My wife spoke with her group of friends for coffee on Wednesday. All are college grads and retired professionals. All are liberals, progressives, or Democrats. They range in age from the early sixties to mid 80s. They’d just finished an exercise class at the Ashlandia Family Y. My wife was trying to gage their reactions to Trump’s moves via his musk rat and the DOdGEy operation running at his behest.
They were puzzled. One shrugged. “It’ll be over in two years.”
My wife was shocked, disconcerted, dumbfounded. “What do you think about the cuts at the Bonneville Power Administration?”
BPA provides Ashlandia’s power. BPA also manages the power grid in the Pacific Northwest.
Although BPA is part of the DOE, it is self-funded and covers its costs by selling its products and services at cost. The BPA provides about 28% of the electricity used in the region. BPA transmits and sells wholesale electricity in eight western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.[1] Its minimum wholesale rate is 3.49 cents per kilowatt-hour; the BPA generated $4.72 billion in operating revenue in 2022.
h/t to Wikipedia.org
Up to six hundred people were being let go at the BPA. To save money, of course.
Yeah? What about this?
BPA makes 41st straight Treasury payment
“On Sept. 30, the Bonneville Power Administration made its annual payment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the 41st consecutive year on time and in full, bringing cumulative payments to approximately $35.4 billion over this period. The total payment for fiscal year 2024 was $792.3 million.”
Returning to my wife’s friends, only one of them was aware of the personnel cuts.
They disturb my wife and I because they’re thinking that all of this is business as usual. In a period when Trump is getting referred to as a king, we’re abandoning our NATO commitments and allying ourselves with Russia instead, and women’s rights are rapidly regressing (see the SAVE act, fer instance) while Trump dismisses the Constitutional checks and balances, they’re basically shrugging their shoulders.
I’m happy to say that it’s not necessarily the prevailing feeling in Ashlandia.
Presidents Day protest draws crowd to Ashland Plaza
I don’t have a crystal ball or any other means of predicting the future. But reading the Trusk moves and watching the GOTP back those moves with little resistance, I gotta say, Ima little worried.
Michael Seidel, writer 
I don’t think this is uncommon. Many people are simply not interested in politics (I wasn’t for several years) so they pay little (to no) attention to what’s going on. It’s not until a particular action hits them (or their pocketbook) personally that they suddenly go “WHOA! What’s happening here?”
I also don’t think the folks that voted for him were actually aware of what was in store for them. They just got caught up in one or more of his “promises” and said “Oh Yeah! This is the guy I want!”
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