Salem Political Snark

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 lawsuit challenging the president’s sweeping tariff regime.

Rayfield, 46, is among the newest in a band of Democratic state attorneys general that’s been strikingly coordinated in challenging and stalling Trump’s avalanche of executive orders slashing federal spending, restricting birthright citizenship, gutting diversity and inclusion programs and much more since Jan. 20.

The looming impact of the tariffs in his trade-dependent Pacific Northwest state made taking the lead on the lawsuit an easy call, says Rayfield, who served as speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives before winning the AG post in November.

“Right now, in Canada, they are literally pulling [Oregon] products off of shelves,” he told POLITICO Magazine last week as he attended meetings in New York.

Rayfield has worked closely with Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes in leading the suit, which challenges Trump’s invocation of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, enacted in 1977 and now used for the first time to impose tariffs.

“It’s an unprecedented misuse of emergency powers,” said Rayfield.

California was the first state to file suit over the tariffs last month (perhaps unsurprisingly, given its economic heft and Gov. Gavin Newson’s political profile). But Rayfield’s suit — State of Oregon, et al., v. Trump — is expected to be taken up first, and will likely be cited in the U.S. Court of International Trade this week, where judges will consider a private company’s challenge to the tariffs.

Here's the Introduction to the State of Oregon, et al., v. Trump lawsuit.

1. The Constitution assigns to Congress, not the President, the “Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” Art. I, § 8. Yet over the last three months, the President has imposed, modified, escalated, and suspended tariffs by executive order, memoranda, social media post, and agency decree. These edicts reflect a national trade policy that now hinges on the President’s whims rather than the sound exercise of his lawful authority. By claiming the authority to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses, for whatever reason he finds convenient to declare an emergency, the President has upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy.

2. The President has no authority to arbitrarily impose tariffs as he has done here. The text and history of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—the statute the President has invoked for the most damaging of his tariffs—confirm that the President cannot impose such tariffs under that law. And even if it did, it would not allow the worldwide tariffs he has imposed, which were not a response to an emergency as IEEPA defines it and have no nexus to the circumstances that purported to justify them.

3. Because these tariffs are unlawful, this Court should declare that they are not in force, enjoin the Defendant agencies and officers from enforcing them, and vacate the agency actions implementing them.

The Oregon Department of Justice issued a May 7 media release about the lawsuit:

Attorney General Dan Rayfield today led a coalition of attorneys general in filing a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of President Trump’s illegal tariffs. The motion seeks a court order pausing the tariffs imposed under four of President Trump’s executive orders without congressional action.

“These tariffs are doing real damage to Oregonians and our small businesses. Families cannot be expected to pay more at the store at a time when they’re already struggling to afford the basics.” Rayfield said. “The President can’t just slap on tariffs that hurt working people without following the law. I don’t know many families who can afford an extra $3800 a year.”

The motion asks the U.S. Court of International Trade to order federal agencies to stop collecting illegal tariffs President Trump imposed on most products worldwide. These tariffs impose a 145 percent tariff on most products from China, a 25 percent tariff on most products from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent tariffs on most products from the rest of the world. It also asks the Court to put on hold President Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on imports from 56 other trading partners on July 9.

One analysis found that the average household will pay $3800 extra annually due to the tariffs. Businesses say they are already struggling. Todd Nelson is the co-owner of Bountiful Farms in Woodburn, and said the relationships he has spent years building with Canada have been greatly damaged.

“Many Canadian nurseries now have ‘Buy Canadian First’ initiatives, and just in the last few months, I’ve had several long-standing orders canceled. It’s not just disappointing – it’s heartbreaking,” Nelson said.

Oregon state agencies and universities are also bracing for significant cost increases, with budgets set before tariffs were in place. This will ultimately result in reduced services or delayed investments.

Economic analysis submitted to the court shows that state and local governments in the 12 states joining the motion stand to pay at least $3.4 billion per year in additional costs due to the tariffs. The states also submitted a Federal Reserve report noting that businesses “expected elevated input cost growth resulting from tariffs” and that “Most businesses expected to pass through additional costs to customers.”

