Posted inOregon politics

Oregon Senate Republicans walk out again

This is a political non-surprise. Totally predictable. Today every Senate Republican in the state legislature walked out for the fourth time in two years, denying Democrats the two-thirds quorum needed to do anything. And why wouldn't they?  Like I said in a 2019 blog post, "Oregon Dems surrender to Republicans like scared little mice," rewarding the GOP when they behave badly virtually guarantees that the bad behavior will continue. Every parent of a young child knows this, but not Democratic leaders. Here's what I said in 2019. The "you" refers to Senate President Peter Courtney. The institution of the Oregon…
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Posted inCoronavirus

Salem’s Enlightened Theatrics breaks Covid rules

Last weekend Salem's Enlightened Theatrics reportedly broke the Oregon Health Authority Covid rules by having in-person performances of a student production of Les Miserables that exceeded what is allowed for indoor entertainment. l've heard that at Saturday night's performance over 70 people were in attendance, food and beverages were sold and consumed, and some people were unmasked. Here's what is allowed for an Extreme Risk county, which Marion County is. The Enlightened Theatrics auditorium is over 500 square feet, so they could have only six people at each performance. Food and drink can't be consumed indoors. So it appears that…
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Posted inEnvironment Oregon politics

PGE’s storm communications are astoundingly inept

Along with a disturbingly large number of other people, my wife and I have endured a full week of no electricity after the February 12 ice/snow storm devastated much of Oregon. (Our dog is doing just fine.) How much longer will our electricity be off? Starting last Monday, Portland General Electric, or PGE, has considered this to be a secret not to be disclosed to their customers.  Whenever I log into my PGE account, I'm met with a cryptic "not available at this time" in the Estimated Time On part of our outage report. OK, I can understand that PGE…
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Posted inOregon politics

Ice storm disaster should prompt close look at PGE

Most of us don't pay much attention to our power company until the electricity goes off. Then we realize how important the electrical grid is to daily life. Well, "important" is an understatement.  "Absolutely essential" is a better way to put it. Without reliable electricity civilization as we know it can't exist. And this will only become more true as the United States, and the world, steadily moves away from fossil fuels. Electric cars obviously need electricity to function. So when the ice storm that hit Oregon last Friday cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes in our state,…
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Posted inChuck Bennett City Council Jackie Leung

Controversy erupts over Leung missing out on City Council committees

Mayor Bennett's initial decision to assign Councilor Jackie Leung to only one Salem City Council committee (as an alternate, moreover) struck many people as a big deal about something, whereas I've come to see it as much ado about almost nothing. Jackie Leung I learned about what I'm tempted to call CommitteeGate (just gave in to that temptation) after reading several Facebook posts about this on a private progressive Facebook group. Some city councilors got as many as five, six, or seven committee assignments. My first reaction was that it did seem strange that Leung got such little committee love…
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Posted inNational politics

Filibuster is a racist Republican relic. It needs to go.

Today I finished reading "Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy," by Adam Jentleson -- who was the former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid. The kill switch is the Senate filibuster. It allows a minority of senators, 41, to block legislation, since 60 votes are needed to end a filibuster in the 100-member Senate. No longer is it necessary for someone filibustering to stand on the Senate floor and keep talking until their voice (or bladder) gives out. Now, Jentleson says, all a Senator has to do is indicate that…
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Posted inCarole Smith City of Salem Downtown

Almost 3/4 of downtown Salem trash receptacles to be removed

Sheri Wahrgren, the Downtown Revitalization manager for the City of Salem, wants to get rid of most trash receptacles in the downtown area -- 44 of the 61 currently in use. See: Download Downtown Trash Receptacle Staff Report Before we dive deeper into this messy move, let's agree on this: the current trash receptacles are ugly, hard to use, and deserve to be featured in The Museum of Dysfunctional Trash Receptacles -- which I dearly hope exists. Carole Smith, a downtown resident and property owner, brought my attention to what Smith considers a trash travesty. Never one to mince words,…
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