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…

Hines Brian December 19, 2022No Comments

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,…

Hines Brian December 15, 2022No Comments

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…

Hines Brian December 7, 2022No Comments

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…

Hines Brian November 16, 2022No Comments

Ukraine aid another reason to vote for Andrea Salinas in CD 6

Like most Americans, I'm a big supporter of Ukrainians' fight against Russia's unprovoked invasion of their country. The military and economic aid being supplied to Ukraine by the United States has done a lot to not only stop the Russian advance, but to help Ukraine gain back territory lost in the early days of the war. However, Kevin McCarthy, who likely will be the Speaker of the House if Republicans take back that branch of Congress, has said that a GOP-led House probably will oppose more aid for Ukraine. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is signaling that if Republicans…

Hines Brian October 19, 2022No Comments

Kansas votes for abortion rights. Good news for Democrats.

Being an avid Democrat, I needed this. A big win for abortion rights in Kansas today. Yes, Kansas. A decidedly red state. A Washington Post headline buoyed my liberal spirits. Political prognosticators were saying the vote in Kansas would be close. Actually, it wasn't. This bodes well for Democrats in the November midterms. The Kansas legislature, dominated by Republicans, put this constitutional amendment question on the ballot in what they thought would be a low-turnout primary election, hoping that Kansas voters would sleepwalk their way to approving a change to the state's constitution that would take away a woman's private…

Hines Brian August 2, 2022No Comments

2020 election 2022 election Donald Trump

Anyone who still supports Trump is a democracy-hater

If there was any doubt that Donald Trump is the worst president in American history, the rock-solid findings of the January 6 committee have put that doubt to rest. I haven't watched all of my recording of tonight's primetime hearing by the committee into Trump's 187 minutes of utter inaction following the insurrection at the nation's capitol. But I listened to about an hour while driving around, and looked at some of the hearing when I returned home. It's amazing that there's anyone in the United States who still backs Trump. If any other president had done 1/1000 of the…

Hines Brian July 21, 2022No Comments

My shameful fantasy involving Donald Trump

Hey, I survived the shame of telling my Donald Trump fantasy to a friend today, Jim, during our usual Sunday get-together at the Urban Grange coffeehouse in West Salem. So I might as well share that not-so-secret aspect of my political self with the much vaster audience who read this Salem Political Snark blog. (I have a liberal interpretation of much vaster.) I was describing to Jim the current status of my long-running depression about being a progressive Democrat in a time when everything seems to be going wrong for my side of the political spectrum. Inflation is skyrocketing. Biden's…

Hines Brian July 17, 2022No Comments

Chaos is the real reason abortion rights have been lost

Like most Democrats, and indeed most Americans, I'm a strong supporter of abortion rights. The recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case which ruled that the Constitution protects a woman's right to choose an abortion, deeply irritates me. So does the weak response of Democratic leaders in Washington, especially since the leaked draft Supreme Court decision gave Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer plenty of time to formulate plans for protecting abortion rights after the court gave a green light to about half the states banning abortion entirely. Telling people, vote in November, is pretty much useless…

Hines Brian June 27, 20221

Hating Russia, I now better understand why so many hate the United States

Before Putin invaded Ukraine, my attitude toward Russia was one of rather detached disinterest. I knew that Russia wasn't our friend, Trump had some sort of fatal attraction toward the country, Putin was an authoritarian who killed dissidents/journalists he didn't like, and it had a lot of oil and gas. But in no way did I hate Russia. Now I do. Not the Russian people. Just that portion of the Russian populace responsible for carrying out the invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin. The oligarchs who support him. The Russian military. Anyone else in Russia who knows about the horrendous war…

Hines Brian May 11, 2022No Comments

If we make the mistake Zelensky did, we’ll lose our democracy

I'm a huge fan of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. They've fought against Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine with amazing skill, valor, and determination. Zelensky Since the war began on February 24, Zelensky has led his country almost perfectly. He inspires both Ukrainians and the entire freedom-loving world with his words and actions. And yet... A special report in the May 9 issue of TIME magazine, "Inside Zelensky's World," describes how close a bad decision by Zelensky came to imperiling Ukraine in the first few days of the war. The error was ignoring the obvious evidence that Russia was…