Under Article I of the Constitution, only Congress has the “Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” The executive orders cite the powers granted by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), but that law applies only when an emergency presents “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad and does not give the President the power to impose tariffs. Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977. No President had imposed tariffs based on IEEPA until President Trump did so this year.

The case is entitled State of Oregon, et al., v. Trump, et al. (Case No. 1:25-cv-00077-GSK-TMR-JAR) and is pending before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade.

The case is led by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. Also joining the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

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 a slide from her presentation that I consider to be one of the most persuasive reasons to vote for the measure, if someone hasn't already made up their mind about the livability levy.

In the top row on the very right is a logo of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce. In the middle of the third row is the logo of the Marion County Democrats. It's rare that these organizations are on the same side of a major issue, especially one that involves a tax increase.

But there they are, strange bedfellows, united in their view that Salem is best served by having a properly funded library, parks, and senior center. Nordyke's next slide said, "And now, a few words from the organized opposition to the levy..." There weren't even a few words, because there's no organized opposition.

One reason is described in the following excerpt from a valuable Salem Reporter story about Measure 24-514 by Rachel Alexander that was published a few days ago, "Salem Reporter answers your questions about city tax levy and what comes next."
Download Salem Reporter answers your questions about city tax levy and what comes next - Salem Reporter

Why doesn’t the city just spend less?

City officials have taken some steps to cut costs, including freezing hiring on some vacant positions, eliminating an assistant city manager job and curtailing travel and supply spending.

But some rising expenses are outside the city’s control. Pension rates, a major driver of growing city expenses, are set by the state. Salem will spend about $11 million more this year paying those costs for already-retired workers.

An outside committee of business and nonprofit executives reviewed the city’s budget early this year. They concluded the city was already providing services more efficiently than other Oregon cities, and that the issues with the city’s budget were largely due to structural issues outside city control.

Erdmann said that review was what led the home builders to endorse the levy.

City officials say more cost-cutting would mean reducing services.

If the livability levy doesn't pass, cuts would be extreme. Here's a few examples: the library would only be open 20 hours per week, with over half of library staff laid off; all hard (permanent) restrooms in 70 neighborhood parks would be closed; Center 50+ would cut two part-time employees, reducing outreach, programming and volunteer recruitment.

So I urge you to vote YES on Measure 24-514. We've got to keep Salem livable.

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. They simply disagree with what their government is doing. This includes how Netanyahu and his cronies are conducting the war against Hamas.

Yet in this country Trump and his acolytes have been trying to equate anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism. That's ridiculous. There's good reason to believe that the Israeli government is committing war crimes against the two million or so people who live in Gaza.

Protesting this deserves praise, or at least a recognition that everyone in the United States, citizen and non-citizen alike, are entitled to express their views about the war freely. 

My own viewpoint is in line with how most Americans seem to see the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Hamas was wrong to start the war on October 7, 2023. Israel was justified in striking back against Hamas. However, the rules of war require that civilian casualties be minimized and that civilians not be forced to leave their homes or denied humanitarian aid such as food, water, and shelter.

Israel has failed to comply with both of those requirements. Gaza has been almost completely destroyed, with the population continually forced to move from one area to another by Israeli forces. An estimated 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza, with over 25,000 injured. That infuriates me.

I'm also deeply angered by Israel severely limiting humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, most of whom have no connection with Hamas and the October 7 terror attacks. Amnesty International tells it like it is:

Israel must immediately end its devastating siege on the occupied Gaza Strip which constitutes a genocidal act, a blatant form of unlawful collective punishment, and the war crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, said Amnesty International, marking two months since Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of aid and commercial goods into the Strip on 2 March 2025.  

By blocking the entry of supplies critical for the survival of the population, Israel continues its policy of deliberately imposing conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza calculated to bring about their physical destruction; this constitutes an act of genocide.  

