12-10 to 12-14-2018
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Fire & Smoke Summit: Public Comment Information
Here’s where you can file your public comments if you can’t make the “Fire & Smoke Summit,” meeting happening 5pm, Tuesday 12/11 at North Medford High School. Email your comment to the Jackson County Board: BoC-CAO_admin@jacksoncounty.org or to Colleen Roberts – robertcl@jacksoncounty.org
They will leave comments open until early next week. Here is some of Tuesday’s action. (H/T to Kevin G.)
Bill’s Guests: Thursday, December 14, 2018
6:35: Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government talks with Bill. It’s the Weekly Swamp Update. And, today we’re talking with Rick about Jamal Khoshoggi, the Mueller Investigation and more.
You can read more over at: DailyTorch.com.
7:10: Greg Roberts, Mr. Outdoors from RogueWeather.com, calls in to bring to you the Friday, Outdoor Report.
8:10: Capt. Bill Simpson, retired U.S. Merchant Marine officer, emergency preparedness expert and outdoor journalist talks with Bill today.
You can read Capt. Bill’s articles, all over at: MyOutdoorBuddy.com.
Bill’s Guests: Thursday, December 13, 2018
6:35: Justin Torres, attorney and member of The Federalist Society talks with Bill today.
Next year, the U.S. Census Bureau is planning to launch its first-ever field test of a 2020 census form that includes the controversial citizenship question added by the Trump administration. The bureau wants to know how that question may affect responses to the upcoming national head count, the agency announced Thursday.
Beginning in June 2019, about 480,000 households are expected to receive one of two test questionnaires similar to the form the bureau is planning to use in 2020. Some of the forms used in the test will include the question, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
The bureau expects to receive results by fall 2019. That’s just months before the head count is expected to begin in January 2020 in rural Alaska before rolling out to the rest of the country starting in March of that year. Officials say they are trying to figure out whether the agency needs to hire more door knockers to visit households that don’t respond and adapt its marketing campaign for the census because of any negative impact from the citizenship question.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments concerning the Census citizenship question.
READ: “Census Bureau To Test How Controversial Citizenship Question Affects Responses”
And for even more: “Supreme Court will hear arguments concerning Census citizenship question”
Justin A. Torres, is a DC based attorney at Schaerr|Jaffe llp, and a member of The Federalist Society. He has represented parties and amici in high-stakes civil and criminal matters in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeal, and state supreme courts. He has been named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers in Washington, D.C.
7:35: Kevin Starrett from the Oregon Firearms Federation talks with Bill.
We’ll be talking with Kevin today, about the Democratic Party’s “Safe Gun Storage,” bill. Does it make a lot of sense? We’ll discuss it.
Learn more over at: OregonFirearms.org.
8:10: Rachel Alexander, a journalist over at The Stream chats with Bill this hour.
The Stream’s Rachel Alexander writes that multimillionaire hedge fund mogul Jeffrey Epstein mostly got away with one of the most despicable crimes imaginable.
Epstein escaped the consequences of collecting underage girls for sex. He sexually abused and trafficked over 80 girls. The crony of Bill Clinton, known for palling around with Hollywood celebrities, should be spending the rest of his life in prison. Instead, he served merely 13 months in the county jail.
“Strangely, there has been little response from the #MeToo movement. Shouldn’t they be concerned about a man who appears far worse than Harvey Weinstein? Weinstein is likely going to prison for years. Could the discrepancy be because Epstein’s victims were relative nobodies, not Hollywood actresses, so they have less of a voice?”
Read more great content over at: TheStream.org.
Bill’s Guests: Wednesday, December 12, 2018
6:35: John Milkovich, attorney and Louisiana State Senator talks with Bill. Today we’ll be going over the, ongoing, saga of the Mueller investigation. John has written a book on the subject, and he’s here to talk about it with Bill today:
“Robert Mueller: Errand Boy for the New World Order”
You can get more great information over at John’s websites: JohnMilkovichforsenate.com, and RobertMuellerErrandBoy.com.
