I do wish that my area, West Chester PA would have a daytime rally on Make Good Trouble day this Thursday. I’m a senior citizen and will no longer drive around in the dark. Lots and lots of seniors at the last two, held on a Saturday. We seniors understand protests like no other age group. We started with the March on the Pentagon in 1967!
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a congressional town hall a few minutes from my house. My rep has been crisscrossing the district explaining what the Big Ugly Bill (she used those words) means for her constituents, and taking questions. I’ve never attended a congressional town hall before and was a bit in awe of seeing representative democracy in person. By that I mean having someone who was elected to represent us in Washington come home and answer to her constituents. I was also so happy to hear how much she’s been fighting all this madness, especially on the health front. Everyone deserves that kind of representation. In contrast, she said that many Republicans knew the bill was bad and that they were betraying their constituents, and House leadership has told them not to hold town halls. If we can’t make hay out of that, then nothing will be good enough.
Finally, someone asked how we can convince people how bad all this is and who is to blame. This is a purple district, so her advice was to start by just telling stories - the person who can’t get social security on the phone because of staffing cuts, the park ranger who was fired leaving our parks to languish, the person who is seeing dramatic cost increases in healthcare. The more personal the story the better. Talking about politicians is polarizing and many people stop listening as soon as a name is dropped, but sharing apolitical personal stories from the MAGA wrecking ball helps open the door to our arguments and eventually our candidates.
There have been plenty of elections where people just voted for change. Seems like these stories of real people's hardships are a great setup for that, even if the hardships are never explicitly connected to republicans in the individual voter's mind.
Definitely storytelling. Our brains are hardwired to engage with stories, which is how information has been passed down generation-to-generation throughout human history.
I called Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen and asked them to do whatever's necessary to stop these tariffs. I also called Congressman Raskin to thank him for staying out in front on the Epstein issue. I think Democrats need to push this issue as hard as they can.
Been supplying Democratic candidates across the country with a rural votes package so we can compete for the rural voting bloc more aggressively in 2026, with credit to a few rural strategists and researchers.
Can you elaborate? What is the "rural votes package"? It could be useful in this year's Virginia elections--Dems have candidates in all 100 House of Delegates seats.
The mission of the Rural Caucus is to nurture connections between communities of people who may, or may not yet, vote Democratic in Virginia’s non-urban areas, to engage local people to determine the issues and priorities that matter to them, and to ensure sustainable rural life and progressive values throughout all of Virginia.
I may be confused. The distinction between passing budgeting and appropriations makes sense. But what is the effect of passing the reconciliation bill?
For instance, ICE has run through its budget, but was given mega-billions in the big ugly. Can ICE and Noem draw on the big ugly immediately, or does it have to go through appropriations? I thought they could use it immediately to keep ICE going.
Also, aren't the appropriations bills subject to filibuster in the Senate, meaning they will have to get 60 votes, giving Democrats significant leverage we did not have in the reconciliation process?
Congress has to pass an annual budget. The Big Ugly was more or less messaging or a "road map" until the money is actually budgeted for the year. Reconciliation was the appropriation, budget is where it's hashed out. Aka, whatever cuts the rec bill mandated, the budget implements.
This is from a former Hill staffer on Daily Kos, who explained it to me a while back.
Self report. I contacted Congressional members and asked them to keep fighting to reclaim their tariff authority and to help pass and implement the bipartisan U.S. sanctions package against Russia. First, I thanked them for all they are doing now, including Sen. Heinrich for co-sponsoring S.1241 - Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025.
This morning, I used 5calls.org to call my 2 Democratic Senators to voice my concurrence with them to this coming Thursday’s vote AGAINST H.R. 4 the Recissions Act of 2025 and to vote AGAINST Emil Bove for Federal Court Judge.
The Recissions Act will take away previously Congressional funding to global health programs, foreign aid, & public broadcasting.
And Emil Bove has repeatedly NOT stood for the Rule of Law in his statements, directing DOJ officials to ignore any court orders, and actions, by weaponizing the DOJ to retaliate against Trump’s perceived enemies and defending allies. Dirty…NO LIFETIME APPOINTMENT ON OUR FEDERAL COURT!!
