Posted inSalem Police Department Salem Reporter

How could a man twice sexually assault women at Minto Brown Park?

Yesterday I got an email from a woman who was understandably upset at learning that David Belluno, who sexually assaulted a woman at Minto Brown Park last Monday afternoon, had sexually assaulted a different woman at Minto Brown Park back in 2018.  David Belluno Her message said: Hi Brian, as I'm sure you've seen, the same criminal let go in 2018 attempted the same crime (attempted kidnapping, rape, assault, etc.) over the weekend in Minto Brown park. I know from your posts that you revere this park as much as I do. I was shocked to see this and I'm…
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Posted inNational politics

Kevin McCarthy’s bad day foreshadows worse House chaos

Today was supposed to be when Kevin McCarthy achieved his dream of becoming Speaker of the House, second in line for the presidency (an admittedly scary thought). He'd already had his stuff moved into the Speaker's office. But McCarthy not only failed to be elected speaker by the new Republican House majority on the first vote, losing 19 members of his own party when he could only afford to lose four, McCarthy went down in flames on the second and third votes also, with 20 defectors on the third vote. So it was a day of Republican chaos in the…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Climate Action Plan

Salem needs to get past “blah, blah, blah” about climate change

As 2022 draws to a close, I'm hoping that 2023 is when Salem's city officials get past what climate activist Greta Thunberg calls the "blah, blah, blah" approach to reducing the world's greenhouse gas pollution. Meaning, lots of talk, very little action. The Salem City Council has passed a Climate Action Plan. It includes these goals: By 2035, GHG Salem emissions shall be reduced to 50 percent of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and By 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral. But the Climate Action Plan isn't being taken seriously by city staff and…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

If a Democratic president acted like Trump, how would liberals react?

Today the January 6 committee held its final meeting to lay out criminal referrals to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.  The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol accused former President Donald J. Trump on Monday of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and one other federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution. The action, the first time in American history that Congress has referred a former president for criminal prosecution, is the coda to the committee’s 18-month investigation into Mr. Trump’s…
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Posted inNational politics

We must keep supporting Ukraine, says Nicholas Kristof

This isn't the cheeriest time in Oregon. It's cold. We're approaching the shortest day of the year, so it's dark a lot. But imagine that a malevolent foreign power who wants to make Oregon part of their country was attacking our electricity infrastructure with missiles and drones, causing our state to suffer massive electrical blackouts in winter. And those attacks keep happening. As soon as we make repairs and get the lights and heat on again, the foreign power strikes another time, plunging a large share of Oregon's population back into cold and darkness. Oh, and to make matters worse,…
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Posted in2022 election National politics

Raphael Warnock for president. Someday.

It was quite a night for political aficionados like me yesterday. I settled in to watch MSNBC's coverage of the Georgia runoff election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker around 5 pm. Between then and 8:30 or so, when the Senate race was called in favor of Warnock, I went through a bunch of ups and downs until the final Big Up. I'm resisting talking about the lead changing hands, because this is an inaccurate way of describing what happened.  An election night isn't like a football game where the outcome is uncertain as the teams each score in an…
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Posted inCity of Salem Peter Fernandez

Peter Fernandez’ retirement is good news for Salem

Peter Fernandez, the thoroughly sleazy Public Works Director for the City of Salem, announced he's retiring effective January 6, 2023.  This is cause for joy among those of us who follow goings-on at City Hall closely enough to be aware of what a disaster Fernandez has been during the fifteen years Salem has had to put up with his lies, dissembling, and poor decisions. It's remarkable that Fernandez wasn't fired long ago, given how poorly he's performed as Public Works Director. This shows that Salem is willing to put up with a lot of crap, so long as the crap-producer…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Wacko group fails to recall Salem-Keizer school board members

The good news is that Salem Keizer We Stand Together, a wacko group that sees "wokeness" as the biggest problem in our children's education, failed to get enough signatures to recall three school board members who didn't conform to the group's extreme right-wing agenda. None of the three Salem-Keizer Public Schools governing board members targeted in a recall effort will be removed since petitioners failed to collect enough signatures before the deadline. Casity Troutt, vice president of the parent advocacy group Salem-Keizer We Stand Together, filed paperwork on Aug. 25 to recall board Chairwoman Ashley Carson Cottingham, former Chairman Osvaldo…
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Posted in2022 election Marion County politics

Marion County out to undermine gun control and climate action

It's not easy being a conservative in a liberal area, or a liberal in a conservative area, because your elected officials tend to do things you'd rather not have done.  Of course, a lot depends on what's meant by "area." I'm a liberal. I live in Oregon, a blue state. So mostly I'm good with what statewide elected officials (all Democrats) do. Within Oregon, I live in Salem -- that's my address, though I'm not in the city limits -- which leans decidedly leftward. So mostly I'm good with what the Salem City Council does, as the council has a…
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Posted in2022 election

Ed Dover makes sense of election results in City Club talk

After every general and midterm election for the past dozen years or so, Ed Dover, Professor Emeritus of Politics, Policy and Administration at Western Oregon University, gives a talk to the Salem City Club about what just happened. I always look forward to hearing Dover, because he's so entertaining and informative. Today was no exception. He started out by talking about the power of political metaphors, the goal being to create a memorable image or phrase that will stick in peoples' minds. This year "Red Wave" was heard over and over -- the image being of a 100 foot tall…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Hopefully I don’t regret this blog post about Trump 2024

