Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Trump has definitely become an authoritarian

There's good reason to argue that Donald Trump has always been an authoritarian. He admires strongmen such as the dictators and quasi-dictators who run Russia, North Korea, China, Turkey, and Hungary. He demands absolute loyalty with no backtalk from people who work for him. He despises central tenets of democracy like free and fair elections unless he manages to win. But after four months of his second term as president, now there's no doubt on which side of the authoritarian fence Trump is on. Just about every action he's taken has either pushed to the limit norms that have been…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Salem-Keizer school district

Salem area special election results looking good, especially to liberals

With Oregon allowing mailed ballots to be counted as long as they're postmarked on or before election day, more ballots will be received in the next few days. But the current results for key races in the Salem area likely will hold up, given the margin of victory (or defeat) in each of them. The biggest news is the 56-44 passage of Measure 24-514, also known as the Livability Levy. Given that there was no organized opposition to an increase in Salem property taxes to fund the library, parks, and Center 50+, it wasn't a surprise that the measure passed.…
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Posted inCity Council

Conservatives up to dirty tricks in Ward 6 City Council race

Thanks to a Salem Reporter story by Joe Siess, "Newly formed PAC jumps into Salem council race as election winds down," I learned about the latest dirty trick that conservatives desperate to regain control of the Salem City Council are playing on voters. In almost every local election cycle something like this occurs. The basic reason is that while liberals value playing fair (naturally with some exceptions), conservatives value doing whatever it takes to win. Here's how the Salem Reporter story starts out. Dru Draper says his days-old political action committee has jumped into Salem’s contested council race to make…
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Posted inCity of Salem Donald Trump Julie Hoy

One thing that Salem Mayor Julie Hoy and President Trump have in common

Understand: I'm not equating Julie Hoy, the Mayor of Salem, Oregon, with Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Though they're each conservative, fortunately Hoy isn't nearly as obnoxious and dangerous as Trump. But they do have this in common. Both Hoy and Trump benefit from the fact that doing something illegal or unethical can be done quickly, while holding someone to account for such an action can take months or years. This relates to the adage, "Justice delayed is justice denied." Wikipedia explains: "Justice delayed is justice denied" is a legal maxim. It means that if legal redress…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics Oregon politics

Oregon’s Attorney General leading 12-state lawsuit challenging Trump tariffs

It warmed my Oregon heart to see my state prominently featured in a Politico story today, "'There is No Rational Basis Behind What the President is Trying to Accomplish': Oregon's Attorney General is suing to block Trump's tariffs -- and he might win." Excerpt: Attorney General Dan Rayfield Dan Rayfield, Oregon’s rookie attorney general, says he didn’t want to spend his first months in office fighting presidential edicts in court. But along with the consumer protection and law-and-order duties that more typically define his role, the Democrat is now a key combatant in Donald Trump’s trade war, leading a 12-state…
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Posted inCity Club City Council City of Salem

Vanessa Nordyke makes closing argument for Salem’s livability levy

City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke is an attorney. Today she made a presentation to the Salem City Club that she called a closing argument for Measure 24-514 on the May ballot -- which is unofficially called the livability levy, being a property tax increase to fund the library, parks, and Center 50+. Nordyke said that she chose her black suit because it's what she likes to wear to a closing argument. "Closing," because ballots need to be postmarked on or before May 20, or put in a drop box before 8 pm on the 20th. That's just eleven days away. Here's…
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Posted inInternational issues

If criticizing Israel is antisemitic, then I’m an antisemite

Antisemitism used to mean what it actually is: hostility toward Jews, including hatred, discrimination, and prejudice. But lately in some circles the meaning of the word has expanded to something that it isn't: criticism of Israel. This is completely wrong. It conflates two separate things, the Jewish religion and the nation of Israel. There are lots of people in Israel who strongly oppose policies of the current right-wing Israeli government, which is headed up by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Many, if not most, of those people are observant Jews. So are they antisemitic, somehow being prejudiced against themselves? Of course not.…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump’s first 100 days are a litany of failures

After a long stretch of having no problems with our Starlink satellite internet, the only high speed broadband option available to us out here in rural south Salem, Oregon, our router has developed a serious connection problem.  Meaning, no wi-fi, despite my best efforts over the past four hours to figure out what the problem is. Of course, this being an Elon Musk company, it isn't possible to get any support via phone, so I'm waiting for a reply to the support request I sent via the Starlink iPhone app. That request went out via a dreadfully slow cellular connection…
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Posted inSalem-Keizer school district

Vote for the progressive candidates in the Salem-Keizer school board races

We live in polarized political times. School board elections are part of this dynamic. Sure, it'd be nice if candidates for the Salem-Keizer school board positions on the May 2025 ballot all could be judged individually. But that's not the world we live in. As has been the case recently, there are two slates of candidates, progressive and conservative. A Salem Reporter story about the Zone 7 candidates for the upcoming school board election says: As has become standard in Salem, two ideologically opposed slates of school board candidates are running in the nonpartisan races. Mel Fuller is endorsed by…
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Posted inCity of Salem

Vote Yes on Measure 24-514, the livability levy

It's got a nice alliterative ring to it... livability levy. The official name for what Salem voters will consider on the May 20, 2025 ballot is Measure 24-514.  The measure increases property taxes to pay for the library, parks, and Center 50+. If it doesn't pass, drastic cuts will have to be made to these important components of our city's livability. What kind of city would Salem be without them? Not one most people would be proud of. These are difficult times. Our national politics are a divisive mess. Prospects for the economy don't look great. Inflation is moderating a…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues National politics