Hines Brian May 5, 2022No Comments

Once abortion is illegal, gay marriage and contraception could follow

Unless you're living in a news desert where word of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning abortion rights hasn't reached yet, likely you're either outraged or ecstatic -- depending on how you view abortion. Me, I'm in the outraged camp. I strongly favor a woman's right to choose what medical care she gets. That leads me to be upset at what anti-abortion zealots and their enablers in the Republican Party have wrought: the imminent doing-away of a constitutional right to an abortion that has been the law of the land since 1973, almost 50 years. Even worse, there's good…

Hines Brian May 3, 2022No Comments

Parents don’t get to choose the version of American history they like best

Until I read a story by Jill Lepore in the March 21, 2022 issues of The New Yorker, "The Parent Trap: How school fights, from evolution to anti-racism, pit parents against the state," I failed to understand some key points about the current controversy over teaching American history in public schools. Quite a few conservative states are passing so-called parents-rights bills that allow parents more leeway than they've enjoyed before to complain about teaching regarding slavery, systemic racism, and such that goes against the grain of a view of American history that papers over these subjects in favor of a rosier…

Hines Brian April 7, 20221

No reasonable person should be a Republican

Being a Republican used to be a respectable political position. My mother was an avid Republican. Until I went to college, I shared her conservatism. I grew up reading National Review. William F. Buckley was only one of numerous noted Republican intellectuals. Back then, Republicans believed in conserving the environment, which fit with their conservative principles. Now, in the Age of Trump, Republicans should rename themselves as the Know-Nothing Party. (Yeah, I know, that name was taken in the 1850's, but it's time to resurrect it.) There's so many examples of Republican craziness, I'm going to limit myself to two…

Hines Brian March 24, 2022No Comments

Fear of WW III can’t stop us from battling Putin with all our might

Just before I started to write this blog post, I got a reminder that it's time to use CleanMyMac, a utility program I've been using without thinking where the creators come from.Now I know. This message popped up when I opened CleanMyMac. We stop selling our products to users from the Russian Federation and Belarus with this release. Ukraine is our home, and we want to protect it in every way we can. Despite the war, CleanMyMac is stable, and our team is safe. We try to stay calm, focused, and optimistic for a peaceful future of independent Ukraine.…

Hines Brian March 20, 2022No Comments

Joe Biden National politics

Bring on higher gas prices, since it punishes Putin

Nobody likes to pay more for gasoline. But we all should be pleased to do this when it keeps American money out of the hands of the Russian thug, Vladimir Putin, who is bombing residential areas in Ukraine mercilessly. Today President Biden announced that the United States won't be importing Russian oil, which accounts for 3% of our oil supply. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine about two weeks ago, gas prices have risen considerably. I recall that the Shell station in south Salem where I usually fill up was charging about $3.95 a gallon pre-invasion. When I drove by today…

Hines Brian March 8, 20221

Joe Biden National politics

With Ukraine, I’m becoming a progressive war hawk

It's sort of a weird feeling for me, wishing the United States would get more involved in a war after being opposed to the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (I supported the initial push to get Bin Laden, but not the twenty years in Afghanistan afterward). However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed a warmonger button in my psyche. It's been infuriating to watch Putin's army bomb residential areas in Ukraine that have no military significance. I feel for the million or so Ukrainians who have fled their country after the Russian aggression. My heart aches to watch the…

Hines Brian March 4, 20221

We are all Ukrainians. Except for Putin admirers.

Four words really says it all. But being a wordy guy, naturally I want to say more about how proud I am of how Ukraine is bravely fighting against Putin and his Russian military. Many times a day I check my Twitter feed to see how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going. I follow The Kyiv Independent, @KyivIndependent. This screenshot of their most recent tweets shows how gripping real-time coverage of the invasion is. The stories of heroism and sacrifice coming out of Ukraine are wonderfully inspiring. They spur me to exhibit more courage in my own hugely easier…

Hines Brian February 26, 20221