Salem Political Snark

Oregonian column about Liberty University makes fun of Oregon's moralistic football opponent

Thank you, Bill Oram. I needed your Oregonian sports section column about Oregon's opponent in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day 2024. These wintry days have been dark, drenching, and dismal recently.  Making fun of Liberty University is just what I needed from you to raise my spirits.

Below I've taken the liberty of sharing the entire column, copyright law be damned. 

For as many Oregon football fans as possible need to have at least a half-smile put back upon their face, given the crushing disappointment of Oregon's third three-point loss to Washington in a row, with the most recent defeat landing the Ducks in the Fiesta bowl against a far inferior opponent, instead of having a decent chance of making the four-team national championship playoff if they'd beaten the Huskies.

Having written a recent blog post called "It's godless Oregon versus godly Liberty University in Fiesta Bowl," it was pleasing to see Oram ridicule Liberty's right-wing fundamentalist religiosity. I'll copy in the Liberty University Statement on Sexuality and Relationships after Oram's column to show how backward this school is.

If enough Oregon students attend the Fiesta Bowl to produce some sarcastic insulting chants about Liberty University, they certainly will have plenty of material to work with. I usually like fans at sporting events to be fairly respectful to the opposing team, but I think an exception should be made in this case.

Here's the column by Bill Oram, "Liberty fans have spoken and I want to tell you the good word."

I’ve heard a lot from Liberty fans this week and it’s been very educational.

For example, I learned Liberty has fans.

And that this is not the same Liberty that Sabrina Ionescu has been playing for since leaving Eugene.

Turns out, Liberty folks are very sensitive to the suggestion that people were unfamiliar with Liberty before the Flames earned a Fiesta Bowl pairing with Oregon.

This seems rather backwards to me.

I would think they’d prefer to keep it a secret, given the university’s views on gay people and its segregationist origins.

Guess that’s why they don’t call it Civil Liberty University.

I’m not saying Liberty is a conservative institution, but after seeing the Flames reach the Fiesta Bowl, The Heritage Foundation must have considered fielding a team of its own. Oregon is wrapping up its tenure in the Pac, but Liberty basically is a PAC.

The Flames’ next media rights deal might as well be with OAN. And while some teams go to Disneyland to celebrate an undefeated season, Liberty may go to Mar-A-Lago.

You think Eugene is a little granola? To Liberty fans, it’s Gomorrah.

I could go on, but I’d just be fanning the Flames fans’ flames.

Try saying that 10 times fast after a few beers — just not at Liberty.

Oregon’s most notable benefactor is Phil Knight. Liberty has the guy who wrote the Left Behind series.

No, those books aren’t about Oregon State and Washington State.

One reader sent me a photo of Liberty’s campus, including the 275-foot Freedom Tower. I’ll just say this: You do not want to get into a tower-measuring contest with the Ducks.

Have you seen the protuberance at the new Hayward Field? Height is overrated.

Liberty made the jump from the championship Football Championship Subdivision just five years ago and hired ex-Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze to usher in the new era. He won 34 games and went to four bowl games, which was apparently the threshold to overcome his multifarious NCAA recruiting violations and get him back to the SEC at Auburn.

It’s an incredible story, truly. George R.R. Martin should write it: “A Song of Freeze and Flames.”

We really must stop joking for a second and acknowledge that Liberty does have a terrific team under first-year head coach Jamey Chadwell. It’s remarkably difficult to win 13 games, no matter who’s on the schedule. In fact, as some readers noted, the Flames lead the nation in rushing yards per game and rank third, right behind Oregon, in total offensive — ahhh-fensive— output.

You have to be careful with that first syllable when talking about Liberty, lest it be confused to mean something people might find to be uhhh-fensive.

This game could feature so much scoring that Liberty administrators need to update the honor code to prohibit it.

The honor code at Liberty is called “The Liberty Way.” You would violate it on campus at the University of Oregon by breathing.

