured to resign amid controversy over a spying scandal.

He presented the growth in net income of 69 percent as the result of his changes in the structure and strategy at the company. “We’ve built something of quality, the numbers are coming through,” he said at a press conference.

There was a notable moment of reflection on his uneasy tenure at the bank, notes the NYT’s Amie Tsang, who was listening in on the call. “There are differences within Switzerland in how people feel about me,” Mr. Thiam said. “Every second I’ve done the best I could. I am who I am, I cannot change who I am.”

How Marc Benioff sold Trump the trillion-tree idea

President Trump has openly dismissed climate change activists as “prophets of doom.” But Marc Benioff of Salesforce managed to win him over on one particular environmental initiative, Lisa Friedman of the NYT writes.

Mr. Benioff pitched Jared Kushner, a top White House adviser and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, about the initiative to plant one trillion trees to help offset carbon emissions. The idea eventually — and unexpectedly — wound its way into Mr. Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month.

“Trees are the ultimate bipartisan issue,” Mr. Benioff told the NYT. “Everyone is pro-tree.”

There are two lessons to draw from this:

• Successfully lobbying Mr. Trump is an unconventional process that involves back-channeling with trusted advisers.

• The idea of one trillion trees appears to have taken hold with the president because, as Ms. Friedman notes, “it was practically sacrifice-free.”

Jeff Bezos’ latest takeover: David Geffen’s L.A. mansion

The Amazon chief has continued his real estate splurge with two new acquisitions, according to Katy McLaughlin and Katherine Clarke of the WSJ:

• David Geffen’s palatial Los Angeles home, which Mr. Bezos bought for $165 million — setting a record for the city in the process.

• A plot of undeveloped land in the L.A. area, purchased from the estate of the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

They follow Mr. Bezos’ $80 million purchase of the top four floors of a Manhattan apartment building last year, reportedly with the goal of turning them into a gigantic pied-à-terre.

It’s a windfall for Mr. Geffen, who bought the L.A. mansion — the former estate of the movie mogul Jack Warner — for $47.5 million in 1990.

The speed read

Deals

• The parent company of T-Mobile reportedly wants to renegotiate the price of its takeover of Sprint. (FT)

• The venture capital firm Battery Ventures has raised $2 billion for its two latest funds, which will focus on investments in enterprise software companies. (Bloomberg)

• Meet the Korean hedge fund that scored big by backing “Parasite,” the movie that won the Academy Award for best picture. (Bloomberg)

Politics and policy

• Moderate Democratic leaders are slowly warming up to Mike Bloomberg as Senator Bernie Sanders becomes the front-runner in the party’s presidential race. (NYT)

• Larry Ellison of Oracle is doing a rare thing in Silicon Valley: hosting a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Recode)

• The Education Department is reportedly investigating Harvard and Yale over their sources of foreign funding. (WSJ)

Tech

• The Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, has reportedly said in private conversations that he expects a criminal antitrust case in Silicon Valley in the next few months. (Hollywood Reporter)

• Read up on Mark Zuckerberg’s approach to crisis management. (Wired)

• Britain plans to give its media regulator additional oversight over internet content. (NYT)

• Huawei of China is said to be in talks to fund research into 5G wireless technology at the London School of Economics — for £105,000, or $136,000. (FT)

Best of the rest

• Massachusetts’ attorney general sued Juul yesterday, accusing the vaping company of buying ads on youth-focused websites to target young nonsmokers. (NYT)

• The coronavirus outbreak cost Bernard Arnault his title of world’s richest man. (Fortune)

• Charlie Munger on the world today: “There’s too much wretched excess.” (CNBC)

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com.

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[ruthsulivan]

Excessive Regulations Putting Vape Shops Out Of Business

New laws and taxes are forcing small mom-and-pop shops to close.

Last week, Michigan became the first state in the country to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. Unfortunately for many small business owners who sell vapor products, unneeded regulations like this may be impacting them more than they thought and much sooner than anticipated.

