Posted inCity Council City of Salem

City of Salem agrees to investigate Betsy Vega’s qualification to be a city councilor

Excellent news. Today the City of Salem issued a statement (copied in below) saying that city staff will investigate a complaint challenging Betsy Vega's qualification to be a candidate for the Ward 6 city council seat. Though the statement doesn't mention Vega by name, it's clear that she is the subject of the complaint. It's pleasing that City Manager Namburi reversed the ill-considered decision by City Attorney Dan Atchison to not investigate the complaint. As I said in "Salem city officials are refusing to enforce the city's own requirement to be a city councilor," that was a screwy move by…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election City Council

Salem city officials are refusing to enforce the city’s own requirement to be a city councilor

We're all familiar with bureaucracies behaving badly. But I expected more from officials at the City of Salem when it comes to enforcing their own requirement for serving as a city councilor, because they're refusing to make sure that Betsy Vega meets the residency requirement for serving as the Ward 6 city councilor. There it is, on the City of Salem web site, on a page titled Elections - Run for Elected City Office. I'll attach a screenshot. The residence requirement for becoming a city councilor is "Live within the city ward candidate seeks to represent 12 months prior to…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election City Council

If Betsy Vega didn’t live in Ward 6 for a year before the May 19 election, she is ineligible to be a city councilor

Currently Betsy Vega has a 40 vote lead over incumbent Mai Vang in the Ward 6 Salem City Council race. Since it looks virtually certain that Vega will have gotten more than 50% of the vote when this race is certified by Marion County Elections, seemingly Vega will replace Vang as the Ward 6 councilor next January when her term begins. Seemingly. Not certainly. Because the Salem Reporter has a May 28 story by Joe Siess with the provocative title, "Vega's Ward 6 residency questioned as Salem city council race remains unsettled." Excerpt: State elections officials are reviewing allegations that…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election City Council

Looks like progressives have gained one seat on the Salem City Council

Today was the end of the seven-day deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned to the Marion County Elections Office after the May 19 primary election where the races for Salem mayor and four city council seats would be decided if a candidate got over 50% of the votes. As I wrote about on May 20 in "Election for Salem mayor and city council turned out well for progressives, but not perfectly," from the initial results of these five races it seemed virtually certain that Vanessa Nordyke would defeat incumbent Julie Hoy in the mayor race, incumbent Linda Nishioka would…
2
Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Chernobyl is a HBO miniseries with a lot to say about truth in these Trumpian times

On the advice of a friend, I just finished watched Chernobyl, a five-episode HBO miniseries about the 1986 nuclear plant disaster in what is now Ukraine, but at that time was part of the Soviet Union. This historical drama aired in 2019 during the first Trump administration. Which is fitting, because a central theme in Chernobyl is how far Soviet authorities were willing to go to keep the truth about the disaster from becoming known. To the people who lived near the nuclear plant. To the workers charged with dealing with the meltdown. To the world at large. Authoritarian regimes…
1
Posted in2026 election City Council Vanessa Nordyke

Election for Salem mayor and city council turned out well for progressives, but not perfectly

The races for Salem mayor and city council are nominally nonpartisan, but in reality almost always there are conservative and progressive slates for these offices. So given the extent to which even local politics has become nationalized, every two years control of the city council hinges on whether the election winners tilt more toward the right or left of the political spectrum. Since Oregon's vote by mail allows for ballots to be counted if they are postmarked on or before election day, May 19, there's an unknown number of ballots remaining to be counted. What I've shared below are screenshots…
1
Posted inDonald Trump

Trump gets $1.776 billion to reward the January 6 rioters, insurrectionists, and police attackers

Today I heard James Comey, the former director of the FBI, say that when he first learned of the $1.776 billion settlement agreement reached between Trump and the Justice Department, he thought it was a satirical piece from The Onion. Which, it wasn't. Pleasingly, today The Onion does have such a piece -- though, sadly, the settlement agreement is utterly real. First, the satire. WASHINGTON—Declaring the financial allocation a matter of utmost urgency, President Donald Trump on Monday requested $1.2 trillion to have. “I’m calling upon Congress today to immediately provide me with $1.2 trillion in funding that I currently…
No Comments
Posted inInternational issues

