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MIKE JONES – NICE WORK ON THE COMMISSIONER WEST RECALL ISSUE:
WATCH: https://youtu.be/Csg7EJ8wZ8g
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Monday 08-12-24 Bill Meyer Show Guest Information
(Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com)
6:35 Sheriff Nate Sickler discusses the recently tabled (for now) jail replacement proposal and study. Where are we headed…and why?
7:35 John O’Connor, is author of Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism and host of The Mysteries of Watergate Podcast. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Northern California representing the United States in both criminal and civil cases.
When Trump was elected, a prominent journalism school dean confidently told his students, “Don’t worry; we’ll Watergate him.”
With Richard Nixon’s resignation, the Washington Post learned that journalism had the power to make or break a president — and that it could deceive the public to serve a partisan agenda.
On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced his resignation as our president, the only such event in American history. While the Watergate scandal is widely recognized as journalistically impelled, few realize that the sensational reporting was not only partisan but also fraudulent.
After the arrest of five burglars on the morning of June 17, 1972, the Washington Post quickly learned the true target of the burglary, which had nothing to do with the 1972 election, contrary to what the Post has claimed for over 50 years.
The Post consistently withheld its knowledge of two concurrent causes of the burglary. It knew about the strong likelihood of CIA involvement in pursuing its program of monitoring prostitutes and johns of interest. Young Nixon aides, using resources from the cash-rich Committee to Re-elect the President, were seeking dirt for their own blindly ambitious dossiers without oversight from the Oval Office, which remained clueless.
With Nixon’s resignation, the Post learned not only that journalism had the power to make or break a president but also that it could do so fraudulently.
READ: https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/50-years-of-fraudulent-political-journalism
MORE ABOUT THE BOOK: Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism
MORE ABOUT JOHN – John O’Connor is an experienced trial lawyer, practicing law in San Francisco since 1972. He has tried cases in state and federal court throughout the country. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Northern California from 1974-1979, representing the United States in both criminal and civil cases. Among his interesting assignments have been representation of the government during the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s; writing Fifth Amendment and “state of mind” briefs for the prosecution in United States v. Patricia Hearst; representing the FDIC, FSLC and RTC during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s; representing California Attorney General Dan Lungren in campaign-related litigation; defending R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in significant smoking and health litigation; representing Coach Don Nelson in litigation with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban; and representing W. Mark Felt regarding the revelation of his identity as Deep Throat.
SEE HIS WEBSITE HERE:
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8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers – www.DennisPowersBooks.com with today’s “Where Past Meets Present” and a discussion on the Ashland Community Hospital issues of late.
The Chautauqua in Ashland
By Dennis Powers
John Heyl Vincent, a Methodist minister, ran an 1874 summer camp at Lake Chautauqua in New York to train Sunday school teachers, where he held classes, lectures, and different recreational activities. This first Chautauqua and its idea spread throughout America, as communities competed for the opportunity to hold the 10-12 days of lectures, activities, and music.
In Oregon, the first Chautauqua was in Canby in 1885, but this lasted only one year. Nine other towns organized them here, of which Southern Oregon began in 1893 with the most known and longest run—located in Ashland, its most populated town. It issued bonds (paid off in 1903), purchased land, and built a 1000-person structure in three weeks. This beehive-shaped building was roof-shingled, had no center-support pillars, and was 80-feet in diameter with canvas-covered windows and electric lighting.
The Rev. J. S. Smith was its first president; G.F. Billings, an “enterprising” real estate agent, became president in 1894 and held the post for 22 years. The large domed-structure was the centerpiece and located on the hillside above the Plaza where Lithia Park began. Those attending (from Roseburg to Yreka) could rent tents in Chautauqua Park, stay at hotels, live with friends, or be lucky enough to enjoy a horse-and-buggy ride home. Some 100 tents were set up in a grove along Ashland Creek’s edge.
Classes were held in the morning on nearly every subject ranging from geology to physical fitness, with entertainment at night, given that TV and the Internet didn’t exist then. The summer affairs featured theatre, concerts, sports (particularly baseball), classes, theater, and important people of the times–for example, John Philip Sousa with his band, educator Booker T. Washington, evangelist Billy Sunday, politicians (i.e., William Howard Taft, U.S. President, 1909–1913), orator William Jennings Bryan, and “The Poet of the West,” Joaquin Miller. Music–from bands and orchestras to choral groups–completed the setting in this jewel of a park.
The large bee-hive structure was rebuilt twice to increase seating capacity during its 31-year run, including in 1905 when enlarged to holding 1,500. Torn down in 1917, it was replaced by a similarly large structure. Even so, people were turned away from the most popular speakers. When “silver-tongued” William Jennings Bryan arrived in 1897 (who ran for U.S. President three times but lost), so many attendees came that he had to give his lecture outside the dome.
With competition from movie houses, radio, and car travel, the Chautauqua movement throughout the country began to lose attendance and incur financial deficits. Ashland was no different. When its Chautauqua died in the early 1920s, the structure fell into disuse with the dome torn down in 1933. Two years later, however, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival conducted its first production, “Twelfth Night,” in a stage built within these very cement walls.
In any event, the Ashland Chautauqua reflected the times as a grand movement in the city’s and region’s history.
Sources: Dennis Powers, Where Past Meets Present, Ashland, Oregon: Hellgate Press, 2017, “The Chautauqua in Ashland,” Pp. 265-267; Larry Mullaly, “Ashland Chautauqua, 1904,” Southern Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, Winter 2022, Pg. 4-6.