Keeping up with these sudden, excessive, and ever-expanding regulations have proven to be a challenge for smaller mom-and-pop outlets. One such vape shop in Washington state has recently been forced to close in direct response to these growing burdens.

Anti-vaping activists have been lobbying lawmakers to enact bans and other legislation that restrict the sale and use of vapor products for several years now. While they claim these restrictions serve public health, critics note that more often than not, these new laws only place excessive burdens on small business owners — a move which is ultimately reducing safer options for smokers looking to quit.

While regulations are beneficial for ensuring strict industry standards are upheld and preventing access to minors, issues arise when these new rules become excessively burdensome. Between a constant stream of new restrictions and excessive taxation, many small businesses are shuttering, left with few other options.

Support Small Business

Back in May, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed House Bill (HB) 1873 into law after near-unanimous support as it passed from the House to the Senate to the Governor’s desk. The law initially proposed a taxation rate of 95% for vapor products, products that have been proven to be 95% safer than smoking.

After the law was first introduced in February, several industry leaders and small business owners descended on the state capitol to voice their concerns that these excessive taxes would place them out of business. Kim Thompson, a small vape shop owner and co-founder and president of the Anti-Smoking Alliance, noted that a tax rate that high would nearly double the cost of their products. This would force consumers across state lines, into tribal reservations, toward online sales, or even unsafe DIY methods, all of which would effectively destroy the local industry in the process.

While the bill has since been amended to lower the rate of taxation from 95% to 60%, even these taxes are proving to be too high from some mom and pop shops to keep up with. The Fix Vapor Cafe in Richland has recently been forced to close in direct response to the passage of HB 1873, which goes into effect on October 1st. The law not only taxes any new merchandise bought the day the law goes into effect, but also retroactively applies to any products currently in stock as well.

Small businesses are closing in response to these new laws because they’re unable to keep up with these excessive and burdensome regulations. Lawmakers are forcing entire local industries to go belly-up overnight, not only causing hard-working business owners to lose their livelihoods but also shrinking their regions effective tax base as well.

Facts About Vaping

The smoking epidemic is at an all-time high, with an estimated 1 billion smokers worldwide, 38 million of them in the United States alone. Restricting access to vaping through excessive taxation and regulation only puts this group further at risk by denying them safer alternatives to tobacco.

By legislating vapor products the same as tobacco, lawmakers are creating a negative stigma against a major potential public health tool. A survey conducted by Action on Smoking and Health discovered only 13% of adults believe vaping is safer than smoking, with 26% saying it’s just as bad if not worse.

There is a staggering amount of research highlighting the efficacy of vaping as a smoking cessation aid and reduced harm alternative to tobacco. One such study conducted by the University of Louisville found vaping to be the single most effective smoking cessation tool available on the market today.

Another study published in the Journal of Aerosol Sciences found vapers have a 57,000 times lower risk of developing cancer when compared to smokers. This comes along separate studies from Public Health England and the Roswell Park Cancer Center, who found vaping to be 95% and 93% safer than smoking, respectively.

Implications

Excessive regulations and taxation that target the vaping industry are putting small mom and pop shops out of business at an alarming rate. These small businesses are unable to navigate a hostile and ever-changing economic and legislative landscape.

If lawmakers and industry leaders aren’t able to draft more common-sense legislation regarding the regulation of vapor products, entire local industries may shutter overnight. Lawmakers are imposing astronomical and completely irrational taxes on vapor products for the sake of moral crusading and virtue signaling.

This not only takes away the livelihoods of hard-working Americans but also shrinks the effective tax base in these regions. Lawmakers are creating potential budget shortfalls and unemployment crisis’ in the name of political posturing.

It’s important for the public to remain adequately informed and civically engaged, especially when their government is shuttering local industries because they wanted to pass a measure that would look good in a campaign ad for the upcoming election season. Voters need to hold these lawmakers accountable for their legislative overreach.