Your interview with Anthony Davis is one of your best. I recommend everyone watch it and share it. I especially appreciate how the eugenics policy is being explained without mincing words.
Eugenics has always been the default idea of the captains of industry - because it re-enforces their position that their riches are deserved, rather than the truth: gained at the expense of the lives and happiness of others. The history of our country is one of brutality and exploitation and the 20th Century was a struggle to finally put an end to it. Project 2025 is not politcs/policy. It is an existential threat. I can't with the the "bi-partisanshp" and I think a lot of our base is feeling that right along with me. It is a moral abomination.
Remember a while back when Trump, during the campaign, said immigrants were taking the "Black jobs?" People don't talk about that anymore but it was a more important utterance than "eating the pets" because Trump let slip part of the plan: Black people back in the fields, likely as convicts "owned" by private prison corporations. It is time to seriously grasp the meaning of "Make America Great AGAIN" - everyone should be asking, and not letting up on the "again" because the "again" is sometime in the 19th century. Look at every single one of their policies. With the exception of high tech surveillance, it is designed to return America to the society of that time.
Agree totally. What a wonderful conversation, and I hadn’t really heard anyone talking about the eugenics angle to the Trump “agenda.” Very important to make people aware of what kind of world these monsters actually want.
Researching for my paper on democratic civil society and its opposition to Trump, I found an ad in the NYT on Thurs. sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers against the Biig Bad Bill. It had 140 organizational co-signers ,and when I began digging into a few of them I found that they sometimes had their own organizational networks, a majority of which were not on the list of 140. And these are only the nonprofits focused on education, medicine, etc. I have not even begun to research other nonprofits focused on the environment, on international issues, etc.
The state budget issue is concerning here in NJ, where Phil Murphy, term limited Democratic governor is ending his run. Mikie Sherrill is doing a good job tying the devastation to our 3 GOP representatives (including Kean CD-7) and her opponent Jack Ciattarelli. Hope she defines them before they define her.
Question: I suspect the budget burden for GOP governors is just as bad if not worse than for Democratic governors. Yet, I don’t recall reading anything about them sounding the alarm. Is there any easy explanation for that??? Did I miss something????
I am perplexed about Thomas Kean -- carrying the name of a venerable Republican family -- back when more centrist and liberal Republicans were accepted. (Think Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia -- starting out as a Republican, but later a Democrat.)
Has anyone done any in-depth interviews with him? Are his constituents that MAGA?
The district was gerrymandered to lean more R after the last census. The tradeoff was making Andy Kim's district more blue and NJ07 & Chris Smith's district more red.
Kean Jr. just ain’t his Dad. When he was a State Senator, like 20 years ago, he signed the Grover Norquist pledge. Always have found him to be an empty suit. Apologies for speaking harshly.
Great show with Anthony Davis, Simon! I recommend it to all Hopium subscribers. Me: Continuing to write/send postcards to voters in VA, FL, and CA (3 different groups).
The Daily Beast had a thoughtful take on our current politics from abroad. It seems that some observers in the world are seeing unfortunate echoes to the 1930s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z21g2FEEog&list=TLPQMTIwNzIwMjXTlfwzzdDuHA . The journalist missed a few key players (i.e. Pig Pen, Stone, Rudy, and Seeg Heil), but he gets most of the high notes correct.
Folks:
I think that I was one of the first in our community to suggest that Democrats go on offense and do town halls in Republican districts (success has many parents). In fact, I placed that concept in my “Postscripts” for weeks, if not months. So, here is some SIMPLE ADVICE: GO ON RIGHTWING MEDIA (and yes, Rogan and Matt Gaetz). Declare that the Epstein tapes should be freed - because freedom (and truth and the American way).
Also, Democrats must state that if there are any party members on the “list,” they should be sanctioned because they do not want child molesters and sex-traffickers within their midst. One would expect that Republicans would feel the same way (or not). More importantly, late last year, Wired compiled some “scary” cellphone surveillance data that seems to map out the home states/buildings of visitors to Epstein’s “Island of Sin”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc .
So, the AGs (we can guess their names) should open investigations on whether any folks in their respective jurisdictions were involved with Epstein or his enablers because Dolos himself has admitted that he doesn’t know if his former running buddy was murdered (where was his Justice Department at the time?): https://www.tatler.com/article/president-trump-says-jeffrey-epstein-could-have-been-murdered . From the top of the Federal Governmental food chain, we have now been told that we may be dealing with some nefarious scenarios beyond just deviant sexuality. There could be disappearances or deaths that need to be investigated, i.e. the inconvenient woman or the inconvenient women.
P.S. : DEMOCRATIC officials keep mentioning (and showing) Jan. 6 and the PARDONS relative to the current “law and order” push by Dolos and his associates. This is a simple but strong contrast. Use social media to promote testimonies by former “January 6 Commission” members and witnesses. YES, re-litigate Jan. 6 - again and again and again. Dolos needs to realize that he lives in a GLASS HOUSE. Go on Faux News Channel because it is just like an “unrepresented” Republican district - i.e. plenty of visuals devoid of facts. The VISUAL EVIDENCE IS NOW ON YOUR SIDE. GO ON ESPN (a male-leaning channel) and express concern about the viability of the pending World Cup with actors like Dolos and Miller in the mix. With measles rampant and anti-vax officials influencing policy, will tourists want to visit the USA (weak ticket sales?): https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/heres-what-fifa-president-gianni-infantino-said-about-ice-cbp-agents-at-club-world-cup/ar-AA1GwUkA ?
P.P.S.: Do the following now! FIRST, TEACH CIVICS. Second, register voters. THIRD, TEACH CIVICS. Rinse. Repeat.
P.P.P.S.: Every local office of the Democratic Party and of the elected officials (including state representatives on up) must become a site for civic teach-ins and a clearing house for needed services (with Federal departments being sabotaged). The fact is that Democrats believe in the value of government and of government service, and the other side (i.e. the MAGAts and the illiberals) simply doesn’t. This engagement process will make registering partisan voters and teaching civics much easier.
Very satisfying conversation with Anthony Davis. Well done. Today I made my calls to my representative and Senators. I feel some momentum building. His usual tricks are not working to clamp off the Epstein conversation among the MAGA diehards. The viscousness of the immigration attacks are discomfiting the MAGA-adjacents. The combo feels like the tinder that could light a firestorm.
To the extent that Jim Jones became weaker towards the end -- when he saw his world caving in on him -- he became more dangerous. (No other public figure in living memory reminds me as much of Trump as Jim Jones.)
Stephen Miller has said the he believes Los Angeles is in a state of insurrection. Tom Homan said his next focus is on Portland. Things are starting to unravel.
My MAGA representative reported today on how much more the government is collecting in tariffs -- and the responses back are 10 to 1 in the negative. With the Epstein files as icing on that cake.
I have to agree, Leslie. I love listening to Simon and his interviews while i'm in the kitchen doing stuff I don't want to do. Hearing what Simon says (ha ha -- older folks get this!) without interruption is one of the best parts of my day.
Border czar Tom Homan announces his next assault will be on Portland.
Senator Wyden cordially invited him to attend an upcoming town hall meeting. I'm sure he'll be warmly greeted. I guess no Oregon Republicans are doing town halls these days.
I am down the road. We so appreciate you in west Chester.
I do wish that my area, West Chester PA would have a daytime rally on Make Good Trouble day this Thursday. I’m a senior citizen and will no longer drive around in the dark. Lots and lots of seniors at the last two, held on a Saturday. We seniors understand protests like no other age group. We started with the March on the Pentagon in 1967!
You wrote:
"Big climate gains reserved."
I suspect you might want to fix it to:
"Big climate gains reversed."
Thank you, Patrick. The line is edited on the site.
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a congressional town hall a few minutes from my house. My rep has been crisscrossing the district explaining what the Big Ugly Bill (she used those words) means for her constituents, and taking questions. I’ve never attended a congressional town hall before and was a bit in awe of seeing representative democracy in person. By that I mean having someone who was elected to represent us in Washington come home and answer to her constituents. I was also so happy to hear how much she’s been fighting all this madness, especially on the health front. Everyone deserves that kind of representation. In contrast, she said that many Republicans knew the bill was bad and that they were betraying their constituents, and House leadership has told them not to hold town halls. If we can’t make hay out of that, then nothing will be good enough.
