"...Jim Weaver, who was an Oregon congressman in the 70s and 80s. Weaver, who was the grandson of the 1892 Populist presidential candidate of the same name, was a sort of iconoclastic liberal who was mostly known for being quite pugnacious and even obnoxious to his opponents. Anyway, Weaver and Reagan’s diabolical Secretary of the Interior James Watt hated each other. Weaver would lambaste Watt during hearings, outraging his Republican colleagues. Watt was of course the bĂȘte noire of the environmental movement in the 1980s."Apparently Loomis discovered the gem below in Weaver's papers. You have to enlarge the sheet to read the typed text, but trust me; it's well worth it.
U.S. politics is sadly devoid of the Jim Weavers today, although Donald Trump appears to have all the pugnacity with none of the brains. I regret that I never met Weaver, although I'm proud that he represented my state in the Congress. I suspect that he, in his retirement somewhere in Lane County, surely has a truly memorable take on the present State of the Union.
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