And you can get his book over at Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
7:10: Mr. X joins Bill in studio for a recap of what happened at last night’s Smoke Summit Public Meeting.
7:35: Lt. Justin Ivens with the Medford Police Department drops by the studio for the Crime Stoppers Case of The Week.
8:10: Kara Griffey, with the Alzheimer’s Association talks with Bill. Kara joins the show today to talk about the association’s upcoming event:
Jackson County residents are invited to take part in a Community Forum on Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The forum provides an opportunity for residents of all ages to come together to ask questions about the disease, share their personal experiences, learn about available resources and discover volunteer opportunities to support families affected by the disease.
“We understand that accessible Alzheimer’s disease care and support programs and services are a crucial need for Jackson County,” said Heidi Rowell, program director for the Alzheimer’s Association Oregon & SW Washington Chapter. “This Community Forum is a means for local families to gather with Association staff and volunteers to mobilize together in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.”
The Alzheimer’s Association believes no individual or family should navigate the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease alone. Community forums hosted by the Association bring together families affected by the disease with dedicated staff and volunteers to open conversation in an effort to bolster resources, programs and services to support families in their communities.
Working together with Medford-area volunteers, the Alzheimer’s Association can ensure families have the resources needed to face the many challenges associated with the disease. Community volunteers are essential in helping the Alzheimer’s Association best serve the needs of families affected by the disease, in driving awareness and in mobilizing the Medford community in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.
WHEN: Friday, December 14th. From 8 to 9:30 AM.
WHERE: Jackson County Library
Register: Please visit bit.ly/MedfordForum to register.
There are more than 5.7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. In Oregon alone, there are 65,000 individuals age 65 and older living with Alzheimer’s disease. That number is projected to reach 84,000 by 2025.
For more information on Community Forums, visit www.alz.org.
8:35: Tim Winter, President of the Parent’s Television Council talks with Bill.
If Hollywood has its way, families may never be able to access filtering technology that allows them to be able to watch mainstream movies and television programming without any of the nudity, profanity or violence. (Instead, parents will have to resort to quickly trying to cover their child’s eyes and ears when unexpected explicit content is shown during a movie or TV show…and we both know how hard that is!)
However, Congress can fix this – but only before this current session ends – by passing an amendment to the Family Movie Act. This amendment would allow parents to filter out explicit content when they stream movies and TV shows via Netflix, Amazon, or other bona fide streaming services.
(In 2005, the Congress passed the Family Movie Act, allowing parents to filter out any graphic or explicit content when they played DVDs – the predominant technology at that time – at home. Hollywood fought hard to kill that measure, but the family-friendly legislation passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush.)
Make no mistake, Hollywood continues to fight this new amendment now. The Hollywood studios have cleverly but dishonestly painted filtering technology as a tool of copyright piracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The technology, and the legislation that would authorize its use, simply allows a consumer in his or her own home to choose the specific types of explicit content to be skipped while he or she watches.
Get more information at: ParentsTV.org
Bill’s Guests: Tuesday, December 11, 2018
6:35: Andi Bottner, Senior Advisor to the Independent Women’s Forum talks with Bill. Today we’ll be talking with Andi about how female genital mutilation should be illegal in the United States.
READ: “Congress Should Be Clear – Female Genital Mutilation is Violence Against Women.”
Get more information over at: IWF.org.
7:35: Mr X. researcher extraordinaire, friend of the Bill Meyer Show, expert on Green Mafia shenanigans and all around nice guy, leaves the safety of his hidden, Southern Oregon bunker, and joins Bill, live in studio.
Tonight is the night! It’s the public meeting that many have been waiting for, to address the smoky summers that we’ve been having for the last few years. The meeting will take place at North Medford High School, beginning at 5pm. Speakers will be granted 3 minutes to speak, and all testimony will be documented, and passed on to Washington D.C. and other relevant agencies.