Finally, someone asked how we can convince people how bad all this is and who is to blame. This is a purple district, so her advice was to start by just telling stories - the person who can’t get social security on the phone because of staffing cuts, the park ranger who was fired leaving our parks to languish, the person who is seeing dramatic cost increases in healthcare. The more personal the story the better. Talking about politicians is polarizing and many people stop listening as soon as a name is dropped, but sharing apolitical personal stories from the MAGA wrecking ball helps open the door to our arguments and eventually our candidates.
There have been plenty of elections where people just voted for change. Seems like these stories of real people's hardships are a great setup for that, even if the hardships are never explicitly connected to republicans in the individual voter's mind.
Yes. The “change” candidate won in every election from 2008 on. (One can argue 2012 is an extension of ‘08).
Definitely storytelling. Our brains are hardwired to engage with stories, which is how information has been passed down generation-to-generation throughout human history.
Great talk last night with Anthony, Simon.
I called Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen and asked them to do whatever's necessary to stop these tariffs. I also called Congressman Raskin to thank him for staying out in front on the Epstein issue. I think Democrats need to push this issue as hard as they can.
I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters today.
Been supplying Democratic candidates across the country with a rural votes package so we can compete for the rural voting bloc more aggressively in 2026, with credit to a few rural strategists and researchers.
Can you elaborate? What is the "rural votes package"? It could be useful in this year's Virginia elections--Dems have candidates in all 100 House of Delegates seats.
Was research from the congressional level, but it might be possible to find votes in VA based on rural issues. Who can I send it to?
If you haven't heard of this org, you might be interested in some of their reports and findings https://www.galvanizeaction.org/
Virginia Democratic Party Rural Caucus Chair: Roberta Thacker-Oliver, ruralcaucuschairdpva@gmail.com
The mission of the Rural Caucus is to nurture connections between communities of people who may, or may not yet, vote Democratic in Virginia’s non-urban areas, to engage local people to determine the issues and priorities that matter to them, and to ensure sustainable rural life and progressive values throughout all of Virginia.
All set. Thank you!
I may be confused. The distinction between passing budgeting and appropriations makes sense. But what is the effect of passing the reconciliation bill?
For instance, ICE has run through its budget, but was given mega-billions in the big ugly. Can ICE and Noem draw on the big ugly immediately, or does it have to go through appropriations? I thought they could use it immediately to keep ICE going.
Also, aren't the appropriations bills subject to filibuster in the Senate, meaning they will have to get 60 votes, giving Democrats significant leverage we did not have in the reconciliation process?
I'd like someone to explain this, too.
Congress has to pass an annual budget. The Big Ugly was more or less messaging or a "road map" until the money is actually budgeted for the year. Reconciliation was the appropriation, budget is where it's hashed out. Aka, whatever cuts the rec bill mandated, the budget implements.
This is from a former Hill staffer on Daily Kos, who explained it to me a while back.
Thank you. So does that mean we're not yet definitely stuck with the awful items and cuts in the Big Ugly Bill?
Yep!
Self report. I contacted Congressional members and asked them to keep fighting to reclaim their tariff authority and to help pass and implement the bipartisan U.S. sanctions package against Russia. First, I thanked them for all they are doing now, including Sen. Heinrich for co-sponsoring S.1241 - Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025.
This morning, I used 5calls.org to call my 2 Democratic Senators to voice my concurrence with them to this coming Thursday’s vote AGAINST H.R. 4 the Recissions Act of 2025 and to vote AGAINST Emil Bove for Federal Court Judge.
The Recissions Act will take away previously Congressional funding to global health programs, foreign aid, & public broadcasting.
And Emil Bove has repeatedly NOT stood for the Rule of Law in his statements, directing DOJ officials to ignore any court orders, and actions, by weaponizing the DOJ to retaliate against Trump’s perceived enemies and defending allies. Dirty…NO LIFETIME APPOINTMENT ON OUR FEDERAL COURT!!
Your interview with Anthony Davis is one of your best. I recommend everyone watch it and share it. I especially appreciate how the eugenics policy is being explained without mincing words.