Harrowing new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International throughout April reveal the catastrophic human cost of Israel’s two-month long total siege, where starvation and denial of life-saving essentials are being used as weapons of war in flagrant violation of international law. 

“The extent of human suffering in Gaza for the past 19 months has been unimaginable, and it is a direct consequence of Israel’s ongoing genocide. Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy, and Campaigns at Amnesty International. 

“For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable. This is genocide in action.  

“The international community must not continue to stand by as Israel perpetrates these atrocities with impunity. States, especially Israel’s allies, must act now and take concrete measures to pressure Israel into immediately lifting its total siege and allowing the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid and its safe distribution across all of Gaza. A sustained ceasefire is essential to ensure that can happen.” 

This week in the Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is holding public hearings to examine Israel’s obligations in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including the provision of humanitarian assistance. Amnesty International reiterates the critical urgency of allowing UNRWA, other UN agencies and humanitarian organizations, to carry out their life-saving work across the OPT without obstructions.   

Israel’s refusal to allow aid into Gaza also flouts repeated ICJ orders to ensure Palestinians have access to sufficient humanitarian assistance and basic services. 

So, yes, if criticism of Israel is antisemitic, then I'm proud to be labeled an antisemite -- because I abhor how Israel is using starvation and forced displacement as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza.

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 (our cell service is as bad as our broadband service, which is limited to 7 Mbps DSL, aside from Starlink, when it's working).

Since I'm addicted to writing a daily post for one of my three blogs, I figured that I'd keep my daily post habit fed in a simple fashion by sharing the end of a great piece by David Remnick in the May 5 issue of The New Yorker. It's titled "100 Days of Ineptitude." Naturally he's referring to Trump.

The record of failure after a hundred days is, at once, astonishing and predictable. With no evident purpose, Trump has alienated Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Canada, further undermined NATO, and made even more plain his affection for Vladimir Putin.

He has sanctioned his benefactor Elon Musk to hoist a chainsaw and commit mayhem against government agencies that save countless human lives. With evident pleasure, Trump has deported more than two hundred people (nearly all of whom have no criminal record) to a Salvadoran gulag. With his tariff proposals, he managed to destabilize the global economy in a flash, perhaps the worst own goal in history.

As part of his revenge campaign, he has waged a war of intimidation against dozens of scholarly, commercial, and legal institutions. Some, like Columbia University, Amazon, and Paul, Weiss, have caved, choosing the path of obedience over principle. Shari Redstone, of Paramount, would rather trash the independence of "60 Minutes," the most respected investigative outlet on television, than resist the absurd attacks of Trump and his lawyers.

The enduring emblem of this Administration and its duplicity is undoubtedly STRUMP, a meme-coin scheme that has brought many millions of dollars in profits to the President and his fellow-investors. Few seem to mind. Trump has normalized presidential corruption.

If one were forced to choose two representative events in the life of the Administration so far they would surely be the White House meetings with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and, six weeks later, with the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele.

In the first, Trump treated a moral hero as an ungrateful scoundrel. In the second, he treated a sadistic dictator as a soulmate. It is hard to recall a scene in the Oval Office more revolting than that of Trump's smiling request to Bukele to build five more prisons, because "the homegrowns are next."

In recent weeks, there have been encouraging signs of opposition to Trump, on the streets and in the courts. Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders are among the clearest voices of dissent on Capitol Hill. But accommodation and cowardice remain the norm.

"We are all afraid," the Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, said to a gathering in Anchorage. No doubt. The threat of retaliation is no joke, but the Senator's plaintive cry does not exactly meet the demands of the moment. This is not primarily a matter of competence or a clash over policy.

The Trump Administration is carrying out a coordinated assault on first principles. "The limits of tyrants," Frederick Douglass said, "are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." The President will persist in his assault until he feels the resistance of a people who will tolerate it no longer.

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 Community for Salem-Keizer Schools, a coalition of union and progressive groups including the Salem-Keizer teacher union and farmworker union PCUN. The group says it’s endorsing “experienced leaders who know that students thrive when they get the support they need to meet high expectations,” and who will focus on protecting public education.