How do you feel about excessive taxes and regulations surrounding vaping? Have these impacted you personally? Let us know in the comments below. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter so you can receive all the latest vaping news!

(Image Credit – Pixabay – https://pixabay.com/images/id-1618323/)

The post Excessive Regulations Putting Vape Shops Out Of Business appeared first on ChurnMag.

[thisdaynews]

How Pence’s Camp Persuaded Trump to Pick Their Guy as VP

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-pences-camp-persuaded-trump-to-pick-their-guy-as-vp/

How Pence’s Camp Persuaded Trump to Pick Their Guy as VP

It was July 14, 2016, just four days before the Republican National Convention, and Donald Trump was still waffling on who to pick as his running mate.

He had just told Indiana Gov. Mike Pence he was his pick, but then, a day later, here he was calling up New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

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“Are you ready?” he asked, as Christie recalled. “I want to know that you’re ready and that Mary Pat is ready.”

“If you want me to do this, we’re going to be ready,” Christie told him.

“Stay by the phone tomorrow, because I’m making this call tomorrow,” Trump said.

And what about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich? Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump liked Gingrich because he meshed well with Trump, performed well on TV and was a big thinker in a way Trump wasn’t. But Trump had told an adviser that Gingrich’s vetting packet was terrifying. The dirt Trump’s people had dug up on Gingrich “makes mine look tame,” Trump told the adviser.

The previous Saturday, Trump had told a roomful of donors he liked Christie for vice president. That Tuesday, he told Pence’s good friend and Indiana Republican Party Chairman Jeff Cardwell that the choice was down to Pence and Gingrich. And just the previous day, July 13, he’d called Pence and told him he was it.

Hearing that timeline, a former Trump aide laughed. “He tells everybody yes.”

How did Trump decide on Pence? A flat tire, some Hoosier hospitality, lots of prayers and Pence’s striking indifference—with which the Indiana governor impressed Trumpin a meeting at the Governor’s Mansion—had gotten the Indiana governor to the brink of history. But it was a previously unreported threat from Pence’s political brain trust that would land him on the ticket and ultimately lift Trump over the finish line months later, changing the course of history.

***

Before a mid-July meeting that changed everything,Trump didn’t particularly like Pence. To Trump, he carried the whiff of a loser. Here was a man who should be coasting to reelection in a solid Republican state but instead was bailing out water in a rematch with the Democrat, John Gregg, who had almost beat him just four years earlier. Pence’s team said their polling was strong and had improved greatly since last year’s “religious freedom” disaster. But Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio saw something beyond Pence’s job prospects; Pence was the only candidate he’d run the numbers on who helped lift Trump with evangelical voters and conservatives. Pence felt a lot like the medicine Trump didn’t want to choke down.

Campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus both had been pushing hard for Pence—each for his own reasons. Manafort saw an immediate crisis at the nominating convention in Cleveland: Delegates could deny Trump the nomination if the uprising spurred by Ted Cruz and other movement conservatives—the kinds more likely to warm to Pence—carried through. And Priebus saw another problem: Republicans could lose even more seats down the ballot with Trump at the top of the ticket if evangelical Christians and stalwart conservatives stayed home rather than vote for either Hillary Clinton or Trump.

Longtime Trump friend and former insurance magnate Steve Hilbert also pushed hard for Pence behind the scenes as the race picked up over the summer of 2016. Trump came to him regularly with questions about Pence, and Hilbert assured him he would be a good selection. When Trump asked whether Pence could raise enough money for the ticket, Hilbert went to Pence campaign manager Marty Obst, who worked up a quick memo of their fundraising efforts for the Republican Governors Association.