8:10: John Charles, President and Founder of the Cascade Policy Institute talks with Bill today.
“Fake Leadership”
by John A. Charles
“Governor Kate Brown’s proposed two-year general fund budget for 2019-21 requests $23.6 billion. That is an increase of 12.4% over the current level, which was the largest budget in Oregon history when it was adopted 18 months ago.
So far, few legislative leaders have questioned why the Governor needs so much money. At the Oregon Business Plan summit, held on December 3, most of the talk was about adopting new taxes and repealing the popular “kicker” law that rebates surplus funds to Oregon taxpayers. That’s not a good omen.
Most parents teach their children at a young age that they can’t always ask for more; sometimes you have to make do with what you have. That lesson has been lost on Oregon’s political leaders. No matter how much money we send to Salem, it’s never enough.
Before legislators vote to approve even one more tax, they should ask where the money will go, and why is it needed? And more importantly, if the current record-setting budget is not enough, what will change in the next two years to avoid another huge increase in 2020?
Any governor can demand more money; addressing the root causes of our problems takes real leadership. Gov. Brown has yet to figure that out.”
Read the entire article over at: OregonCatlyst.com, and don’t’ forget to check out more great content at: CascadePolicy.org.
Bill’s Guests: Monday, December 10, 2018
6:35: Joe Guzzardi with Progressives for Immigration Reform talks with Bill this morning.
Despite Strong Case, U.S. Tech Workers Lose Tata Discrimination Suit
By Joe Guzzardi
U.S. tech workers suffered a startling federal court defeat when an Oakland, Calif., jury ruled that Tata Consultancy Services, a Mumbai-based corporate giant, didn’t discriminate against fired American citizen workers on the grounds that they weren’t South Asians.
The unanimous decision was surprising only in the sense that the plaintiffs had the facts on their side, but a total non-shocker since pro-American court rulings are few and far between. Workers who brought the class-action lawsuit alleged that Tata was 13-times more likely to fire non-South Asians than South Asians.
Going in to the trial, the plaintiffs’ case looked clear-cut. Former TCS employees claimed they were denied work opportunities and were eventually fired because of their race and national origin, i.e., they’re non-South Asians. According to a Law360 trial summary blog post, between 2011 and 2015, the year the suit was originally filed, TCS had fired or removed from coveted assignments 78 percent of its non-south Asian workers – referred to as “benched.” By comparison, only 22 percent of South Asians were benched.
Tata’s hiring record as it relates to H-1B reveals indisputable bias. Data shows that Tata is the number one India-based offshore outsourcing IT services provider, and a whopping 99.7 percent of its employees are Indians. On its face, the conclusion is obvious: Tata opts to hire Indian nationals above all others. In fact, a compelling argument can be made that Tata discriminates against all potential employees except South Asians.
Writing for the Economic Policy Institute, Howard University public policy associate professor and “Outsourcing America” author Ron Hira explained how Tata and others, namely Infosys, manipulate U.S. H-1B regulations to displace American engineers. They claim the H-1B is used: 1) to recruit and hire worldwide the best and brightest workers even though only 21 percent of Tata employees and 15 percent of Infosys employees have advanced degrees; 2) to fill skills gaps in the U.S. workforce and 3) as a way to retain talented foreign students with advanced degrees who received their education and training in the U.S., previous administrations’ favorite talking point deception.
In 2013, Tata paid $30 million to settle a wage theft dispute involving 13,000 foreign workers, and Infosys paid a record $34 million to settle a visa fraud case after it committed “systemic visa fraud and abuse of immigration processes.” Companies with an established pattern of malfeasance like Tata and Infosys should not be allowed to participate in U.S. temporary foreign worker programs like the H-1B.