Jeremiah Radka is supported by Marion + Polk First, a conservative political action committee involved in school board and city council races. The group says its candidates focus on schools performing with “academic rigor, quality, and hands-on training” as well as bringing police back into local schools.

Here's the full slate of candidates endorsed by Community for Salem-Keizer Schools. They're the best candidates, in my opinion.

We've seen what happens when right-wing zealots take control of a school board.

Books are banned that don't fit with an extreme conservative purity test. Excessive top-down control prevents teachers from doing what they're good at, helping their students learn. Schools become fortresses, scaring students, rather than buildings with a common sense level of security.

So that's why voters should embrace the progressive slate of candidates and reject the conservative slate. We can't have the political party that wants to do away with the Department of Education and views "diversity" as a dirty word taking over the Salem-Keizer School Board.

Our students deserve better than that.

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 bit but prices are still too high on many things. 

So it's understandable why some will be reluctant to mark Yes on Measure 24-514. Since ordinary people have to find ways to reduce costs, why can't the City of Salem?

Because there's solid evidence that the folks at City Hall have (metaphorically) looked under the sofa cushions for loose change, and there's simply not enough money in the general fund to fund the library, parks, and Center 50+ without this property tax increase.

Today the Salem Reporter had a story by Abbey McDonald, "Timeline: How Salem's city government got to its current budget crisis." Here's excerpts related to the need for Measure 24-514.

This month, voters in Salem will decide whether to support or reject the city’s proposed new property tax as the city faces deep cuts to the Salem Public Library, in parks, at Center 50+ and across city services.

The levy is the latest attempt by the city to balance its budget, after years of cuts, studies and other efforts to raise revenue. Spending has outpaced revenue due to measures in the 1990s which limited how much the city could bring in property taxes, and as state-mandated pension payments increase.

...February [2025]: A committee of financially-savvy executives tasked with looking at the city’s budget to find waste release their findings: the city’s budgetary woes are less about wasteful spending and inefficiencies and are largely due to structural problems outside Salem’s control.

...April [2025]: City leaders release their budget proposal for the year, with deep cuts to city services including 51 full time city jobs. It includes cutting library staff by 23, closing the West Salem branch and cutting the main branch to 20 hours per week.

The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce issues its endorsement of the levy. Gov. Tina Kotek says she supports the effort. Salem Reporter hosts a town hall inviting community members to ask city leadership about the levy.

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 as a progressive Democrat. 

(1) Trump single-handedly kept Canada's Liberal Party in power. Before Trump started to call the Prime Minister of Canada "Governor," a reference to his repeated threats to make Canada the 51st state, that country's Conservative Party was heavily favored to regain power through parliamentary elections.

However, yesterday Canadians voted to keep the Liberal Party in power under Prime Minister Mark Carney because the Conservatives were seen as being too close to Trumpism, being a sort of maple leaf MAGA, or MCGA. Here's an excerpt from a BBC story, "Trump made Carney's turnaround victory possible."

Mark Carney and the Liberal Party have claimed a remarkable victory in the Canadian election – and it appears to have come with a big assist from Donald Trump.

The US president's constant badgering of America's northern neighbour and taunts about making it the 51st US state since his return to office in January coincided with a dramatic reversal in fortune for the centre-left party.

Carney has been almost singularly focused on his neighbour, and this was reflected in his victory speech. After warning that the US wanted Canada's land and resources, Carney declared: "President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen."

Until Trump's return to power, Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party had held what looked like high and insurmountable ground in voter preference polls amidst general dissatisfaction with the state of the Canadian economy and almost a decade of Liberal government under then leader Justin Trudeau.

(2) Trump has erased $150 billion of Elon Musk's net worth. Before Musk bought Twitter and turned it into a right-wing shadow of its former self, I thought Musk was an appealing visionary and businessman. 