While Obst and his fellow aideNick Ayers worked the phones on Pence’s behalf, in the great shadow campaign for running mate, Pence laid back and didn’t lobby directly. “Running” for running mate had always been a passive-aggressive exercise in wanting it while looking like you don’t want it. But Pence seemed awkwardly placid, even to his aides. Obst asked him how he could be so calm, and Pence said it was because “God has a plan.” Whatever God’s answer was, Pence would be OK with it.

The decision would have to be made soon. The nominating convention in Cleveland started July 18 and the running mate was set to be nominated Wednesday, July 20, 2016. And Pence had his own deadline: If Trump were serious, he would have to make it clear before noon on July 15, because that was when Pence would have to pull his name off the ballot for governor if he were picked as Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

With the leaders of the establishment on his side, and no connections to Trumpworld, Pence was at the bottom of the small list of finalists—but he was still in the mix.

Trump was scheduled to do a fundraiser in Indianapolis on Tuesday, July 12. Hilbert had helped set it up months earlier with the heads of Trump’s campaign in Indiana, former GOP chairman Rex Early and veteran Republican operative Tony Samuel, long before Pence was seriously considered a running mate. Happenstance seemed to smile on the Indiana governor.

Trump Force One, as it was known on the trail, was about as Trumpy as it got: The plane was a massive Boeing 757, which he’d bought for $100 million five years earlier when he was considering a run for president in 2012. It included a bedroom, guest room, galley, shower and gold-plated fixtures throughout. But, like much of Trump’s empire, there was quite a bit of wear underneath the gold plating. The plane was built in 1991 and ran as a commercial airliner for a few years before going into private use.

When it landed at a private airfield just outside Indianapolis that Tuesday afternoon, it popped a flat tire on the landing gear on the right side of the plane. Trump’s Secret Service detail scrambled to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign team rushed to downtown Indianapolis because it was already late for the fundraiser. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, bodyguard Keith Schiller and personal assistant John McEntee rode in the car with a former aide to Early, Kevin Eck. Eck could hear Hicks in the back setting up meetings for Trump in California the next day. Trump planned to spend July 12 in Indianapolis, do a fundraiser and rally with Pence and then fly on to California for another fundraising event.

About 25 high-dollar donors from Indiana showed up to the fundraiser late that afternoon at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. After brief remarks from Trump and Pence, they set up for photos with Trump inside the Crystal Terrace, a large, elegant ballroom with sweeping views of downtown.

When Pence’s friend Cardwell got to the front of the photo line, he introduced himself to Trump. “I understand you’ve known Mike a long time,” Trump said, according to Cardwell. Cardwell nodded. They chatted a bit about Pence’s qualifications, then Trump pulled him aside.

“I want to talk to you more about this,” he said, as Cardwell recalled. “Listen, it’s down to two people: I’m looking at Newt Gingrich or Mike Pence.” He wanted to know why Pence should be picked.

“I don’t think you need another lightning rod at the top of the ticket,” Cardwell said, echoing the argument Priebus and Manafort had been making for months. “Mike Pence will deliver the evangelical vote, he will deliver the Rust Belt. And because he is a member of the Republican Governors Association, he’s got good relationships with all the surrounding governors, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.” The Rust Belt twist helped because the Trump campaign long knew it would have to sweep the region to win the White House.

The Secret Service agents assigned to Trump motioned for him to get moving, but Trump waved them off. Then Cardwell, a small-business owner for decades, remembered that he was talking with a businessman, so he made a finer point, which played to Trump’s ego and inclinations: “The two of you would be the best public-private partnership in history.” Trump smiled and asked for Cardwell’s cellphone number.

Trump’s team ran out the back of the Columbia Club to the alley where his motorcade was waiting to take him just north of the city to a rally in Westfield, Indiana. Eck sat in the car, idling, when Hicks, Schiller and the rest of the team jumped in.

