Posted inEnvironment

Check out these visual facts about electric vehicles in Oregon

They (whoever they is) say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So rather than describe last Friday's Salem City Club presentation about electric vehicles in Oregon, I figured it would be better to share some screenshots from the report the presentation was based on, the Oregon Department of Energy's 2023 Biennial Zero Emission Vehicle Report. I didn't read the report. I just looked at the pictures and chose the ones that I thought were most interesting and could be grasped at a glance. My commentary will be brief. BEV stands for Battery Electric Vehicle. PHEV stands for Plug-in…
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Posted in2024 election City Council City of Salem

Salem payroll tax like blood in water to conservative sharks

As a progressive who was happy when liberals wrested control of the Salem City Council from conservatives in 2017, now I'm worried that the payroll tax debacle could be a harbinger of a right-wing renaissance in local politics. What's disturbing is that this is a self-inflicted wound by five of the six progressive members of the City Council who provided the votes to pass a new payroll tax on everyone who works in Salem on a narrow 5-4 vote. Now that wound is like blood in the water to energized conservative "sharks." (The five were Mayor Chris Hoy and councilors…
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Posted inInternational issues

Israel’s citizens lack confidence in their government, as they should

Obviously it's difficult to find any bright spots in the war between Hamas and Israel. I summed up my attitude toward the war in a post on my Church of the Churchless blog, Religion plays a large role in the horrible Hamas-Israel war. Though I'm an atheist, I recognize that wars often don't involve religion to a significant degree. But sometimes they do, which means that rather than being a force for good in the world, religion encourages death and destruction. Politically, my goal is to be an open-minded progressive. So I embrace the notion being espoused by many liberals…
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Posted inCitizen involvement City Council City of Salem

Watch the video of Salem Reporter’s town hall meeting on the payroll tax

Everybody should applaud the Salem Reporter, our city's online alternative to the Statesman Journal, for holding a town hall on the proposed payroll tax at the Elsinore Theatre this evening. For whether you oppose or favor the payroll tax, or don't have an opinion on it, it's great that a public debate on the tax happened prior to voters casting their ballot on it in the upcoming November election. I didn't attend the town hall. But I've watched some of the You Tube video of it, which I'll share below. (The screenshot above is just to show the debaters, Oregon…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Salem payroll tax looks like it’s headed for defeat

While I won't be surprised if the controversial payroll tax is passed by Salem voters this November, since nothing in politics is absolutely certain, it appears more likely that it will be defeated. I'm guessing by a 60-40 margin or thereabouts. I'm not aware of any publicly available polling on the payroll tax. But the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal have each conducted unscientific surveys about how people feel about the tax, which would be levied on anyone who works in Salem even if they don't live here. Each survey found the payroll tax to be unpopular. Here's an excerpt…
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Posted inNational politics

It’s a Republican lie that U.S. money fueled the attacks on Israel

It's no surprise when Republican politicians lie. Donald Trump has gotten us used to that, and his love of falsehoods has spread to others in his party. Still, I was shocked when I saw that members of the not-so-Grand Old Party were criticizing the Biden administration for supposedly providing $6 billion to Iran that had been used to support the recent attacks on Israel by Hamas, a Palestinian group backed by Iran. Aside from being flat-out wrong, it bothered me that Republicans would use a horrific attack on Israeli citizens for blatant political purposes. Here's the facts about this lie. …
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Posted inNational politics

McCarthy’s ouster as House speaker is a Democratic dream come true

It was an entertaining day for political junkies like me, especially those of us who are retired and could watch Kevin McCarthy being fired as Speaker of the House in real time. The pleasure was intensified by this being a battle between two truly obnoxious people, McCarthy and Representative Matt Gaetz -- a far-right House member who initiated the "move to vacate" procedure that ended up with the Speaker position being vacant because eight Republican House members and all of the Democratic House members who voted on this wanted McCarthy gone. So today, on a 216-210 vote, McCarthy became the…
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Posted inNational politics

House GOP clown car would be funny if it wasn’t driving to a government shutdown

I heartily enjoy watching Republicans self-destruct. It's so much more pleasant than seeing Democrats do the same thing, which for me is painful, since I'm a progressive.  However, the current Clown Car episode in the GOP-controlled House, though amusing on one level, is deadly serious on another, because Speaker McCarthy and the wacko MAGA extremists in his caucus are speedily driving the federal government toward a harmful shutdown. That will happen at 12:01 am tomorrow night, since that's when the federal fiscal year ends and the current budget is no more. Now, an entirely reasonable question is why Congress has…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Story of Salem firefighter’s widow being denied benefits is more nuanced than outrageous

Look, I never pass up an opportunity to become outraged at something officials at the City of Salem have done. That's why I called this blog Salem Political Snark rather than Salem Political Praise. So when I saw a story on KGW News a few days ago about how the widow of a Salem firefighter, Maurice "Mo" Stadeli, was being denied workers compensation benefits after her husband died of tonsil cancer because the city was asking the state Supreme Court to reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that approved the benefits, my outrage meter was prepared to rise into the…
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Posted inSalem Weekly

Desperately seeking these Salem Weekly issues

Salem Weekly was our city's alternative newspaper from 2004 until 2018. I loved reading it. I also wrote a Strange Up Salem column that appeared in it from May 2013 to May 2015. This was the cover of the issue where my first column ran. The drawing was by the multi-talented Salem Weekly publisher, A.P. Walther. Though Salem Weekly is no more, it isn't forgotten. Jim Scheppke, retired librarian for the State of Oregon, is working to have every issue of Salem Weekly bound and preserved professionally. The volumes will be made available to the general public. Mark Wigg and…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