But seeing Musk steadily descend into sharing Trumpian conspiracy theories, along with blatant lies, soured me on Musk. My distaste deepened after Trump made Musk the head of DOGE, giving him free rein to fire federal employees for no good reason, take over confidential computer systems in Social Security and the IRS, and generally act like an annoying asshole.

At first Tesla's stock price rose after Trump was elected, as investors believed the company would benefit from Musk's close association with Trump.

It's been a pleasure to watch the stock price of Tesla sink as Musk's popularity with the public declined. Gosh, who could have predicted that if the CEO of Tesla starts trashing the values of Democrats, who are big fans of electric cars, they'd look elsewhere for an electric car purchase. (Lots of people predicted this, actually.)

So since so much of Musk's net worth is tied up in Tesla stock, Musk has lost around $150 billion since mid-December.

The steep decline in Tesla stock has contributed to Musk's net worth falling sharply over the past few months. Despite rising valuations for Musk's private ventures, the steady decline in the stock of his publicly traded car company has wiped about $150 billion off his net worth since mid-December. Still the world's richest person with a net worth of $335 billion, that's down sharply from a peak of almost $480 billion just a few months ago.

(3) Fireworks may be in short supply for the nation's 250 year anniversary of our independence in 2026. Our dog doesn't like fireworks. I'm OK with them, but since we live in a rural area where every year idiots set off illegal fireworks despite the high wildfire danger around July 4, I'd be happier with fewer fireworks.

Which Trump is well on the way to accomplishing through his tariffs on Chinese exports. Here's excerpts from a Washington Post story, "Trump is softening his tariff talk. But the damage may already be done."

With 14 months remaining before the United States’ 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, Stacy Blake should be placing big orders with the Chinese factories that supply her fireworks company in St. Joseph, Missouri. But she’s not. And she blames President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The same president who’s making plans for a “grand celebration” of this national milestone has imposed sky-high import duties that will make that star-spangled festival tough to pull off.

With the trade war causing U.S. orders to dry up, Chinese fireworks factories have begun shutting down. That threatens to disrupt the industry’s production schedule, leading to serious shortages, said Blake, co-owner of Schneitter Fireworks & Importing.

“We’ve got a huge problem ahead of us going into next year,” said Blake, who is also president of the National Fireworks Association. “This season is when Chinese manufacturers would be manufacturing our products right now for 2026, for the 250th. Very little production is happening. They have halted it.”

...Almost all of the fireworks that Americans purchase for personal use are made in China; three-quarters of the pyrotechnics featured in more elaborate community celebrations are Chinese.

In 2019, recognizing the lack of domestic production, Trump exempted the industry from his first China tariffs.

This time, however, he has not granted a similar waiver, leaving scores of small businesses facing crippling extra costs. Importers who cannot afford 145 percent taxes have told their Chinese suppliers to freeze shipments, which could mean some consumer favorites for celebrating the July Fourth holiday this year will be hard to find, said Blake, Schneitter Fireworks’ co-owner.

Without immediate relief from Trump’s tariffs, American importers will miss their turn in the Chinese production line for 2026. Fireworks factories will soon enter their annual summer shutdown. And when they reopen, they are scheduled to fill European orders before producing what Chinese consumers demand.

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." She also appears to be the best qualified candidate.

Today the Statesman Journal had a good story by Whitney Wordworth about the Ward 6 city council race. It pointed out that usually in city council races the contest is between a progressive and a conservative, mirroring our national political scene. 

The mayor and Salem City Council are nonpartisan, unpaid positions but typically fall between "progressive candidates" and "business candidates," with the latter tending to draw large donations from developers and political action committees. 

That explains the reference to "monied interests" pushing forward their candidate in the Progressive Salem endorsement above -- the business candidate being Deanna Garcia.

Here's the About Mai Vang statement on her campaign web site. She has a background that seems to make her a good fit for the ethnically diverse Ward 6 neighborhood that she hopes to represent on the Salem City Council.

Hi there!

