Posted inCity Council City of Salem Climate Action Plan

Salem needs to get past “blah, blah, blah” about climate change

As 2022 draws to a close, I'm hoping that 2023 is when Salem's city officials get past what climate activist Greta Thunberg calls the "blah, blah, blah" approach to reducing the world's greenhouse gas pollution. Meaning, lots of talk, very little action. The Salem City Council has passed a Climate Action Plan. It includes these goals: By 2035, GHG Salem emissions shall be reduced to 50 percent of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and By 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral. But the Climate Action Plan isn't being taken seriously by city staff and…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

If a Democratic president acted like Trump, how would liberals react?

Today the January 6 committee held its final meeting to lay out criminal referrals to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol accused former President Donald J. Trump on Monday of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and one other federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution. The action, the first time in American history that Congress has referred a former president for criminal prosecution, is the coda to the committee’s 18-month investigation into Mr. Trump’s…
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Posted inNational politics

We must keep supporting Ukraine, says Nicholas Kristof

This isn't the cheeriest time in Oregon. It's cold. We're approaching the shortest day of the year, so it's dark a lot. But imagine that a malevolent foreign power who wants to make Oregon part of their country was attacking our electricity infrastructure with missiles and drones, causing our state to suffer massive electrical blackouts in winter. And those attacks keep happening. As soon as we make repairs and get the lights and heat on again, the foreign power strikes another time, plunging a large share of Oregon's population back into cold and darkness. Oh, and to make matters worse,…
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Posted in2022 election National politics

Raphael Warnock for president. Someday.

It was quite a night for political aficionados like me yesterday. I settled in to watch MSNBC's coverage of the Georgia runoff election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker around 5 pm. Between then and 8:30 or so, when the Senate race was called in favor of Warnock, I went through a bunch of ups and downs until the final Big Up. I'm resisting talking about the lead changing hands, because this is an inaccurate way of describing what happened.  An election night isn't like a football game where the outcome is uncertain as the teams each score in an…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez’ retirement is good news for Salem

Peter Fernandez, the thoroughly sleazy Public Works Director for the City of Salem, announced he's retiring effective January 6, 2023.  This is cause for joy among those of us who follow goings-on at City Hall closely enough to be aware of what a disaster Fernandez has been during the fifteen years Salem has had to put up with his lies, dissembling, and poor decisions. It's remarkable that Fernandez wasn't fired long ago, given how poorly he's performed as Public Works Director. This shows that Salem is willing to put up with a lot of crap, so long as the crap-producer…
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