Here’s three “accomplishments” by Trump that make this Democrat happy

We've now endured 100 days of Trump's second term in office. Those three-plus months have been a disaster for the United States and the world. Trump has damaged economies by his insanely high and poorly thought out tariffs. Trump has failed to stop the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars. Trump has decimated vital government services through mindless budget and personnel cuts. Trump has been chastised by federal judges and the Supreme Court for failing to obey the rule of law. But the news isn't all bad. Here's three "accomplishments" (the quotation marks point to irony) by Trump that make me happy…
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Posted inCity Council

Mai Vang is best choice for Ward 6 city council seat in May 20 election

There are three candidates running in the May 20 special election to fill the remaining term in the Ward 6 city council seat that was vacated by Julie Hoy when she was elected Mayor of Salem last year.  Mai Vang, Deanna Garcia, and Logan Lor all deserve credit for stepping up to the citizen activism plate and taking a swing at being elected to this time-consuming zero-pay volunteer position. I believe Mai Vang is most deserving of Ward 6 votes, and I say this only partly because she is endorsed by Progressive Salem, which happens to be my political "tribe."…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Outrageous: Trump wants to give Russia everything and Ukraine nothing

Trump has to be the worst dealmaker of any president. He's utterly incapable of making deals, both in his first administration and now.  No deal to limit North Korea's nuclear threat. No deal to replace the effective Iran nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of. No deal to end the Israel-Hamas war. No deals with any of the countries he's imposed tariffs on. And no deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. All of these failures concern me. But Trump's abject failure to make any progress on ending the Russia-Ukraine war is particularly outrageous, because there's an extremely clear distinction here…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Bill Maher manipulated by Trump during dinner at the White House

I've watched Bill Maher for many years, beginning with his Politically Incorrect show and continuing through his Real Time show on HBO. It seems clear that Maher has gotten more conservative, or at least, is considerably more critical of Democrats than he used to be. I still enjoy Maher's show. I just find myself frequently getting irritated with him when Maher does his false equivalence thing: taking some isolated incident of progressive "wokeness" and making it sound like this is more serious than, say, Trump wrecking the economy, trashing the constitution, and behaving as a wanna-be dictator. The past few…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Expert on authoritarianism says Trump is moving closer to state terror

I remember well, because it was just a few months ago, when political commentators ridiculed Kamala Harris for placing so much emphasis on preserving democracy in the face of Trump when it was simply obvious that the main problem facing Americans was inflation. Meaning, it was more important for the Harris campaign to talk about the price of eggs than the price of freedom.  Now it is clear that Harris was correct and the pundits were wrong. For Trump is acting more like an authoritarian and wanna-be dictator than was expected by Trump critics like me -- and I expected…
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Posted inCity of Salem National politics

Hopefully Salem’s Livability Levy isn’t affected by drop in consumer sentiment

In normal times it would be surprising if a city's vote on a property tax increase to fund the library, parks, and senior center would be affected by tariffs imposed by the President on imports to the United States. But these aren't normal times, thanks to our decidedly abnormal president, Donald Trump. Even though Trump has put a 90-day pause for most countries on the high tariffs he imposed to allow time for negotiations, the overall U.S. tariff rate actually went up from his initial roll-out, because Trump increased the Chinese tariff to an eye-popping 145%, with no pause. Here…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump gives in on tariffs after trying to wreck U.S. and world economy

MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a nice way of describing Trump's 90-day pause on his tariffs today: it was like an arsonist setting a building on fire, then returning to the scene of his crime and telling bystanders that  it was good only two-thirds of the structure was destroyed. (Not an exact quote, but I got the basics right.) In the first four business days after Trump revealed his totally screwy "reciprocal" tariffs on almost every country, including those that have zero tariffs on United States imports, our stock market graded his tariff policy with a big F for fail by…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues National politics

Trump’s tariffs are a loser for him no matter what he does

It's laughable when someone calls Trump a great dealmaker. Actually he's a terrible dealmaker. The only reason anyone claims this is that Trump paid someone to write a book for him called "Art of the Deal."  His name is on the cover, even though he didn't write it, but that's a far cry from the reality: Trump is incapable of making deals because he isn't a strategic thinker and nobody trusts him to keep his word. Look at the evidence. In his first term as president Trump failed to make any significant deals. His main claim to fame, or in…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues National politics

My daughter is more optimistic about Trump’s tariffs than I am. Hope she’s right.

My daughter is the vice-president for sales of a designer eyewear company whose products are made in a European Union country. So she's got a vested interest in how Trump's tariffs turn out, since the European Union has been slammed with a 20% tariff on exports to the United States. There's no difference politically between my daughter and me. We're both avid progressives who couldn't stand Trump before his rollout of an incredibly misguided attempt to undo international trade through so-called "reciprocal" tariffs that actually aren't that at all -- since Trump's deeply flawed simplistic formula used to come up…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues National politics

Not a surprise: Trump’s tariffs are based on lies

Given Trump's notorious disregard for the truth, it isn't surprising that yesterday when he revealed his so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on goods imported to the United States from other countries, massive lies were used to support his massive and economically destructive tariffs -- which amount to a gigantic tax increase on the American people.  Trump used the charts below to illustrate his tariff plan. The column just to the right of a country's name is titled "Tariffs Charged to the U.S.A. Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers." That's a total lie, as I'll describe below. That column has nothing to do…
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