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OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2016 Politicians and the lies that matter Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Help The Harbor make its goal A safe haven for survivors of assault ocial life in the Columbia-Paciic region is peppered with fundraising events. Saturday’s Soup Bowls event to beneit The Harbor is one of the most special of this year. Formerly known as the wants to raise as close to Women’s Resource Center, $40,000 as can be done. The Harbor marks its 40th Sen. Johnson also has a anniversary as a safe haven for “very personal connection” to survivors of stalking, domestic the evening. “A big old tree violence and sexual assault in blew down near our home on Clatsop County. the Metolius River. There was It is, of course, sad that a no mill to take it to. All the big resource such as The Harbor is logmills are defunct. I arranged necessary. But it is a blessing for friends in Redmond to that people do this good work. bring it to the Dragon Kiln. The Soup Bowls concept “This is a noble end of one makes for one of the region’s of God’s magniicent creations best fundraisers. For the price of — going into the kiln where admission, the donor receives a the magic happens that cre- bowl made in the Dragon Kiln ates durable beauty that will and soup, chowder or stew change lives.” If you can’t be at the event, from an area restaurant. Since this is a 40th anniver- consider helping The Harbor sary, state Sen. Betsy Johnson make its $40,000 goal. S Oregon is terrible at regulating lobbyists Even idealistic Oregon is under the thrall of paid lobbyists ollow the money” is some of the oldest and best advice for investigative reporters. It also, unfortu- nately, is regarded as a per- sonal credo by politicians and lobbyists exploiting political connections for personal gain. Our Tuesday Capital Bureau story by Hillary Borrud, “As spending on lobbying increases, transparency remains murky,” deserves to shock us with its details about the sums lavished on inluencing law- makers and agencies. Sadly, in these times of manipulated and money-drenched government, it comes as little surprise that even idealistic Oregon is under the thrall of paid lobbyists. It is doubly depressing to learn how Gov. Kate Brown and legislators rubber-stamped an exemption that permits lobbyists to avoid reporting spending to lobby other lobby- ists. In effect, this permits inlu- ence-peddlers to shroud many of their activities in secrecy. It’s no wonder elected oficials are happy to go along with this system of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” For readers not familiar with the term, “lobbyist” literally started as the word for a person who waits in the lobby outside legislative chambers to get a word with lawmakers as they pause in deliberations. Such activities can be, and often are, entirely innocent. Lobbyists often bring great expertise to complex questions. But the activity has ‘F expanded far beyond its orig- inal scope and now applies to an entire highly paid industry dedicated to making money by obtaining government con- tracts, protecting industries from taxation and regulations, and other insider matters. In many cases, lobbyists actually write statutory and regulatory language, which lawmakers then insert into legislation. Oregon is appallingly bad at regulating lobbyists and mak- ing their inluence visible to the voting public. The Sunlight Foundation gives Oregon a lunking grade. Such laws as exist are essentially meaning- less, leading some activists to focus on the broader and related issue of reforming the state’s lax standards for politi- cal donations, which include no campaign contribution limits. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission may have ethics but lacks basin com- petency, having initiated an electronic iling system that doesn’t function. Even if it did work, based on last year’s reports it would provide details on far less than 1 percent of the year’s $35.9 million in lobby- ist spending. A spokesman for the state’s lobbyists asserts there is no evidence of corruption and no interest in strengthening disclosure laws. In any just world, this would be all the evidence the public would need to loudly demand a swift and thorough change in how Oregon laws are made. among Iraqi and Syrian civilians, so we can’t carpet-bomb the terror- ists without killing all the civilians our Honor, I rise this around them. 2.) If Obama sent the week in defense of Hillary 82nd Airborne into Mosul and wiped out ISIS, after horriic door-to-door Clinton. ighting, the morning after the bat- I see from polls that Clinton tle we would own Mosul, because scores very low on “trustworthy” there is no agreement among Sunni questions. Well, let’s talk about tribes there, let alone the Kurds, truth in politics. All politicians Shiites and neighboring Turkey, over