Posted inOregon politics

Oregon GOP is acting crazier than Republicans in Congress

Because this is Oregon, not Alabama or Mississippi, I've gotten used to saying that while our Republican politicians seem to be more reasonable than Republican officeholders in red states, they're actually just as far-right. The only difference being, Oregon Republicans don't have the opportunity to manifest their extremism given how Democrats dominate our state's political balance. Well, now that the walkout of Republicans in the state Senate has entered a fifth week, with the GOP being utterly unwilling to negotiate an end to the walkout (Governor Kotek has said that she's given up on her attempt to broker a deal),…
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Posted inNational politics

Debt limit deal seems like a good compromise to this progressive

Many of my fellow progressives won't like my opinion, but I'm happy with the debt limit deal reached today between President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy. The deal is going to irritate those on both the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum, so passage of the legislation isn't assured. But the alternative -- defaulting on the nation's financial obligations -- was much worse.  A New York Times story provides some basic facts about the deal. President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Saturday reached an agreement in principle to lift the debt limit for two years while cutting and…
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Posted inOregon politics

Democrats need to hang tough on Senate GOP walkout

Republicans are doing their best to make my blood boil. (So far, figuratively.) Nationally, House Republicans seem determined to make their demands so extreme to raise the debt ceiling that the federal government will be unable to pay all of its bills soon, creating a financial catastrophe.  Here in Oregon, the walkout of Senate Republicans entered its 15th day. And they just announced that they'll keep on not doing the job they were elected to do all the way to the last day of the current legislative session, June 25. A story in the Oregon Capital Chronicle describes their unreasonable…
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Posted inNational politics

My debt ceiling prediction: catastrophe. (I hope I’m wrong.)

As early as June 1, the federal government will run out of money to pay all of its bills unless the debt ceiling is raised and more money can be borrowed. The United States has never defaulted on its obligations, so many people believe we won't this time. I disagree. I think there's a better chance of our country entering financial meltdown than of the debt ceiling being raised in enough time to avert a major catastrophe.  Usually I want my political predictions to come true. In this case I want to be proven wrong. However, my reading of the…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Progressives should feel good about Salem-Keizer school board election

These days even local elections reverberate with echoes of national controversies. That certainly was the case with yesterday's special district election where three seats on the Salem-Keizer school board were up for grabs.  Two slates of candidates faced off, one progressive and one conservative. The stakes were high, since in 2021 four progressive candidates beat their conservative opponents, putting control of the school board in their hands. There are seven members of the school board, so 4-3 is a majority. This year the three seats occupied by conservatives in 2021 were up for election, though only one was occupied by…
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Posted inOregon politics

Senate Democrats shouldn’t negotiate over GOP walkout

Last Thursday Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat from Lake Oswego, agreed to a request from the minority leader to have the Senate not meet on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after a nine-day GOP walkout. An Oregon Capital Chronicle story says: The three-day break gives Wagner and Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, a chance to work out differences before any senators rack up 10 unexcused absences. Legislators cannot qualify to run for reelection if they have 10 or more unexcused absences because of a voter-approved constitutional amendment that passed in 2022. ...“It is my hope that this will…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump on CNN was horrifying. Also, disqualifying.

I had no plan to watch the Trump town hall on CNN yesterday. But it was still going when I drove home from a Tai Chi class around 6 pm, so I listened to it on satellite radio for about half an hour. It was ugly. Really ugly. Trump lied incessantly. He talked over the moderator, Kaitlan Collins. He called E. Jean Carroll, who had just won a civil lawsuit where Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, a "wack job" and said the trial was "a rigged deal." The New Hampshire audience, mostly Republicans and a…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Justice! Trump guilty of sexual abuse and defamation

Our legal system served E. Jean Carroll well today. Today a jury took just a few hours to find him guilty of sexually abusing and defaming her. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages that Trump has to pay. A New York Times story starts off this way. A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found former President Donald J. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. More than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, but this is the only allegation to be affirmed by…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem T.J. Sullivan

City of Salem pays $3.5 million for vacant property near riverfront. Why?

Since I don't watch City of Salem Urban Renewal meetings on You Tube (got to save my time for Succession), until today I wasn't aware that the Urban Renewal board, which is the City Council under another name, had approved paying $3.5 million for 1.14 acres of property near the riverfront. The property is marked with a red star. The triangular Park Front building is above it. The South Park apartments are below it. Riverfront Park is to the left of it. As I'll describe below, this seems like a questionable thing to do. In fact, it strikes me as…
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Posted inNational politics

Debt ceiling fight is super scary. Because the GOP is crazy.

June 1 isn't far away. I wish it were a lot farther. Because that's the date when the United States could hit the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is a uniquely American bit of stupidity, along with the electoral college. Denmark is the only other country with a debt ceiling, but Denmark doesn't engage in political games over it as we do. A New York Times story explains this. Almost no other country in the world has a debt ceiling. Elsewhere, politicians argue over how high taxes and spending should be when passing budget laws. Once those laws have passed,…
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Posted inOregon politics

Oregon Senate Republicans walkout. Again. Pathetic.

