Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Poll shows Salem residents oppose higher property taxes for city services

Not at all what Salem's city officials were hoping for when they commissioned a survey to learn the degree of support for two possible proposals aimed at increasing property tax revenue to fund city services.  A Salem Reporter story lays out the main survey findings. Here's how "In poll, Salem residents say they won't pay more property taxes for public safety, library or parks" starts out.  Salem voters won’t pay more in property taxes to avoid deep cuts to the city’s library, parks or emergency services.That’s according to a new poll commissioned by the city of Salem, which targeted over…
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Posted inOregon politics

Measure 118 gives every Oregonian $1,600 a year. Here’s the pros and cons.

Last Friday the Salem City Club had a program about Measure 118, a proposal on the November ballot that would give every Oregonian an estimated $1,600 a year by increasing the corporate minimum tax rate on revenues exceeding $25 million.  While the presenters on the pro and con sides each made good points, I came away feeling that while Measure 118 has its heart in the right place, it is too flawed to merit a Yes vote.  Measure 118 is a step in the direction of a guaranteed minimum income for Oregonians. However, it gives money to everybody in our…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Trump is mentally unfit to be president. Let’s hope he won’t be.

It's difficult for me to decide which of Trump's many obnoxious qualities are the worst. Is it his habitual shameless lying? Is it his refusal to admit that he lost to Biden in a free and fair election? Is it his wanna-be authoritarianism reflected in his love for dictators like the rulers of Russia, North Korea, and China? Is it his attempt to overthrow our democracy by his support for the January 6 insurrection and efforts to undermine the 2020 electoral college results? Is it the fact that he's been convicted criminally of falsifying business records and found by a…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

The New Yorker endorsement of Kamala Harris is a thing of beauty

I'd expect nothing less of The New Yorker, a magazine I've subscribed to for much of my life that is known for its great writing and (often lengthy) articles on important subjects, not to mention quality fiction and reviews of books, theatre, TV shows, and movies. The New Yorker's endorsement of Kamala Harris for president in the October 7 issue was five pages long, much more extensive than the typical newspaper endorsement -- assuming your town still has a daily newspaper (mine does) which makes endorsements (mine doesn't, nor does it even have an opinion section anymore).Download The New Yorker…
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Posted in2024 election National politics

Walz-Vance debate was too boring and disappointing for this Democrat

As an avid Democrat, I was energized after Kamala Harris' debate with Donald Trump. Harris clearly won, and she made some great criticisms of Trump that sent chills up my progressive spine. Last night's VP debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance felt much different. At first I thought it was boring in a good way. However, as the debate neared its conclusion I felt that Walz was being overly Minnesota nice. Plus, he didn't seem comfortable on stage, while Vance appeared to be enjoying himself, which bothered me. The only real zinger that the Democrats I follow on Twitter…
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Posted inCitizen involvement Oregon politics

Salem City Club looked at ranked choice voting, which is on November ballot

Last Friday ranked choice voting was discussed at a Salem City Club program that featured Shannon Grimes from the Sightline Institute in Seattle, where she focuses on electoral reforms in Washington and Oregon.  This November Oregonians will vote on Measure 117. If approved, the measure puts ranked choice voting into effect on January 1, 2028. Measure 117 was referred to voters by the 2024 state legislature, where it was passed on a party line vote, aside from one Republican who voted with the Democrats. So what is ranked choice voting? Here's an explanation that reflects what I heard Grimes say. …
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Downtown

Looks like paid parking is coming to downtown Salem. Bad idea?

Downtown parking here in Salem used to be free and unlimited, if my memory serves me correctly. Then parking was still free, but limited in hours -- currently three.  In 2013, when downtown parking was free with a two hour limit, city officials planned to install parking meters. That idea was met with strong resistance from downtown businesses and led to a petition drive spearheaded by downtown resident and business owner Carole Smith aimed at stopping paid parking. The City Council ended up implementing the initiative language rather than let it go to a vote of the people. That allowed…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

Pac-12 resurrection rivals Harris candidacy for best 2024 comeback

Counted out. Left for dead. Momentum gone. Future looking bleak.  That's how us Democrats felt after Biden's disastrous debate with Trump, which combined with Biden's poor poll numbers, made the prospect of a Democratic presidential victory this November seem exceedingly unlikely.  That's also how us Oregon State fans felt after ten teams in the Pac-12 bolted for greener financial pastures in other conferences, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the two ugly sports ducklings that nobody wanted. But, wow, how times have changed.  Today Kamala Harris is narrowly ahead of Donald Trump in the prediction models that I follow,…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Harris is favored to beat Trump, but the race is damn close

It's hard to believe that October will arrive in just eleven days, because the month after that is November, election time! In this country our presidential elections, including primaries, go on for so long, it can seem endless. But now the end is growing near. Which means it's time for supporters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to look at polls and election prediction models with increased fear and hope. That's what I've been doing from my vantage point of a strong Harris backer. The good news from my perspective is that Harris has a narrow electoral college lead in…
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Posted inCity of Salem Salem Police Department

City of Salem has to pay $1 million for excessive force in George Floyd protest

I guess it's a sort of poetic justice. Today the Salem Reporter has a story about how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a $1 million damage award against the Salem Police Department after a woman was seriously injured by rubber bullets during a May 31, 2020 protest against police violence in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. So the Salem Police Department used excessive force during a local protest against the use of excessive force by the Minneapolis Police Department. While there's a certain amusing irony to this, the harm…
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Posted inCity of Salem Salem Police Department