Israel commits sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners, says Nicholas Kristof

Some people believe that Israel can do no wrong. Some people believe that Israel can do nothing right. Naturally the truth lies between these extremes. It's absurd when defenders of Israel claim that any criticism of this Jewish nation is antisemitic. I detest how Israel has treated Palestinians. I'm abhorred by the tens of thousands of innocent women and children killed by Israel in Gaza. I can't stand Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who engages in Trumpian lies and deceit. And after reading opinion writer Nicholas Kristof's highly disturbing column in the New York Times, "The Silence that Meets the…
1
Posted in2026 election 2028 election National politics

Democrats need to make “Won’t Get Fooled Again” their political theme song

This morning I woke up to news that the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled that the redistricting referendum recently approved by the state's voters by a 52-48 margin had been overturned by the court -- causing Virginia's congressional map to revert to a 6-5 likely Democratic majority rather than the 10-1 likely majority under the redistricting proposal. A song title popped into my head. "Won't Get Fooled Again." That was a 1971 song by the Who. The title perfectly encapsulated how I feel about well-meaning Democratic efforts to do the when they go low, we go high thing. Several blue…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election Julie Hoy Vanessa Nordyke

Vanessa Nordyke and Julie Hoy have very different visions for Salem. Vote for mayor accordingly.

This screenshot from the Salem Reporter home page nicely sums up the race for Salem mayor that will be decided in the May 19 election. Here's excerpts from the Salem Reporter profiles of the two candidates that illustrate the differences between them. Vanessa Nordyke -- Mayoral candidate and Salem City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke says she’ll prioritize ordinary people over the rich and powerful if elected on May 19. -- She’s backed by Progressive Salem, which is supporting a slate of progressive candidates in city races. -- She has cast the upcoming race as a contest between moneyed interests and the…
No Comments
Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Gavin Newsom must be the 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. I’m a big fan.

Every time I see Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, I get excited about him running for president in 2028 as the Democratic nominee. There's no other potential Democratic candidate who makes me feel that way. Kamala Harris? Been there and done that. Gretchen Whitmer? She's vanished in the Michigan wilderness. Josh Shapiro? Too calculating and unnatural. Cory Booker? Holier than thou attitude that turns me off. Mark Kelly? Nice guy who lacks charisma. By contrast, Gavin Newsom is appealingly real. He comes across as genuine, a rare quality in a politician of his stature. I just watched a recording…
1
Posted in2026 election City Council Julie Hoy

This is important to know about candidates for mayor and city council

I'm a political junkie. I'm addicted to following politics closely. But many people here in Salem aren't. They believe in voting, including in the May 19, 2026 election that likely will decide the races for mayor and four seats on the city council. (While this is a primary election, a candidate that gets more than 50% of the vote in those races wins outright; such will probably happen, given that there are two candidates in each race.) But those people don't have an inclination to dig deep into the qualifications and policy positions of the candidates vying to be mayor…
No Comments
Posted inDonald Trump National politics

I have no sympathy for Trump, given his vicious threats against his political enemies

When I heard that a gunman had been subdued at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night, I hoped that no one had been killed or seriously injured. After I learned that everybody attending the dinner was fine, I didn't seek out any more news about the attack, largely because I couldn't care less about how Trump or other administration officials were reacting to it. Predictably, today I heard pleas to "turn down the political rhetoric." Fine, good advice. If Donald Trump would only take it. Trump has done more to create a climate for political violence than anyone else…
No Comments
Posted inJulie Hoy Oregon politics

Governor vetoes bill that would have legalized Mayor Hoy’s ethics violation

Good news for everybody who values openness and transparency in public meetings. Bad news for Salem Mayor Julie Hoy, who was the ringleader of a scheme to circumvent Oregon's public meetings law, a sleazy move that earned her an ethics violation from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Julie Hoy Recently Governor Tina Kotek vetoed HB 4177, a seriously flawed bill passed by the 2026 Oregon legislature that would have made legal the private "serial communications" with members of the Salem City Council that Hoy engaged in because she wanted to get rid of City Manager Keith Stahley without having to…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election National politics

Democrats now lead in redistricting battle. Take that, Republicans!