Eugenics has always been the default idea of the captains of industry - because it re-enforces their position that their riches are deserved, rather than the truth: gained at the expense of the lives and happiness of others. The history of our country is one of brutality and exploitation and the 20th Century was a struggle to finally put an end to it. Project 2025 is not politcs/policy. It is an existential threat. I can't with the the "bi-partisanshp" and I think a lot of our base is feeling that right along with me. It is a moral abomination.
Remember a while back when Trump, during the campaign, said immigrants were taking the "Black jobs?" People don't talk about that anymore but it was a more important utterance than "eating the pets" because Trump let slip part of the plan: Black people back in the fields, likely as convicts "owned" by private prison corporations. It is time to seriously grasp the meaning of "Make America Great AGAIN" - everyone should be asking, and not letting up on the "again" because the "again" is sometime in the 19th century. Look at every single one of their policies. With the exception of high tech surveillance, it is designed to return America to the society of that time.
Agree totally. What a wonderful conversation, and I hadn’t really heard anyone talking about the eugenics angle to the Trump “agenda.” Very important to make people aware of what kind of world these monsters actually want.
OMG - all my typos. Just fixed them.
Researching for my paper on democratic civil society and its opposition to Trump, I found an ad in the NYT on Thurs. sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers against the Biig Bad Bill. It had 140 organizational co-signers ,and when I began digging into a few of them I found that they sometimes had their own organizational networks, a majority of which were not on the list of 140. And these are only the nonprofits focused on education, medicine, etc. I have not even begun to research other nonprofits focused on the environment, on international issues, etc.
This list of 500 leading US national progressive organizations might be useful: https://www.startguide.org/orgs/orgs00.html
Randy- Thanks so much. I will check it out. I spoke to Simon about this project when he was in Santa Fe, and he was enthusiastic.
The state budget issue is concerning here in NJ, where Phil Murphy, term limited Democratic governor is ending his run. Mikie Sherrill is doing a good job tying the devastation to our 3 GOP representatives (including Kean CD-7) and her opponent Jack Ciattarelli. Hope she defines them before they define her.
Question: I suspect the budget burden for GOP governors is just as bad if not worse than for Democratic governors. Yet, I don’t recall reading anything about them sounding the alarm. Is there any easy explanation for that??? Did I miss something????
I am perplexed about Thomas Kean -- carrying the name of a venerable Republican family -- back when more centrist and liberal Republicans were accepted. (Think Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia -- starting out as a Republican, but later a Democrat.)
Has anyone done any in-depth interviews with him? Are his constituents that MAGA?
The district was gerrymandered to lean more R after the last census. The tradeoff was making Andy Kim's district more blue and NJ07 & Chris Smith's district more red.
Kean Jr. just ain’t his Dad. When he was a State Senator, like 20 years ago, he signed the Grover Norquist pledge. Always have found him to be an empty suit. Apologies for speaking harshly.
His Dad is still with us. age 90.
"Son, what in the hell are you doing?"
Even Dad didn’t sound so awesome last time I heard him speak. And Junior is a MAGA guy, I’m afraid.
Great show with Anthony Davis, Simon! I recommend it to all Hopium subscribers. Me: Continuing to write/send postcards to voters in VA, FL, and CA (3 different groups).
The Daily Beast had a thoughtful take on our current politics from abroad. It seems that some observers in the world are seeing unfortunate echoes to the 1930s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z21g2FEEog&list=TLPQMTIwNzIwMjXTlfwzzdDuHA . The journalist missed a few key players (i.e. Pig Pen, Stone, Rudy, and Seeg Heil), but he gets most of the high notes correct.
Folks:
I think that I was one of the first in our community to suggest that Democrats go on offense and do town halls in Republican districts (success has many parents). In fact, I placed that concept in my “Postscripts” for weeks, if not months. So, here is some SIMPLE ADVICE: GO ON RIGHTWING MEDIA (and yes, Rogan and Matt Gaetz). Declare that the Epstein tapes should be freed - because freedom (and truth and the American way).
Also, Democrats must state that if there are any party members on the “list,” they should be sanctioned because they do not want child molesters and sex-traffickers within their midst. One would expect that Republicans would feel the same way (or not). More importantly, late last year, Wired compiled some “scary” cellphone surveillance data that seems to map out the home states/buildings of visitors to Epstein’s “Island of Sin”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc .
So, the AGs (we can guess their names) should open investigations on whether any folks in their respective jurisdictions were involved with Epstein or his enablers because Dolos himself has admitted that he doesn’t know if his former running buddy was murdered (where was his Justice Department at the time?): https://www.tatler.com/article/president-trump-says-jeffrey-epstein-could-have-been-murdered . From the top of the Federal Governmental food chain, we have now been told that we may be dealing with some nefarious scenarios beyond just deviant sexuality. There could be disappearances or deaths that need to be investigated, i.e. the inconvenient woman or the inconvenient women.
This situation was not a joke for many young victims, i.e. the trafficked women and girls (timestamp - 1:27 MAR-A-LAGO?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sweVMJzJ-s&list=TLPQMTQwNzIwMjU-ZgqdJzBRrg . Here is a brief interview of the last lawyer for the late Virginia Giuffre (now dead at 41): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwYMf79Ki5A&list=TLPQMTQwNzIwMjU-ZgqdJzBRrg . May she rest in peace!!
CARTHAGO DELENDA EST (via nonviolence).
P.S. : DEMOCRATIC officials keep mentioning (and showing) Jan. 6 and the PARDONS relative to the current “law and order” push by Dolos and his associates. This is a simple but strong contrast. Use social media to promote testimonies by former “January 6 Commission” members and witnesses. YES, re-litigate Jan. 6 - again and again and again. Dolos needs to realize that he lives in a GLASS HOUSE. Go on Faux News Channel because it is just like an “unrepresented” Republican district - i.e. plenty of visuals devoid of facts. The VISUAL EVIDENCE IS NOW ON YOUR SIDE. GO ON ESPN (a male-leaning channel) and express concern about the viability of the pending World Cup with actors like Dolos and Miller in the mix. With measles rampant and anti-vax officials influencing policy, will tourists want to visit the USA (weak ticket sales?): https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/heres-what-fifa-president-gianni-infantino-said-about-ice-cbp-agents-at-club-world-cup/ar-AA1GwUkA ?
P.P.S.: Do the following now! FIRST, TEACH CIVICS. Second, register voters. THIRD, TEACH CIVICS. Rinse. Repeat.
P.P.P.S.: Every local office of the Democratic Party and of the elected officials (including state representatives on up) must become a site for civic teach-ins and a clearing house for needed services (with Federal departments being sabotaged). The fact is that Democrats believe in the value of government and of government service, and the other side (i.e. the MAGAts and the illiberals) simply doesn’t. This engagement process will make registering partisan voters and teaching civics much easier.
Very satisfying conversation with Anthony Davis. Well done. Today I made my calls to my representative and Senators. I feel some momentum building. His usual tricks are not working to clamp off the Epstein conversation among the MAGA diehards. The viscousness of the immigration attacks are discomfiting the MAGA-adjacents. The combo feels like the tinder that could light a firestorm.
To the extent that Jim Jones became weaker towards the end -- when he saw his world caving in on him -- he became more dangerous. (No other public figure in living memory reminds me as much of Trump as Jim Jones.)
Stephen Miller has said the he believes Los Angeles is in a state of insurrection. Tom Homan said his next focus is on Portland. Things are starting to unravel.
My MAGA representative reported today on how much more the government is collecting in tariffs -- and the responses back are 10 to 1 in the negative. With the Epstein files as icing on that cake.
Today I called my senators (Wyden and Merkley) to encourage them to support the Russia sanctions bill.
I’m really enjoying your interviews, Simon, which I usually listen to on Apple podcasts while I’m cooking or washing dishes.
I have to agree, Leslie. I love listening to Simon and his interviews while i'm in the kitchen doing stuff I don't want to do. Hearing what Simon says (ha ha -- older folks get this!) without interruption is one of the best parts of my day.
My family has remarked that they like the sound of his voice! It’s soothing, even when he talks about disturbing stuff.
Border czar Tom Homan announces his next assault will be on Portland.
Senator Wyden cordially invited him to attend an upcoming town hall meeting. I'm sure he'll be warmly greeted. I guess no Oregon Republicans are doing town halls these days.