Eck noticed the cool, collected chaos of the typical campaign style had been replaced with franticness. Hicks hopped between texting and phone calls, canceling every California meeting she could. The flat tire on Trump Force One would take a long time to fix. The brake on the right-side landing gear had broken and caused the tire to pop. They could fly up the replacement brake from Florida immediately, but that would cost $30,000, and Trump didn’t want to spend that much. So he had a campaign aide drive the part from Florida to Indiana.

Some aides saw God’s hand at work. Others saw Manafort’s. Regardless of the reason, Trump was stuck in Indianapolis overnight.

***

One more night in Indianapoliswould prove quite fortuitous for Pence.“The Trump family had pretty much made up their mind; they were getting ready for the next week, the convention,” Cardwell said. “The family was all on board with Newt.”

That night, Mike and Karen Pence dined with Trump and his son Eric at the Capital Grille, a fancy steakhouse at The Conrad, the five-star hotel where the Trumps were staying.

Trump was gregarious. “You’ve really got a lot of muscle around here. Everybody has these good things to say about you,” he told Pence, according to Obst.

Pence had been scheduled to fly to New York the next day to meet with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., a formality as part of the VP vetting process. But Trump and Pence decided at dinner to have the Trump family fly into Indianapolis first thing in the morning for a family breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion.

That night gave Pence the “home court advantage,” Obst said. “If you think about Mike walking into Trump Tower with all the gold and going up to the residence, it’s really disorienting — and then sitting in this bizarre chair, having everybody fire questions at him. The interaction would have been very different.”

Pence walked out of the dinner after a few hours with a giant smile on his face. Cardwell, who was waiting outside the private dining room so he could hear about the meeting afterward,couldn’t believe what was happening.“That’s the night a flat tire changed the course of American history.”

Mike and Karen Pence spent the night picking flowers for the breakfast in the backyard, using the light of their iPhones.

Eck got up early to drive out to the private airfield and pick up Trump’s children from the airport—Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. One Trump aide said Jared and Ivanka flew to Indianapolis to meet Pence as a part of doing their due diligence in vetting running mates. Christie saw their trip asa last-ditch effort to block him from becoming Trump’s running mate, a product of Kushner’s long-standing hostility against Christie for sending his father to jail years ago.

Early that morning, Karen drove to a boutique grocery to pick up breakfast. It seemed so fitting that this played out on their home turf, in the neighborhood she grew up in—Broad Ripple, near Butler University. This was the same neighborhood where she and Mike first met at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, where Karen was playing guitar. This was the same neighborhood where they lived together after they were married and where Mike launched his political career in 1986.

Karen served breakfast for the Trumps and her husband’s small team at the Governor’s Mansion. After the meal, Donald Trump and Mike Pence sat down with a small group in the “bunker”—the furnished basement of the mansion. They got down to brass tacks, in a previously unreported meeting.

Trump looked at Pence and held up his cellphone. He had several missed calls from Christie. “I need killers. I want somebody to fight,” Trump said in a conversation recalled by Obst. “Chris Christie calls me nonstop about this job. He calls me every 10 seconds; he’d do anything for his job. He is dying to be vice president. And you, it’s like you don’t care.” He reiterated: “I need killers! Do you want this thing or not?”

Pence was calm, unnaturally calm. Obst knew why: He was resigned to whatever answer God would give. Pence could only be himself.

“Look, Donald, if you want somebody to be a killer, if you want somebody to be a constant attack dog, I suggest you go find someone else. I’m not that guy.”Pence told Trump he liked running for reelection. He told him he was the guy if Trump wanted someone who could help him run the White House, help get bills passed and build and maintain relationships with donors, officials and governors.

“So, if you want me to do it, I’m going to say, ‘Yes.’ If you don’t want me to do it, I’m going to work really hard for you and the other guy. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter,” he said, according to Obst.

“Well, then why are you going through this process?” Trump asked, perplexed by Pence’s dismissive answer.

“Well, you’re in my home, you tell me,” Pence said. “Your whole family came here to see me. Obviously, the feeling is mutual, right?”