I am a first generation Hmong-American. My parents were refugees of the Vietnam War and were resettled in Missoula, Montana in the early 1990s. I am the oldest of 6 kids. I grew up in a family oriented culture and lived in a multigeneration household. So I have always had one foot in the traditional expectations of my culture and one foot in the American culture, where anything is possible.

Hmong is my first language so I didn’t learn English until I went to school. And from that moment, I was given the role of translator for parents, grandparents, other family members.

Growing up, money was always tight, so I spent summers out in my parents’ garden growing and harvesting vegetables to then sell at my family’s booth at the Missoula Farmer’s Market. I spent many early Saturday mornings getting to know my local community.

During these times, my community also showed up and helped us in every way they could. They helped my family and me build a strong foundation to stand on and make the U.S. feel like home. This is something that I carry with me wherever I go– to give back and help build my community stronger so everyone can feel like they’re home.

I came to Oregon to attend Willamette University College of Law (go Bearcats!). I have always been interested in politics, especially in local government because it was where I could see the impact on my everyday life, my neighbors, and my city.

My husband and I were attracted to Ward 6 by all the new housing development. We found a beautiful place that was in our rent budget. One of the best things we discovered about Ward 6 was that we were right in the middle of everything! Just a few minutes’ drive to Fred Meyer and all the restaurants and shops on Lancaster but also just a few minutes to downtown Salem.  I can proudly say I can navigate around Salem without getting lost about 95% of the time!

With all the great things about Ward 6, I also noticed some things that concerned me—particularly pedestrian safety and traffic. So I went to my neighborhood association to voice my concerns and seek solutions. It was here where I got to know my neighbors and learned that they also shared the same concerns I did. They also brought other concerns to my attention and I have been active ever since.

Right now Ward 6 doesn’t have someone to listen to their concerns and, most importantly, show up for them. I am committed to doing that. That’s why I’m running to represent Ward 6.

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 between the bad guy, Russia, and the good guy, Ukraine.

Every reasonable person understands that Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason other than a desire to reconstitute the former Soviet Union. That invasion was preceded by Russia taking over Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, along with about 20% of Ukraine's territory on its border with Russia.

Trump made a campaign promise that he'd end the Ukraine war before he even was inaugurated. It's now been about three months since Inauguration Day. Trump has made essentially zero progress toward brokering a deal between Russia and Ukraine.

The main reason is the same one that makes Trump such a horrible dealmaker. He can't be trusted, and he doesn't understand that a deal requires opposing parties to each feel that they're gaining something, while not getting everything each party wanted.

Trump, though, wants to give Putin, the Russian dictator who invaded Ukraine, everything he desires, while giving Zelensky, the democratically-elected Ukrainian president who has valiantly defended his country, nothing he desires. 

The headline of a New York Times story today pretty much says it all. But I'll also share some excerpts from the story.

President Trump and his top aides demanded on Wednesday that Ukraine accede to an American-designed proposal that would essentially grant Russia all the territory it has gained in the war, while offering Kyiv only vague security assurances.

The American plan, which would also explicitly block Ukraine from ever joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was rejected by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whose long-running dispute with Mr. Trump broke into the open two months ago in the Oval Office. The proposal also appears to call for the United States to recognize Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea, a region of Ukraine.

“There is nothing to talk about,” Mr. Zelensky said. “This violated our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of Ukraine.”

...It was not clear whether the U.S. announcements were part of a pressure campaign to force Mr. Zelensky to make territorial concessions or whether they were designed to create a pretext for abandoning American support for Ukraine.

But the United States is essentially settling on a deal that favors the aggressor in the war, one that forces Ukraine to accept the forcible rewriting of its border and give up its hope of eventually joining NATO, as other former Soviet republics have.

European allies, who in recent weeks have been promising more military and economic support for Mr. Zelensky, have charged that Mr. Trump is essentially switching sides in the war, and that his real goal is to cast Ukraine aside and to find a way to normalize American relations with Moscow. Mr. Trump and his top aides have already begun discussing the prospect of lifting sanctions on Russia, and striking energy and mineral deals with Mr. Putin.