Well, it didn't take long for Republicans in the Oregon Senate to give an extended middle finger to the 68% of Oregonians who approved Measure 113 last November, which says that any legislator with ten unexcused absences from a legislative session can't run for reelection.  After walking out in 2019 and 2021, once again Senate Republicans are refusing to do their job, as reported by the Oregonian. Oregon Republicans boycotted the state Capitol on Wednesday, testing for the first time a 2022 measure that punishes state lawmakers for walkouts. The boycott comes as Democrats advance an abortion and gender-affirming health…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Right-wing attack ads target progressive school board candidates

It's sadly predictable. A few weeks before a local election where conservatives face off against progressive candidates, right-wing attack ads sprout like daffodils in the spring -- except the ads are a lot uglier. The May 16 Special District Election is no different.  Last Friday I wrote a post, Sexual assault claim spices up school board candidates forum. After the forum, someone told me that they saw two of the conservative candidates talking with the man who claimed that progressive candidate Cynthia Richardson, a Salem-Keizer schools employee, didn't take seriously a sexual assault that he says happened to his eight-year-old…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Sexual assault claim spices up school board candidates forum

Once upon a time school board elections were a sleepy affair. Mostly the problem was finding candidates willing to serve in a position marked by long hours, boring meetings, and no pay. That time has passed for the Salem-Keizer School District. Recent elections have been marked by competing slates of candidates: progressive and conservative. This makes what used to be a nonpartisan election highly political. Politics definitely was on display at today's forum for school board candidates vying for three positions in the May 16 Special District Election. The forum was jointly sponsored by the Salem City Club, Salem Chamber…
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Posted inCity of Salem Downtown

A tale of two Salem streets: McGilchrist and Court

Streets are kind of strange, when you think about it. Essentially they serve no purpose other than to get people and goods from here to there, usually by car or truck.  So by themselves, streets are basically useless. For example, unlike a park, you can't have a picnic on them. By and large streets are a highly visible and unattractive testament to our American addiction to vehicular travel. But this isn't a given. At least, not now. There's no reason why modern transportation planning has to be bound by the outmoded rules that have given us the ugliness of south…
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Posted inUncategorized

Angry men used to just complain. Now they shoot people.

Recently there's been three shootings of people who made an innocent mistake and were shot by an angry man. That got me to thinking about Mr. Wilson of the Dennis the Menace comic strip. (Yeah, I'm old.) Dennis irritated Wilson, but back then cranky men just swore and complained. These days, given how awash our country is with guns, all too often angry men start shooting. We don't have a mental health problem. We have a gun problem. I wrote about this on substack. Now that I've tried writing several posts on substack, I probably won't be doing so again,…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Here’s the Salem-Keizer school board candidates to vote for in May election

Two years ago, four progressive candidates were elected to the Salem-Keizer School Board. As I said in a a blog post congratulating them on their victories, this was a big win for quality education. Pleasingly, each of the four progressive candidates ended up winning -- an amazing accomplishment. Amazing, because Oregon Right to Life and its associated PACs (political action committees) went all out this time around, as they have in previous school board elections, in support of a conservative slate of candidates. ...With the four Salem-Keizer school board victories (assuming Cottingham survives the recount), progressives will end the nightmare…
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Posted inNational politics

Abortion medication ruling threatens our prescription drugs

There's many reasons to criticize the ruling by a federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, declaring that the abortion medication mifepristone has to be withdrawn from the market by the FDA. I talked about some of those reasons in my first post about this wacko legal decision. Today the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an initial ruling on an appeal by the Justice Department which provides more fodder for those of us who consider this to be a classic case of judicial overreach and incompetence. It was great to see that executives of leading pharmaceutical companies, along with many others,…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City wants to increase taxes while giving millions to an airline

Since I'm a Democrat, most conservatives would say that I favor big government. But that's only partially true.  I'll all for big government doing big things for the general public. However, when government wants more money to do things that don't make sense, I'm opposed to that -- as most people are. That's why two recent stories in the Salem Reporter and Statesman Journal made me wonder, What are the folks at City Hall doing? This seems more than a little crazy. The April 6 Salem Reporter story is titled "City looks to boost fee and tax collections by millions…
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Posted inNational politics Oregon politics

Republicans want to ban abortion in blue states like Oregon

Most Oregonians, like most Americans, want abortion to be available to pregnant people who want one. But it's easy to become complacent about abortion access in our state because we lean so Democratic.  Today's abortion ruling by a far-right federal judge in Amarillo, Texas shows that this complacency is misplaced. For if it stands, the ruling would make mifepristone, a drug used to induce an abortion, unavailable in all 50 states. A Texas federal judge ruled Friday evening to suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone — one of two drugs used together to cause an abortion — virtually banning the…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Democratic worries about Trump indictment are overblown

Democrats worry about things going wrong politically even when they're going well. Republicans are optimistic about things going right politically even when they're going poorly. OK, that's a broad generalization. But there's still a lot of truth in what I just said.  Evidence in support of my thesis comes from the reaction to the indictment and arraignment of Donald Trump.  Yesterday Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, presented an outline of his case against Trump in a post-arraignment news conference. I thought he did fine.  Basically, a few weeks before the 2016 election Trump paid hush money to an adult…
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