Posted in2026 election City Council

If Betsy Vega didn’t live in Ward 6 for a year before the May 19 election, she is ineligible to be a city councilor

Currently Betsy Vega has a 40 vote lead over incumbent Mai Vang in the Ward 6 Salem City Council race. Since it looks virtually certain that Vega will have gotten more than 50% of the vote when this race is certified by Marion County Elections, seemingly Vega will replace Vang as the Ward 6 councilor next January when her term begins. Seemingly. Not certainly. Because the Salem Reporter has a May 28 story by Joe Siess with the provocative title, "Vega's Ward 6 residency questioned as Salem city council race remains unsettled." Excerpt: State elections officials are reviewing allegations that…
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Posted in2026 election City Council

Looks like progressives have gained one seat on the Salem City Council

Today was the end of the seven-day deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned to the Marion County Elections Office after the May 19 primary election where the races for Salem mayor and four city council seats would be decided if a candidate got over 50% of the votes. As I wrote about on May 20 in "Election for Salem mayor and city council turned out well for progressives, but not perfectly," from the initial results of these five races it seemed virtually certain that Vanessa Nordyke would defeat incumbent Julie Hoy in the mayor race, incumbent Linda Nishioka would…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Chernobyl is a HBO miniseries with a lot to say about truth in these Trumpian times

On the advice of a friend, I just finished watched Chernobyl, a five-episode HBO miniseries about the 1986 nuclear plant disaster in what is now Ukraine, but at that time was part of the Soviet Union. This historical drama aired in 2019 during the first Trump administration. Which is fitting, because a central theme in Chernobyl is how far Soviet authorities were willing to go to keep the truth about the disaster from becoming known. To the people who lived near the nuclear plant. To the workers charged with dealing with the meltdown. To the world at large. Authoritarian regimes…
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Posted in2026 election City Council Vanessa Nordyke

Election for Salem mayor and city council turned out well for progressives, but not perfectly

The races for Salem mayor and city council are nominally nonpartisan, but in reality almost always there are conservative and progressive slates for these offices. So given the extent to which even local politics has become nationalized, every two years control of the city council hinges on whether the election winners tilt more toward the right or left of the political spectrum. Since Oregon's vote by mail allows for ballots to be counted if they are postmarked on or before election day, May 19, there's an unknown number of ballots remaining to be counted. What I've shared below are screenshots…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump gets $1.776 billion to reward the January 6 rioters, insurrectionists, and police attackers

Today I heard James Comey, the former director of the FBI, say that when he first learned of the $1.776 billion settlement agreement reached between Trump and the Justice Department, he thought it was a satirical piece from The Onion. Which, it wasn't. Pleasingly, today The Onion does have such a piece -- though, sadly, the settlement agreement is utterly real. First, the satire. WASHINGTON—Declaring the financial allocation a matter of utmost urgency, President Donald Trump on Monday requested $1.2 trillion to have. “I’m calling upon Congress today to immediately provide me with $1.2 trillion in funding that I currently…
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Posted inInternational issues

Israel commits sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners, says Nicholas Kristof

Some people believe that Israel can do no wrong. Some people believe that Israel can do nothing right. Naturally the truth lies between these extremes. It's absurd when defenders of Israel claim that any criticism of this Jewish nation is antisemitic. I detest how Israel has treated Palestinians. I'm abhorred by the tens of thousands of innocent women and children killed by Israel in Gaza. I can't stand Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who engages in Trumpian lies and deceit. And after reading opinion writer Nicholas Kristof's highly disturbing column in the New York Times, "The Silence that Meets the…
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Posted in2026 election 2028 election National politics

Democrats need to make “Won’t Get Fooled Again” their political theme song

This morning I woke up to news that the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled that the redistricting referendum recently approved by the state's voters by a 52-48 margin had been overturned by the court -- causing Virginia's congressional map to revert to a 6-5 likely Democratic majority rather than the 10-1 likely majority under the redistricting proposal. A song title popped into my head. "Won't Get Fooled Again." That was a 1971 song by the Who. The title perfectly encapsulated how I feel about well-meaning Democratic efforts to do the when they go low, we go high thing. Several blue…
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Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Vanessa Nordyke and Julie Hoy have very different visions for Salem. Vote for mayor accordingly.

This screenshot from the Salem Reporter home page nicely sums up the race for Salem mayor that will be decided in the May 19 election. Here's excerpts from the Salem Reporter profiles of the two candidates that illustrate the differences between them. Vanessa Nordyke -- Mayoral candidate and Salem City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke says she’ll prioritize ordinary people over the rich and powerful if elected on May 19. -- She’s backed by Progressive Salem, which is supporting a slate of progressive candidates in city races. -- She has cast the upcoming race as a contest between moneyed interests and the…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Gavin Newsom must be the 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. I’m a big fan.

Every time I see Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, I get excited about him running for president in 2028 as the Democratic nominee. There's no other potential Democratic candidate who makes me feel that way. Kamala Harris? Been there and done that. Gretchen Whitmer? She's vanished in the Michigan wilderness. Josh Shapiro? Too calculating and unnatural. Cory Booker? Holier than thou attitude that turns me off. Mark Kelly? Nice guy who lacks charisma. By contrast, Gavin Newsom is appealingly real. He comes across as genuine, a rare quality in a politician of his stature. I just watched a recording…
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