All Trump could say was: “Wow.” He seemed genuinely surprised that a man he had thought of as a loser—a man who also wanted something from him—appeared so nonchalant.

After Trump and his family left, Obst looked over at Pence. “What was that? That was awesome!”

Pence smiled.

Trump hopped back in his motorcade to have lunch with Gingrich at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Sean Hannity, an unabashed Gingrich supporter, had flown Gingrich into Indianapolis at the last minute, sensing the coveted spot on the ticket was slipping away from Gingrich. But Gingrich was stuck waiting as Pence held court. Hannity’s instincts were dead-on: In 24 hours, Gingrich had fallen from the pick to the bottom of the pack. The man who trained generations of Republicans and set the angry tone of Trumpism with his campaign school and instructional cassette tapes was trumped by a flat tire and masterful political timing by Pence.

Meanwhile, Eck drove Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump back to the plane to leave. Eric Trump rode shotgun. Christie had been calling their father for hours, and it wasn’t fair to just leave him hanging. Eric asked Ivanka if they should call him, and she answered that it was a good idea. Eric got on the phone with Christie and assured him no decisions had been made yet. “Our families have been good friends for years,” Eric told him. “We wouldn’t make a decision without telling you.” He hung up after a few minutes. “That was good,” Ivanka said, according to Eck.

Trump Force One still sat on the tarmac, unmoved from the day before. It would be a while before the flat was fixed. But the Secret Service had arranged for an auxiliary plane to fly Trump from another airfield nearby on the west end of the city.

That evening, Mike and Karen Pence gathered together with their central team, chief of staff Jim Atterholt, Obst and Ayers, at the guest house next to the Governor’s Mansion. The small house formed a de facto campaign headquarters, for only the innermost of Pence’s circle. They talked out logistics, and there were plenty of logistics to consider—they needed to know before noon on Friday whether Trump was picking Pence.

They tried to stay focused on the race for governor, but it was hard. Trump was mercurial indeed, and an excellent encounter could be wiped away with another flat tire or impressive showing by Christie or anyone else. Nothing could be truly cemented until one week from then, in Cleveland, when the Republican delegates approved Trump’s anointed running mate.

As they were debating their next steps, Ayers received a call from the Trump campaign: Pence should get ready for a call from Trump in 30 minutes. They did not know what was coming, but they had a feeling. As they grabbed one another’s hands in a circle, Pence asked Atterholt to lead them in a prayer. Atterholt, a devout evangelical like Mike and Karen, chose a “hedge of protection” prayer. “I prayed to put a hedge of protection around Mike and his family. I prayed for peace and wisdom and for God to protect his family,” he recalled. Atterholt, Ayers and Obst then left—and Mike and Karen ran inside to the study to take the most important call of their lives.

Later that night, Trump called and told Pence he was the VP pick.

***

The Pence family woke up on Thursday, July 14after the phone callbelieving that they had the nod from Trump locked up. They called in Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb to tell him the news and that they would support him in his bid to replace Pence on the ballot for governor. They would fly to New York for an announcement at Trump Tower that evening.

Mike, Karen and Charlotte, their middle child, ducked into an SUV to ride to the airport. They hid in the back, heads down, so the television cameras assembled across the street wouldn’t spy them. Before leaving, they sent a decoy, Mike Pence’s older brother Greg, chauffeured in a black SUV just like the governor’s. The journalists ran after him. Greg Pence waved and smiled. They also had a decoy plane ready—the private jet owned by Pence’s younger brother, Tom, was set for takeoff to New York. Pence flew on the private plane of one of his closest advisers and fundraisers, Fred Klipsch.

They’d fooled the press, but they didn’t fool Christie. One of Christie’s state troopers told him a private flight was coming in from Indianapolis and landing at Teterboro, New Jersey. Christie said he called Trump and chewed him out.

“You picked Pence?”