City of Salem has to pay $1 million for excessive force in George Floyd protest

I guess it's a sort of poetic justice. Today the Salem Reporter has a story about how the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a $1 million damage award against the Salem Police Department after a woman was seriously injured by rubber bullets during a May 31, 2020 protest against police violence in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. So the Salem Police Department used excessive force during a local protest against the use of excessive force by the Minneapolis Police Department. While there's a certain amusing irony to this, the harm…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump

Hard to feel sympathy for Trump when he acts like an asshole

After the first assassination attempt that left Trump with a wounded ear and a rally attendee dead, I felt some sympathy for Trump, along with most Americans. It helped that at first Trump spoke about being a changed man after his brush with death, vowing to unify the country. That didn't last long. Soon Trump was back to blaming Democrats for the assassination attempt, ignoring the inconvenient truth that the shooter was a registered Republican and hadn't expressed any particular political leanings.  Yesterday there was another attempted assassination according to the Secret Service, though the person in custody, Ryan W.…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Debate with Harris showed what an unmanly wimp Donald Trump is

Donald Trump likes to pretend that he's a macho guy. But in truth, he's really unmanly. Even more, he's a wimp -- as Bill Maher likes to call him, a "whiny little bitch."  Trump is always complaining about how people treat him unfairly. Yet while he demands respect, Trump doesn't act in ways that elicit respect. Speaking as a man with 75 years of experience of that gender, men know the difference between a leader who, as the saying goes, "speaks softly and carries a big stick" versus what Trump does: speak loudly and carry a fragile twig. Now, I…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Harris beat Trump so badly in the debate, I almost feel sorry for him

If this was a boxing match, it should have been called after the first round: technical knock-out for the clear victor over Donald Trump, Kamala Harris! But the bout, or rather the debate, went on for more than ninety minutes tonight. Trump got in a few good punches, but the evening clearly belonged to Harris. She outdid him on both style and substance, leaving Trump fumbling and mumbling his way through answers to questions that he clearly was incapable of using to his advantage. Largely this was because Trump is so bad at talking about specific policies, preferring to resort…
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Posted in2024 election Joe Biden National politics

Biden wanted to cling to power, which would have been a disaster. Pelosi saved us.

Thanks to an article in the September 2 issue of The New Yorker, "Life of the Party: The Democrats seem rejuvenated by their new candidate. Why was it so hard to get one?," I learned about how close the Democratic Party came to being stuck with Biden after his disastrous debate, because he and his staff were so adamant about him staying in the presidential race. Below are excerpts from the article by Andrew Marantz that show the extent to which Biden was dangerously out of touch with reality until Nancy Pelosi and a few other leading Democrats put enough…
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Posted inInternational issues

Netanyahu is Israel’s Trump, caring only about himself, not the hostages

I feel sorry for the majority of people in Israel who want their country to do everything possible to save the lives of the remaining hostages kept captive by Hamas, but have to deal with a leader, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who only cares about staying in power, not what's best for Israelis.  If that sounds just like Donald Trump, no big surprise. Trump and Netanyahu are close with each other, sharing a bond of unbridled egotism, self-centeredness, and a desire to remain in power in order to forestall legal proceedings accusing them of criminality. Recently six hostages were killed by…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Harris and Walz interviewed on CNN. Now let’s see Trump and Vance.

Ever since Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, following Biden's withdrawal, many in the media have been clamoring for her to do interviews and press conferences. Today Harris and Walz were interviewed by CNN's Dana Bash in a Georgia diner. Hopefully this will put an end to the claims that Harris is scared to answer tough questions. She handled everything Bash threw at her with calm competence, as did Walz. Given how often Trump changes his policy positions, it's amusing that Bash thought it was worthwhile to ask Harris about her 2019 statement that she'd ban fracking if…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City of Salem Salem Reporter

Salem’s “news desert” makes it tough for the city to pass a tax increase

In reading a Salem Reporter story about the effort of city officials to get voter approval of a property tax increase in order to deal with a $8 million - $13 million gap between revenues and expenses, I was struck by the several mentions of communicating with the public about this problem. Here's some excerpts from "City Council discusses possible next steps to address budgetary shortfalls" by Joe Siess. Salem city councilors appear ready to put a measure before voters next May to raise property taxes to avoid sweeping cuts to city programs. But councilors made clear during a work…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Kamala Harris

Nate Silver says Harris is a great candidate and RFK Jr. dropout won’t mean much

Last night Kamala Harris gave one of the best acceptance speeches I've ever heard from the presidential pick of the Democratic National Convention. I've watched them all since the 1960s, I'm pretty sure.  Harris was virtually flawless in both the substance and delivery of her speech. And I've added "virtually" not because I found anything not to like in what she said, just because no one is perfect. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch the 38 minute speech. Which is relatively short by acceptance speech standards, way shorter than Trump's. NPR reports that Harris' speech…
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Posted in2024 election Tim Walz

Watch Tim Walz’s inspiring acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention

Like many millions of other Americans, I've become a big fan of Tim Walz. Tonight he gave an acceptance speech for the vice-president nomination at the Democratic National Convention that showed why he inspires so much love and affection. Walz is a regular guy who happens to be a skilled politician -- a wonderful change from the usual skilled politicians trying to appear like regular guys. Yeah, I'm talking about you, J.D. Vance. The problem for Vance and other regular guy wanna-be's is that you can't fake the sort of background Walz wears effortlessly, because it is who he is,…
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