Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

After New Hampshire, it’s almost certainly Biden vs. Trump

Following tonight's vote in New Hampshire, it seems clear that Nikki Haley's odds of beating Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination are about as strong as me winning a billion dollars in a lottery. Same is true of Dean Phillips beating Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, though his odds are even lower. Phillips is on track to get about 20% of the vote in New Hampshire, where Biden wasn't even on the ballot due to his commitment to have South Carolina be the first state to award Democratic delegates.  Losing so badly when votes for Biden had to…
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Posted inOregon politics

Priorities for upcoming legislative session revealed at Salem City Club

I tried to make the title of this blog post convey an enticing peek into what's going to be focused on during the 35-day short legislative session in this even numbered year, which begins February 5. But anyone who follows Oregon politics at all closely won't be surprised by what the Speaker of the House, Democrat Dan Rayfield, and House Minority Leader, Republican Jeff Helfrich, agreed would be the session priorities at a Salem City Club meeting today: Big Decisions -- A Preview of the 2024 Oregon Legislative Short Session. Addressing the shortcomings of Measure 110, which largely decriminalized the…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

Trump wins big in Iowa. May he lose big to Biden.

Living as I do in a vote-by-mail state where ballots are filled out in the comfort of one's home, then put in a mailbox with postage paid by Oregon's enlightened government, it baffles me why a state would vote in any other way. Like, by traveling to a site where you may have to stand in line for a long time before being able to vote. But that makes more sense than choosing a candidate in the Republican primary for president by having people attend caucuses in bitterly cold weather in mid-January where a couple of hours of discussion precedes…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump National politics

Republicans, January 6 criminals are prisoners, not hostages

It's a good thing that I don't have a blood pressure problem. If I did, I'd ask my doctor to increase my medication until the 2024 election is over in November, because the lies being spread by Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants are making me furious -- and it's just January 7. Which is one day after the three-year anniversary of the despicable insurrection, or riot if you prefer that word, at our nation's capitol in 2021.  Immediately after January 6 of that year most Republicans acknowledged that this violent attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as…
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Posted inCity Club

Gen Z featured at youthful Salem City Club program

Today the Salem City Club program was Exploring the 'American Dream' with Gen Z. The average age of the five panelists -- Reid Millis, Patrick Hirsig-Gutierrez, Elijah Leutwyler, Llayne Ngo, and Emma Jensen -- was markedly lower than the mostly gray-haired audience. Which was refreshing. I felt younger just being in the presence of Generation Z members, who, as the chart below shows, were born between 1997 and 2012. Here's the panelists, plus moderator Melanie Zermer (holding a microphone). I didn't keep track of what each panelist said, so their comments will be lumped together. When asked about the American…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Why is the Salem Public Library so bad? A retired librarian shares the facts.

The Salem Public Library sucks. Sure, I could come up with synonyms for "sucks," which I did in the title of this blog post: bad, horrible, disappointing. But sucks conveys the anger and sorrow library lovers should feel about a recent decision by the City of Salem to cut library hours a lot. Retired state librarian Jim Scheppke has been sharing Facebook posts that provide solid facts to back up the inescapable conclusion that while the Salem Public Library sucked in comparison to other public libraries in Oregon before those cuts, the Suck Factor is now much worse. Below are…
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Posted inNational politics

GOP insanity: Nikki Haley doesn’t think slavery was the cause of the Civil War

At the risk of having my head explode, I've watched each of the debates between the non-Trump candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Well, except for the last debate, which was on some network that I'd never heard of. Aside from Chris Christie, who I like when he bashes Trump, but not otherwise, the only other candidate who didn't totally disgust me is Nikki Haley. She actually made sense at times, particularly when she talked about foreign policy and the urgent need for the United States to keep supporting Ukraine. Haley is supposed to be the moderate alternative to…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump

Should Trump be banned from the Oregon ballot? I say, no.

Yesterday Colorado banned Trump from that state's primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court issued the decision, which almost certainly now will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race. The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the…
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Posted inNational politics

On abortion and Ukraine, Republicans are dangerously crazy

If our major political parties were to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether Republicans or Democrats are acting most crazy, there's no doubt who would be committed to a mental hospital for some serious treatment. The Republican Party, of course. There's so many current examples of this -- including the perennial favorite, how the lying, incompetent, democracy-defying, obnoxious Donald Trump is the clear favorite to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 -- that I'm going to limit myself to two issues that are particularly dangerously crazy. Abortion and Ukraine. Look, I've got no problem with Republicans opposing abortion.…
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Posted inReligiosity

Oregonian column about Liberty University makes fun of Oregon’s moralistic football opponent

Thank you, Bill Oram. I needed your Oregonian sports section column about Oregon's opponent in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day 2024. These wintry days have been dark, drenching, and dismal recently.  Making fun of Liberty University is just what I needed from you to raise my spirits. Below I've taken the liberty of sharing the entire column, copyright law be damned.  For as many Oregon football fans as possible need to have at least a half-smile put back upon their face, given the crushing disappointment of Oregon's third three-point loss to Washington in a row, with the most…
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Posted inReligiosity