Trump hated confrontation, so he played it down. “Nothing is final, Chris,” he said.

Christie leveled with him. “I will do this for you, Donald, but I don’t need this,” he said.

But Trump assured him he was still in. “Chris, Chris, just be ready. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready, I need you to be ready for this.”

“Mary Pat and I are ready, just tell us when.”

News reports emerged that Pence was the running mate pick. TheIndianapolis Starreported shortly after noon that Trump had settled on the Indiana governor. Pence and his family huddled at Trump Tower, waiting for the big rollout.

Then CNN reported that not long after Trump made his verbal commitment to Pence, he was already asking aides if it were too late to back out of the decision. The announcement was supposed to be made on Thursday, but the Trump campaign delayed. Trump said this was in deference to the terrorist attack in Nice, France, that had killed 86 people. This rang odd, since global events rarely seemed to have any effect on Trump.

A few hours later, Trump called in to Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox News Channel to talk about the terrorist attack and the running mate process. “I haven’t made my final, final decision,” he said. “I’ve got three people that are fantastic. I think Newt is a fantastic person. I think Chris Christie is a fantastic person.”

Ayers and Obst smelled trouble. They knew how Trump worked—he could change his mind a thousand times more between now and the convention and nothing would be locked in until the Republican delegates voted on a running mate. Ayers and Obst weren’t about to have Pence and his family go through this only to have the football yanked at the last minute. They knew they had to lock Trump in. And the clock ticked for them, but not for Trump.

Manafort told them Trump wouldn’t announce Pence as his pick until Saturday, which would be one day after Pence had to remove his name from the ticket for governor. If Trump changed his mind and went with Christie or someone else, Pence wouldn’t be running for governor or vice president. He’d be out of a job.

Obst said he and Ayers yelled at Manafort: If Trump wouldn’t make the announcement publicly before noon Friday, the deadline for Pence to decide if he would stay on the ticket for governor, they were going with their backup plan and Pence was running for governor.

Trump called Obst and Ayers at 1 a.m., after a fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif. “Guys, I told you not to worry about it,” he said, according to Obst.

But they were worried. They were freaking out.

The morning of Friday, July 15, 2016, one of Pence’s deputies stood ready to deliver the papers to the Indiana secretary of state’s office that would remove Pence’s name from the ballot for governor and legally allow him to run for vice president. They had until noon.

Trump called up Obst and Ayers. “Guys, what do you need me to do?” he asked.

Obst and Ayers repeated their threat: Make the announcement publicly now or they were backing out. It was a stunning request from the would-be running mate, leveraging the man at the top of the Republican ticket. Pence’s modesty and the miracle flat tire—both of these appeared to give Pence the edge in Trump’s selection. But with a famously indecisive nominee, the importance of Obst and Ayers’ last-minute push is hard to overstate.

Trump asked if a tweet would do it. “Yes!” they screamed.

After the phone call, with just an hour left before the deadline struck on Pence’s future, Trump tweeted: “I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11 a.m.”

And then the campaign revealed the new logo, the intermingling of Trump and Pence—literally. The “T” looked like it was penetrating the “P” in a suggestive manner. The internet devoured the blunder and the logo was turned into a GIF, the T repeatedly bobbing up and down through the hole in the P. Brad Parscale, the campaign’s digital director, eventually took responsibility for the error and the logo was quickly scrapped. “What is the T doing to that P?” asked John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who, at 90, seemed to understand trolling better than any other person in Congress.

But at least Pence knew what he was doing.

On Saturday, July 16, 2016, Donald Trump walked onstage with Mike Pence. Pence opened by thanking God, then Karen and his kids, and then Trump.

“I come to this moment deeply humbled and with a grateful heart,” he said.

From the forthcoming book PIETY & POWER: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House by Tom LoBianco. Copyright © 2019 by Tom LoBianco. To be published on September 24, 2019 by Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Excerpted by permission.

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