Whatever Mr. Trump’s motives, what happened on Wednesday signaled the possible abandonment of the American commitment to Mr. Zelensky that the United States would never engage in talks that excluded the country from determining its own fate.

Putin can't be trusted. A BBC story describes all the agreements and truces related to Ukraine that Russia has broken, starting all the way back in 1997. 

By invading Ukraine in 2014, Russia violated the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between the two countries signed in 1997. Article 2 said the sides "respect each other's territorial integrity and confirm the inviolability of existing borders between them".

Given that long history of Russian deception, it's completely understandable why Ukraine is demanding that a security guarantee be part of any agreement to end the current war. Otherwise Putin will reconstitute his depleted army and invade Ukraine again when he feels the time is right. 

However, Trump is demanding that Ukraine give up on ever becoming a member of NATO and refuses to have the United States guarantee Ukraine's security. No wonder Zelensky has rejected the Trump administration's proposal to end the war by giving Putin everything he wants.

Hopefully European countries will step up and do their best to replace United States support for Ukraine if Trump and Vance follow through on their threat to withdraw from peace talks if Ukraine doesn't go along with surrendering territory to Russia with no security guarantee.

China must be watching what's going on with glee, since if the United States gives a green light to Russia to annex the Ukrainian territory it now controls, this will send a clear sign to China that if it invades Taiwan, the United States won't stand in China's way. 

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 weeks, my Irritation Button has gotten pushed when Maher talks on Real Time about his recent dinner with Trump, Kid Rock, and Dana White at the White House. The invitation came at the request of Kid Rock. Trump didn't sound thrilled about it in a pre-dinner post on Truth Social.

You can read a transcript of Maher's report on his show of how the White House dinner went. It's obvious that Trump manipulated Maher, but Maher apparently was so awestruck at meeting Trump he left his critical thinking on the White House steps.

I'm just reporting exactly what I saw over two and a half hours. I went into the mine, and that's what's down there. A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is (expletive) up. It's just not as (expletive) up as I thought it was.

So somehow Maher concludes from his two and a half hour dinner at the White House that the "measured and gracious" Trump on display during those 150 minutes proves that Trump actually isn't the crazy, hateful, lying, vindictive, ignorant, authoritarian that Americans have come to know (and hate) for over ten years, ever since Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential run.

Nope, Bill Maher saw the real Trump, and it isn't the public Trump. Astonishingly, Maher doesn't consider that it is much more likely that the opposite is true: the side of Trump shown to Maher during the private White House dinner was the play-acting Trump, and the real Trump is who we see in his public appearances.

This Reddit post is right on.

From the Epstein tapes and Trumps autobiography this is actually pretty normal behavior for Trump at the beginning of his relationships with people.

Epstein describes Trump as an excellent manipulator that could make the ugliest girl at the party feel beautiful. This is his preferred method of networking.

Much like how an abusive sexual partner will love bomb someone at the beginning of the relationship, then go on to demand more and more concessions from them as the relationship develops.

This is how his ex-wives and former friends describe him as well.

As is another Reddit post:

I watched the video. He basically says "Trump wasn't a crazy person when I met him in person, he just seems to play one on TV. That surprised me and I'm happy about that."

In what way should I take that statement, exactly? Should I be happy that Trump is only pretending to be a crazy person whenever he makes public statements? Should I be happy that Trump is privately more of a slightly normal person, but not publicly? Should I be happy that Trump treats some people better than most people?

Because none of those things make me happy or make me feel good about any of this.

We have to judge someone by their actions, not by how they privately treat you behind closed doors. Especially the president. "But he was nice to me in private" just isn't an argument for anything here, regardless of whether it is even true.

And if that wasn't the point of Maher, what was his point?

Not to mention, all of this feels like a setup for him to slowly become more of a Trump guy. Let's see if the becomes less critical of Trump in the coming months. Let's see if he uses the usual "I know he sounds crazy here but he's just acting for his base so it's not that bad!" argument going forward.