It’s godless Oregon versus godly Liberty University in Fiesta Bowl

I do my best to view sports as a refuge from divisive subjects like religion and politics. But after the bowl pairings were announced for the 2023-24 football season, it's impossible for me to do this. The main reason is that the University of Oregon, which lost last Friday to Washington (again) by a measly three points (again) was chosen to play on New Year's Day in the Fiesta Bowl. So yay, say we Oregon fans. (A secondary reason is a Florida senator, Rick Scott, wanting an inquiry into Florida State being left out of the four-team national championship playoff.) …
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Posted inInternational issues

Israel knew details of a planned Hamas attack but did nothing

Thanks to a New York Times story, "Israel Knew Hamas's Attack Plan Over a Year Ago," the astounding incompetence of the right-wing Netanyahu administration is now even clearer -- though it was on full display before the news broke about Israel's failure to blunt or stop the Hamas attack even though it knew exactly how it would take place. Hopefully this will be another nail in the coffin of Netanyahu's ambition to use his position as Prime Minister to avoid being convicted of several serious offenses by subverting Israeli democracy through a takeover of the judicial system by his allies…
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Posted inChris Hoy

It’ll be Hoy vs. Hoy in 2024 Salem Mayor race. Marvelous!

Since politics isn't always played fairly, occasionally I'll hear of a candidate who enters a race because they have the last name of a popular politician of the opposite party and want to fool voters into casting a ballot for them.                                                                                             Julie Hoy and Chris Hoy But here in Salem, Oregon, a not-so-sleepy city…
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Posted inReligiosity

A business sent us a Judeo-Christian Thanksgiving card. But we’re atheists.

A few days ago my wife and I got a Thanksgiving card from a business that we use regularly. This is the front of the card. The back said, "We are awed by the blessings God has poured out on us this past year. Thank you for your trust in and support of our business. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!" OK. Nice sentiments. Aside from the God parts. That didn't go over well with us, since we're atheists.  We realize that Judeo-Christianity is the dominant faith in the United States. So we're used to being exposed to all kinds…
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Posted inDonald Trump Oregon politics

Election workers deserve our thanks in these divisive times

We should be thankful all of the time, not just around Thanksgiving. But it was auspicious timing for the Salem City Club to have an "Elections Under the Microscope" presentation last Friday, since I came away from the presentations by Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess and Polk County Clerk Kim Williams with an increased feeling of thankfulness for the often thankless job election workers do in these divisive times. Bill Burgess By divisive, naturally I'm referring to the indisputable fact that one of our two major national political parties, the Republican, is in the thrall of Donald Trump, a notorious…
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Posted inCity of Salem Police reform

Man awarded $3 million due to excessive force and false arrest by Salem police officer

Not a positive moment for the reputation of the Salem Police Department, to put it mildly. Last week a jury awarded $3,150,000 to Christopher Garza after a Salem police officer, David S. Baker, treated him badly in 2021. Christopher Garza (Oregonian photo) An Oregonian story by Maxine Bernstein tells the tale in "Jury awards $3 million to Salem man falsely arrested by an officer who used excessive force." (The Salem Reporter reprinted this story.) Excerpts: A jury Thursday awarded more than $3 million in damages to a Salem man wrongly accused by a police officer of stealing a car and…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council City of Salem

Resounding defeat of payroll tax should spur City officials to explore fresh ideas

In elections, usually even the most unqualified and unknown candidate gets 30 to 40% of the vote. So when the payroll tax got a "Yes" from only 18% of Salem voters in yesterday's election, they weren't just sending a message. They were screaming it from the rooftops. Both in the Marion County part of Salem and the Polk County part in west Salem (where just 16% said "Yes"). With the election over, and the certainty that remaining ballots to be counted won't appreciably change the outcome, we enter the what now? phase.  A Salem Reporter story about the payroll tax…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Joe Biden

I’m freaking out about Biden’s weakness against Trump

With a year to go until the 2024 presidential election, is it too soon for Democrats to freak out about the horrific New York Times/Siena College poll released yesterday? President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found. The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins…
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Posted inNational politics

Israel is squandering its moral authority with attack on refugee camp

Like most people, after Hamas terrorists brutally attacked Israeli civilians on October 7 my sympathies were almost totally with Israel. Sure, I was aware that Israel has treated Palestinians badly and has done little recently to move toward the two-state solution that is recognized by everybody except for far right Israelis as the best way to assure lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. But I felt that Israel occupied the moral high ground after the Hamas attacks. Now, though, Israel is squandering that moral authority by the brutal way it is conducting war in Gaza, which is run by…
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Posted inNational politics

Choice of House Speaker shows how extreme Republicans have become

Here in Oregon, Republican politicians often try to look moderate because they're in a state that leans Democratic. But don't be fooled. These days, virtually every Republican office holder has to be a MAGA devotee of Donald Trump in order to be elected. So they buy into right-wing craziness, no matter how hard they may try to appear all centrist and reasonable. Case in point is the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana. If you've never heard of him, join the club. He isn't exactly a household name even in Washington D.C., much less…
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