who should control Mosul shade the truth at times. Some do post-ISIS. In other words, we’d be it more than others. Indeed, when stuck governing it. So Obama is try- Donald Trump tells the ing to squeeze ISIS with one hand while trying to truth, it should be labeled squeeze Iraqis to come “Breaking News — together around a post- Trump tells truth without ISIS order with the other. immediately contradict- It’s called being stra- ing himself. We’re going tegic and Gen. Patton live to the scene right would be applauding from his grave. now.” On Mexico, please tell Here is what is rel- me why it would pay for evant: Lying is serious a multibillion-dollar wall Thomas L. business. But Clinton’s on our border and how we Friedman ibs or lack of candor are would compel our neigh- all about bad judgments she made bor to do so and what impact that on issues that will not impact the would have on U.S. companies? To future of either my family or my act as if those are not even issues country. Private email servers? Cat- is fraud. tle futures? Goldman Sachs lec- Trump’s tax plan? The nonparti- tures? All really stupid, but my kids san Tax Policy Center estimates that will not be harmed by those poor it would decrease tax revenues over calls. Debate where she came out 10 years by $11.2 trillion, and since on Iraq and Libya, if you will, but Trump has ruled out entitlement those were considered judgment cuts, he would need to slash all dis- calls, and if you disagree don’t vote cretionary federal spending by 80 for her. percent — that’s where the defense, But while Hillary’s struggles research and education budgets with the whole truth on certain come from. This is not just magi- issues have garnered huge attention, cal thinking, it’s nonsense, and if driving up her negatives, Trump and Trump implemented half of it, your Bernie Sanders have been getting kids would pay dearly. away with some full Burger King As for Sanders, he is promising Double Whoppers that will come to break up the big banks. Under crashing down on the whole coun- what legal authority? What would try if either gets the chance to do be the economic fallout? And how what he says. would this raise stagnant incomes Trump told a biker rally in Wash- for middle-class Americans? Sand- ington on Sunday: “When you think ers mumbles on these questions. of the great Gen. Patton and all The Tax Policy Center said in our generals, they are spinning in a study of Sanders’ full economic their graves when they watch we plan, including free health care, can’t beat ISIS. ... We are going to with no premiums or copays, and knock the hell out of them.” Then, free college education, more gen- for good measure, he repeated his erous Social Security beneits and long-standing call to build a wall 12 weeks of family leave, “Even along the Mexican border, and though Sanders would raise taxes when he asked who would pay for on nearly all households by a total it, the crowd shouted in unison: of more than $15 trillion over the “Mexico!” Trump added, “Not even next decade, his plan still would a doubt.” add an additional $18 trillion (plus Really, not even a doubt? Why at least $3 trillion in interest) to the hasn’t President Barack Obama national debt over the period” and been a “real man” and just car- thereby “create an enormous is- pet-bombed the Islamic State off cal challenge.” Even eliminating the face of the earth? Answer: 1.) the defense budget wouldn’t come ISIS is embedded in urban areas, close to balancing his books. By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times News Service Y I wish we had better choices, but given the options, I’d vote for the candidate who is most likely to be a practical unifier and get some things done — and who only tells whoppers about herself, not about my country’s future. If you’re a college student “feel- ing the Bern,” I hope you’re wear- ing sunscreen, because if Sand- ers wins, you and your kids will be paying for his cash burn for eternity. All lying in politics is not created equal. I think the ideology Sand- ers is selling is fanciful, but under- lying it is a moral critique of mod- ern capitalism that has merit and deserves to be heard. But Sanders is not being truthful about the costs. What is grating about Clinton is that her prevarications seem so unnec- essary and often insult our intelli- gence. But they are not about exis- tential issues. As for Trump, his lies are industrial size and often contra- dict each other. But there is no the- ory behind his lies, except what will advance him, which is why Trump is only scary if he wins. Otherwise, his candidacy will leave no ideas behind. It will just be a reality TV show that got canceled. This is serious. We’re about to elect all three branches of our government. I wish we had better choices, but given the options, I’d vote for the candidate who is most likely to be a practical uniier and get some things done — and who only tells whoppers about herself, not about my country’s future. Penne and prejudice in Italy By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service OME — If there’s a gayer country than Italy, I hav- en’t ogled it. R I don’t mean demographically gay. That’s unknowable. I mean spiritually gay. I mean the self-con- scious style and gaudy opera of the place. It’s shaped like high- heeled foot- wear. It’s a mecca of high- priced mens- wear. Its sig- nature hunk of marble, the David, looks less like he’s Frank girding for Bruni Goliath than like he’s posing between squats at the local Equinox. And have you seen those Venetian glass chan- deliers, with their wild colors and wacky tentacles? They could be gay octopi on their way to an underwa- ter Cher concert. So why isn’t Italy kinder to gays? Just a few weeks ago, after con- siderable shaming by the Euro- pean Union, it inally legalized civil unions for same-sex couples. While that was a step forward, it was also a reminder of how far Italy still lagged behind such densely Roman Catholic European peers as Ireland, Portugal and Spain, all of which had already accorded gays and lesbians actual marriage rights. And shortly before that, when an international LGBT advocacy group released one of its gay-rights report cards, Italy ranked in the bottom third of the 49 countries that the group classiied as Euro- pean, behind Albania, Bulgaria and Estonia. But Italy, ever a marinara of con- tradictions, has long embraced and revered openly gay artists, design- ers and even political leaders. The Where others see inconsistencies that demand resolution, many Italians don’t. southern region of Puglia elected an openly gay governor, Nichi Ven- dola, in 2005 and kept him in that post for 10 years. He was at one point discussed as a future prime minister. When I asked him about Italy’s lag, he cited, among other factors, its particular relationship with the Catholic Church. Only a minority of Italians are regular churchgoers, and many defy church teaching on divorce and on abortion, which is legal (though dif- icult to procure) here. But Vatican City’s situation in the heart of this country gives it a special incentive and invitation to meddle in Italian affairs. It uses Italy to assess and advertise its sway. Vendola said that in regard to gay rights and “the primary idea of the traditional family, the church played all of its cards to inlu- ence Italian politics, even through today.” Civil unions passed, but gay adoption — adamantly opposed by church leaders — was stripped from the legislation. Giovanni Dall’Orto, a gay his- torian in Milan, analyzed this dynamic more bluntly. “Consider the Catholic Church our NRA,” he told me. But there’s more at work. For much of the last quarter century, Italian politics wasn’t structured in a manner that made any one major party the eager home and champion of gay rights. “The problem,” said Alessio De Giorgi, the founder of one of Italy’s most prominent gay websites, “was the lack of courage of the political class.” And the gay rights movement didn’t coalesce as quickly here as elsewhere. “Italians in general are very lais- sez-faire with their political strug- gles,” said Nina Peci, a graphic designer in Florence who married her wife, who is British, in England, where it’s allowed. Relecting on the recent eco- nomic crisis, she told me: “In Spain, they took to the streets. In Greece, they took to the streets. In Italy, they took to the streets — to line up for the new iPhone when it came out.” Inasmuch as that’s true, it relects a pronounced bifurcation of public versus private life. I was constantly struck by that when I lived in Rome from 2002 to 2004, and I notice it anew each time I visit Italy. This is a land of rococo rules — religious and secular — but few people consider them binding. Why change them if you can just choose which ones to obey? It’s also customary here to show one face to the world and another at home: to conform when there’s a crowd and rebel when there’s not. And the realm for fashioning cer- tain accommodations is the family, not the village square. “Should everyone be out and everyone be outed?” asked Fred Plotkin, an American friend of mine who might as well be Italian, given how extensively he has studied and worked in Italy, the subject of many of the books he’s written. “I think Italians don’t think so, and not because of shame — because of a genuine love of privacy.” Where others see inconsistencies that demand resolution, many Ital- ians don’t. My partner, Tom, has an aunt and uncle who are farmers in a Tus- can village of 250 people. They’re over 75. When we visited them, they made us rabbit and polenta. They summoned the cousins. They insisted that we stay three nights. And they put ine linens on our bed, which was positioned squarely below one of the dozens of Catho- lic icons throughout the house: a framed picture of the pope.