Revenge is sweet. That's how it felt to me last night as I rejoiced when Virginia voters approved a redistricting plan that is expected to result in a 10-1 Democratic majority in the state's 11 congressional districts, up from a 6-5 majority under the current plan. Is this fair in a purple state where the electorate narrowly favors Democrats? No. But Republicans have been happily gerrymandering in states that they control for decades, rejecting Democratic pleas to institute a national requirement for independent redistricting commissions to redraw congressional maps every ten years after a census. So after Trump demanded that…
No Comments
Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump’s incessant lying is making it difficult to end the Iran war

If you've been in a coma for the past ten years and have just returned to everyday consciousness, here's something important for you to know: Donald Trump is the president of the United States and he's an incessant liar. A world-class liar, in fact. Trump also is a sociopath, since he couldn't care less how his lies affect other people and, indeed, the entire world. For the rest of us, what I've just said is what we've been suffering with for over a decade. Trumpian lie after lie after lie. Many times a day, every day, virtually nonstop. This was…
No Comments
Posted inCity Council Julie Hoy

Mayor Julie Hoy keeps on lying as her ethics violation is finalized

There's a lot not to like about Salem Mayor Julie Hoy -- notably including how an Oregon Government Ethics Commission investigation found that Hoy was the ringleader of an illegal secretive scheme to get rid of city manager Keith Stahley that violated numerous provisions of our state's public meetings law. But I'll say this much regarding Hoy: she is consistent... in her lies about her ethics violation. I listed three of her lies in a November 2025 post, "Mayor Julie Hoy lied about not wanting Keith Stahley gone. That's her third lie about Stahley." Lie #1: Hoy claimed that in…
No Comments
Posted inDonald Trump International issues Uncategorized

Trump wanted a fellow authoritarian to continue ruling Hungary. Hungarians voted differently today. Yay!

Thank you, Hungarian voters. You brought a big smile to my face when I learned that Viktor Orban, the authoritarian who has ruled Hungary for 16 years, had conceded to Peter Magyar -- the leader of a party that is expected to win 138 of the 199 seats in Hungary's parliament, which gives Magyar's party a 2/3 supermajority that will allow them to revise the Hungarian constitution that Orban had meddled with to keep himself and his cronies in power. It was a sweet victory for those of us here in the United States who detest Trump and J.D. Vance.…
No Comments
Posted in2026 election Homeless

Homelessness in Salem will be affected by the upcoming mayor and city council elections

Today the Salem Reporter published a great story about an important impact of the May election for mayor and four city council seats, "WHAT'S AT STAKE: How Salem city council races could impact local homeless policy." This is a summary of how the progressive and conservative slates of candidates differ in their approaches to homelessness. Candidates this year are largely divided between two philosophical approaches. In general, progressives describe the homelessness issue as a matter of affordability, particularly around rising rent costs and challenges finding housing. Conservatives point to addiction and a lack of personal accountability as the main drivers…
No Comments
Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump is poised to order attacks on Iran that would be war crimes

Unless Trump reaches a deal with Iran's leaders, he says that tomorrow, at 5 pm on April 7, Pacific time, he will order our military to destroy every power plant and bridge in Iran within four hours. That destruction, Trump says, will take Iran 100 years to repair, sending the country "back to the Stone Age." This horrific act would be a war crime. No doubt about it. I only hope that our military leaders have more sense than Trump and refuse to carry out his illegal orders. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely, since Pete Hegseth, the Defense Department Secretary, has…
No Comments