Liberty squeezed its way into the Fiesta Bowl when Tulane lost the American Athletic Conference’s championship game last weekend. Could one school’s postseason fate have depended on a university any more different from the other?

At Liberty, students are not allowed to expose their midriffs. Tulane cancels classes for Mardi Gras.

Ducks fans would have loved tailgating next to Tulane fans. They serve cocktails out of their pores.

As for the matchup we have instead, I should say that I’m not particularly aggrieved on Oregon’s behalf. The Ducks had their shot at a higher-pedigree opponent and couldn’t close against Washington.

I think it’s a good teaching moment. One of those life-comes-at-you fast deals.

One day you’re competing for a national championship, the next you’re playing Liberty in the Fiesta Bowl. Dan Lanning can use that next time a player says he can’t do an extra rep on the bench.

And I want you to know that I do believe Liberty can prevail ...

Oh, sorry. I was working on my stump speech for an upcoming run for federal office.

The football game? No, Liberty can’t win. Are you serious?

OK, fine. Liberty can win. But this will be the most significant test the Flames have faced since having to click past “Fifty Shades Freed” on HBO in the team hotel at last year’s RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl.

It’s the bedrock of college sports that we get traditional powers playing upstarts. Ever see “Hoosiers” or any other sports movie ever?

The best moment in college football history came in 2007 when Boise State upended Oklahoma in this very bowl game with the Statue of, um, Liberty play.

College football is trying its best to homogenize its product into the NFL Lite, and even the overdue arrival of the 12-team playoff next season won’t exactly give us the football equivalent of March Madness.

December Delirium?

The 12-team playoff will only further entrench the haves from the have-nots, save for the one playoff spot reserved for the best team from the so-called Group of Five. This year that would have been Liberty.

And while you might not be that excited about Liberty in a one-off showcase game against the Ducks, there certainly would be more intrigue in this matchup if advancing to a playoff quarterfinal were on the line.

That would get everyone’s attention. Celebrities, presidents ... well, at least one president. Point is, it would be great theater.

The Fiesta Bowl can be, too, even if there isn’t as much at stake.

And to my new friends, the Liberty fans: I sincerely look forward to getting more familiar with your program and meeting you in Glendale.

All nine of you.

This is the Liberty University Statement on Sexuality and Relationships.

Liberty University is bound by its Doctrinal Statement and by the teaching of the traditional biblical definition of gender, which is that humans are created by God either biologically male or female from the womb, as well as the traditional biblical definition of marriage, which is that it is only between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman.

Statements and other conduct contravening this traditional biblical definition of gender or marriage are inconsistent with the Liberty University Doctrinal Position and the Bible and are not permissible for members of the university community.

For example, sexual relations outside a biblically ordained marriage, romantic displays of affection with a member of the same sex (e.g., hand-holding, kissing, dating, etc.), and actions confirming denial of biological birth sex (e.g., asking to be referred to by pronouns inconsistent with one’s birth sex, using restrooms and changing facilities reserved for persons other than one’s birth sex, etc.) are prohibited by The Liberty Way.

In personal relationships, students are encouraged to know and abide by common-sense guidelines to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

For example, students should avoid visiting alone with the opposite sex at an off-campus residence, entering the residence hallway, quad, or on-campus apartment of the opposite sex or allowing the same, or visiting any dwelling or residence with a member of the opposite sex in inappropriate circumstances.

Additionally, sexual misconduct, including sexual activity, inappropriate personal contact, any state of undress in inappropriate circumstances, or spending the night with a member of the opposite sex are prohibited. Activities inconsistent with these standards and guidelines are violations of The Liberty Way.

My comment is... do you remember this Jerry Falwell scandal? I sure do. 

My fervent hope is that The Liberty Way also includes a crushing loss to the University of Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl, since there's no doubt that Liberty University students and faculty will be doing a hell of a lot of praying between now and January 1 for an upset victory.

It's godless Oregon versus godly Liberty University in Fiesta Bowl

I do my best to view sports as a refuge from divisive subjects like religion and politics. But after the bowl pairings were announced for the 2023-24 football season, it's impossible for me to do this.