Yesterday Donald Trump announced that he's a candidate for president in 2024, a full two years before the election.  I can't stand Trump. But I'm pleased that he's running for the Republican nomination again. It'll be easy for me to explain why. I just hope that after the 2024 presidential election I don't take a look at this post and think, Brian, how could you have been so stupid? Wouldn't be the first time I've had that thought, of course. I think and do stupid stuff all the time. However, it's one thing to make a personal mistake, and a…
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Posted inCity of Salem Salem Reporter

Help Salem Reporter fight City of Salem secrecy

I hate it when government officials try to hide important facts from the public. I especially hate it when the officials doing the hiding are employees of the City of Salem. You know, the agency whose slogan is "At Your Service." But for sure not when the folks at City Hall are trying to cover something up. Then their unstated slogan becomes "Good Luck Learning What We Did, Sucker." That's the position the inquiring journalists at the Salem Reporter are in. For quite a few months they've been trying to learn why Steve Bellshaw, who used to be a deputy…
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Posted in2022 election

Democrats hold U.S. Senate. My liberal joy increases.

A few days ago I wrote about how after feeling good on Tuesday's election night, Democrat me was feeling even better Thursday night. Now here I am on Saturday night, two days further along in the post-election period, and I'm feeling tremendous. I'll let some Twitter screenshots tell the tale, with the aid of some words from me. This is huge, Democrats having at least 50 seats in the Senate, the number they have now. The win by Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada was expected, but by now means certain. It came down to mail ballots in Clark County, Nevada's…
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Posted in2022 election

Democrats doing great post-election in Oregon and nationally

I was feeling good last Tuesday on election night when it was clear that the widely predicted Republican Red Wave was going to be much closer to a Red Ripple.  Now, two days later, with more election results in, I'm feeling even better! Which means that Republicans are feeling worse. My compassionate Buddha-nature is sorry for that, but not so sorry to prevent Democrat me from listing in this blog post some reasons why my political mood is so positive. (1) Most importantly, Tina Kotek has been declared the winner of Oregon's Governor race over Christine Drazan. This was my…
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Posted in2022 election

Election looking good for Democrats in Oregon and nation

There's still a lot more votes to be counted in the midterm election, but right now, as a Democrat, I'm feeling good about how my party has fared. For sure this hasn't been a Red Wave election, as so many pundits predicted. At best, we're talking a Red Ripple. And when all is said and done, even that might be an overstatement.  Here in Oregon, Democrat Tina Kotek is leading Republican Christine Drazan 46-45 in the Governor race, with unaffiliated Betsy Johnson at a mere 9%. Too close for comfort, but I suspect Kotek will come out on top when…
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Posted in2022 election

Everyone will be unhappy with tomorrow’s election

If you're anxious about the midterm election tomorrow, join the club. A really big club. Because everyone is going to be unhappy with how it turns out. Well, other than the people who don't care at all about elections and politics. They will be completely happy with the election, because it'll be over and they don't have to put with those annoying campaign ads on TV and lawn signs around the neighborhood. But the rest of us, no matter our political persuasion, are going to find much to be unhappy about once the election results are known. (No matter what Trump…
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Posted in2022 election Chris Hoy City of Salem

Community Improvement Bond discussed at Salem City Club

In next Tuesday's election Salem voters will decide the fate of the $300 million Community Improvement Bond. Last Friday the City Club had an informational program about the bond featuring new Mayor Chris Hoy and Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Hoffert. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. But then, my life is pretty routine, so I have a low bar when it comes to what I find interesting. Quite a few City of Salem staff were there, including the recently appointed City Manager Keith Stahley. But they couldn't advocate for the bond, leaving that up to…
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Posted in2022 election

Only 28% of Marion County voters have cast their ballot. So vote!

I'm a Democrat. But I want as many people as possible to vote in every election -- Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated. Everybody who is registered. So, if you haven't returned your ballot, do it as soon as possible. Remember that now Oregon allows mailed ballots to be counted even if they arrive after election day (November 8), so long as they're postmarked on or before election day. And the postage has been paid. And you can drop off your ballot at an official drop box until 8 pm on election day if you don't mail your ballot. Click here to locate…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

Why this blog didn’t show up for 36 hours

From about 9 pm my time last Saturday night to around 9 am today (Monday) Typepad, my blogging service, was offline due to scheduled maintenance that had problems. Typepad has undone the changes, but some images still aren't showing up. Hopefully things will be completely back to normal soon.
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Posted in2022 election

GOP targets Oregon Senate, so vote for Deb Patterson and other Dems

Here's one more reason to vote for Deb Patterson (D) rather than Raquel Moore-Green (R) in their Senate District 10 race. (I've cited other reasons in a previous blog post.) Deb Patterson Oregon's Senate has been targeted by national Republicans as a top priority for a GOP takeover. So says a July CBS News Story. The main Republican committee for state legislative races aims to flip four more state chambers from Democratic control, seizing on widespread frustration with Democrats' handling of the economy, as inflation reached a new 40-year high on Wednesday. The Republican State Leadership Committee (RLSC) has added Maine's…
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