School superintendent Andrea Castañeda wows at City Club talk

I've listened to a lot of talented speakers at Salem City Club programs. Fewbhave impressed me as much as Andrea Castañeda, the superintendent of the Salem-Keizer school district who said that she's been on the job for 81 days as of last Friday. All I can say is, Salem and Keizer are super fortunate to have her heading up the school district. Castañeda came across as deeply caring, highly competent, and most importantly, genuine. That's a quality that can't be faked. It isn't something that can be taught, or pretended, because it springs from the root of who a person…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Meet the Press shouldn’t have interviewed Trump

I'm a big fan of Meet the Press. It's been a Sunday viewing habit of mine for as long as I can remember. I enjoyed Chuck Todd when he was the host. But he's no longer with Meet the Press. Today was the debut of Todd's replacement, Kristen Welker. The show was devoted to a taped interview Welker did with Donald Trump. A transcript of the interview is here. The best part of the interview for me was seeing how old Trump looks. Either his makeup artist has gone on strike, or the pressures of his four indictments is getting…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

Salem city officials playing some games with budget problems

Yeah, I know. The title of this blog post is kind of like a headline saying "Dog seen chasing a squirrel." What's obvious really doesn't need mentioning. But even though we expect government officials to play games when they're talking about their budget, it still makes sense to point out specific instances of this so we don't become overly accustomed to the game-playing. Yesterday the Salem Reporter ran a story about ways officials at the City of Salem want to cut the city general fund budget in light of a potential defeat of a controversial employee payroll tax to be…
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Posted inJoe Biden

Biden impeachment inquiry shows how crazy Republicans are

Hmmmm. The Constitution says that a president can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors." So you'd think that if the House of Representatives embarks on such a serious step, there would be evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor.  But a minor detail like evidence isn't about to stop Biden-hating Republicans from initiating an impeachment inquiry, since they can't say what horrible thing Biden is supposed to have done. So they're going to act like they're in an existentialist novel where the accused is to be convicted without being told what crime they committed. "Biden must have done something,"…
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Posted inPolice reform Public Safety

Why did it take so long to charge DEA agent in death of bicyclist?

Yes, as the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal have reported, it's good news that a Marion County grand jury has indicted the DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Agency) agent who killed a Salem woman after running through a stop sign. Here's an excerpt from the Salem Reporter story by Ardeshir Tabrizian. An agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has been charged with criminally negligent homicide for his role in a collision in March that killed a Salem cyclist, according to court documents. A Marion County grand jury on Wednesday indicted Samuel T. Landis, 38, a special agent of the DEA,…
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Posted in2024 election

I love the idea of a Whitmer-Warnock Dem presidential ticket

Few Americans are excited about a repeat of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. I'm sure not.  Sure, as a Democrat I hugely prefer Biden over Trump. I think Biden has done a very good job as president, better than expected, absolutely. But Biden doesn't excite me. He doesn't even enthuse me. His appeal for me and many others is more that he's a competent decent person who isn't Trump. That worked to elect Biden in 2020. I'm deeply worried that the same game plan won't work in 2024. And the stakes are too high to…
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Posted inNational politics

Who lost Russia? New Yorker article says U.S. played a part.

This blog post is a partial apology to a couple of progressive friends of mine here in Salem, Oregon who I've argued with via email about the extent to which Putin was justified in viewing NATO's expansion into the former Soviet bloc countries as a provocation that he used as one of his excuses to invade Ukraine. I vociferously said that the NATO expansion was none of Russia's business, since NATO is all about defending member countries from attack, with Russia being the prime potential attacker. My friends, though, said in strong words that the United States and our allies…
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Posted inCity of Salem Police reform

Sleazy behavior by police department after cyclist’s death

Keep this excellent investigative journalism in mind next time City officials want you to lavish more money on the Salem Police Department, which will occur in the November election via a proposed payroll tax.  The Salem Reporter has a great update on the thoroughly sleazy behavior by the department following the death of a cyclist on March 28 at the hands of a federal DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) employee who drove through a stop sign and killed Marganne Allen, who was riding her bicycle on High Street. After the Salem Reporter obtained cell phone call records, email logs and police…
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Posted inEnvironment National politics

Climate change was scariest moment of Republican debate

To preserve my mental health, I've been watching my recording of the first Republican presidential debate in short chunks. So far I'm up to an hour of the two hour debate.  The scariest moment of the debate that I've seen so far -- and I'm pretty sure it will remain on top of my fear factor after I've seen the whole thing -- was the horrendous answers given to a question posed by a young Republican. He said: Polls consistently show that young people's number one issue is climate change. How would you, as both president of the United States…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump’s mug shot has an artistic quality to it

I rarely praise Donald Trump. Can't remember the last time I did this, but it could have been his Operation Warp Speed that succeeded in getting Covid vaccines to Americans in record time.  Today was another occasion for Trumpian praise. I couldn't help but think, "Dude, your Fulton County mug shot is a work of art. Great pose, with just the right combination of malevolence and irritation in your look."I suspect Trump is happy with the mug shot also. By leaning forward he appears to have managed to capture the light and dark shading on the opposite sides of his…
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