Despite what looked to observers like an insurmountable mountain of evidence against their client TATA, defense lawyers from the powerful, deep-pocked Loeb & Loeb with its 400 lawyers in eight offices in the U.S. and Asia prevailed over its less well-manned opposing counsel Kotchen and Low.
Reading into the minds of the jurors who ruled for Tata is impossible. As lawyers are fond of saying, once a case reaches court any outcome is possible. But other major outsourcing companies whose business plans are identical to Tata’s shouldn’t rest easy. Kotchen and Low has filed class-action lawsuits against Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Cognizant.
U.S. tech workers may have lost this round. But championship fights have 12 rounds, and Kotchen and Low has successes to point to. According to its website, the firm has won up to $220 million in settlements for its clients.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
7:10: Greg Roberts, Mr. Outdoors himself from RogueWeather.com, calls in to bring to you the Monday, Outdoor Report.
7:35: Kim Wallan, Medford City Councilwoman from Ward 4, and Oregon State Representative-Elect joins Bill in studio.
8:10: Dr. Dennis Powers, retired Professor of Business Law, author and local historian joins Bill, live in studio, for this week’s edition of:
“What Made Southern Oregon Great”
Timber Products & John Tomlin
By Dennis Powers
John Tomlin started the Tomlin Box Co. in Jackson County in 1918 and manufactured wooden boxes to ship agricultural products. With the railroad (Pacific & Eastern) from Butte Falls to Medford in operation, Tomlin constructed his box factory that year near the Medford railroad. Over time, his plant would manufacture over 1,000,000 boxes annually in the late 1920s at its height in shipping pears, apples; grapes, and lettuce throughout the country and world.
Changing the name to Timber Products in 1930, he then transformed the firm into a sawmill that processed mainly pine lumber. He constructed a veneer plant in 1940 and a plywood plant was then completed in 1946. Basically, Tomlin changed its business from agricultural customers to construction. Timber Products then built a veneer plant and a plywood plant in Medford in 1949.
Tomlin sold the company in 1955 to Cypress Mines Corp. In 1960, his bequeath of $20,000 provided the Girl Scouts with the money to purchase the 240-acre site atop Hillcrest Road in the Cascade foothills east of Medford—and named Camp Tomlin. The camp was closed in 2013 and later sold.
Following World War II, Wil Gonyea and his father, Joseph Gonyea, purchased Umpqua Plywood and started Clear Fir Sales Company in Springfield. Clear Fir Sales–with the Pritzger family from Chicago–purchased Timber Products in 1967 from Cypress Mines and later added additional veneer plants, plywood plants and a trucking company to grow the company to its height of 1,400 employees. The Gonyeas purchased the remaining partner interests in 2004.
Meanwhile, with the huge ups and downs of logging, mill closures, and consolidations, Timber Products: built a particle board plant in Medford (1966); acquired a softwood veneer plant in Yreka (1970); acquired Spectrum from Medford Corporation (1991); and closed/moved operations around.
The firm has nearly 1,000 workers in its Southern Oregon plants in Grants Pass (plywood facility), White City (laminates, diversified), and Medford (particle board, plywood) with Yreka (softwood veneer) and six other manufacturing operations. The company owns 118,000 acres of woodland from Mount Shasta north into Oregon, which provides much of its raw materials. TP Trucking handles both company shipping needs and those of outside clients. The privately-held company also has products including panels used for concrete forms (a mainstay), office dividers, and more. As its website states: “From humble origins in the Rogue Valley, Timber Products blossomed and matured with the wood products industry.”
Sources: See Timber Products website (history, manufacturing locations, etc.) at Company Website; Medford Mail Tribune, August 2, 1927, page 8; Greg Stiles, “In for the Long Haul,” Mail Tribune, April 15, 2008, at On the Company; John Darling, “Girl Scouts organization to sell Camp Tomlin,” Mail Tribune, June 24, 2013, at Camp Tomlin.
You can get more great content, and pick up a copy of one of Dr. Powers’ books, all over at his website: DennisPowersBooks.com.