The main reason is that the University of Oregon, which lost last Friday to Washington (again) by a measly three points (again) was chosen to play on New Year's Day in the Fiesta Bowl. So yay, say we Oregon fans.

(A secondary reason is a Florida senator, Rick Scott, wanting an inquiry into Florida State being left out of the four-team national championship playoff.) 

But the Fiesta Bowl opponent chosen by the College Football Playoff selection committee is Liberty University. So, boo, say we Oregon fans. There's a lot wrong with this, but also one thing I love. First, the wrongness. 

Oregon is #8 in the final college football rankings. Liberty is #23. That's a big difference. By contrast, Oregon State is #19 and their bowl game opponent is Notre Dame, #16. That's a small difference. So Oregon gets a virtually unknown opponent, while Oregon State gets a very well known opponent, even though Oregon is ranked much higher.

Today sports writer John Canzano shared some questions and answers about Liberty University in his Bald Faced Truth column that I subscribe to.

Q: Who the #%$# is Liberty and why are they in the Fiesta Bowl? — @RickBakas

A: Liberty University is a private evangelical Christian university located in Lynchburg, Va. It was founded in the 1970s by Jerry Falwell Sr. The school boasts an enrollment of 16,000 students on campus, but has online courses that enroll another 115,000 students. Be clear, it’s an educational cash cow.

Jamey Chadwell is the team’s head coach. This Fiesta Bowl vs. Oregon will be the highest-profile football game in the university’s brief history.

The Flames play in Conference USA, where they went 13-0 this season playing opponents such as New Mexico State and Western Kentucky. Liberty played the weakest schedule in the country. It didn’t play a single Power Five opponent and half the teams in Conference USA finished with eight losses or more.

Liberty is in the Fiesta Bowl because it’s the highest ranked Group of Five conference champion. Oregon would have played Tulane, but it lost to SMU in the AAC Championship Game. So the Ducks get Liberty. The loser of the Pac-12 Championship game is 0-11 in its subsequent bowl game. Something tells me Oregon breaks that trend.

Q: Does the Fiesta Bowl automatically get the No. 2 team from the Pac-12? — @johnniethek

A: The College Football Playoff selection committee makes the pairings for the six New Year’s Day bowl games. The Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are semifinal games this season. The Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl aren’t semifinals. Those bowl bids go to a handful of highly ranked teams this season (No. 5-11) that missed the semifinal cut and the top-ranked champion from the Group of Five (No. 23 Liberty).

Last year, the Fiesta Bowl was a semifinal (TCU vs. Michigan). Two years ago, the Fiesta Bowl featured Oklahoma State vs. Notre Dame. I wonder if all those ‘home-schooled’ Liberty fans make the trip. I’m skeptical that Oregon fans will bother given the disappointment. If you’re going, tell me in the comment section.

Now, here's what I love about the Oregon-Liberty matchup. Even though many Oregon players are religious (I've heard quarterback Bo Nix praise God in remarks after games Oregon won; I didn't hear that praise after Oregon lost to Washington last Friday), the state of Oregon is highly irreligious. 

Only four states have a majority of residents who identify as "none's." Meaning, atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. In 2022, Oregon's percentage was 53%, ranking second highest in the country, behind only Maine at 54%. Virginia, where Liberty University is located, is only 35% none's.

But Liberty, as a religious institution, seemingly would be 0% none's. The Wikipedia page for Liberty University says:

Liberty, whose website and officials speak of "training Champions for Christ", requires undergraduate students to take three Evangelical Bible-studies classes. The university's honor code, called the "Liberty Way", prohibits premarital sex, cohabitation, any kind of romantic relationship between members of the same sex, and alcohol use. 

Described as a "bastion of the Christian right", the university played a prominent role in Republican politics under Falwell and his son and successor Jerry Falwell Jr.; in 2021, Liberty interim president Jerry Prevo said getting conservative candidates elected to office was "one of our main goals".

So as a progressive atheist, I can't help but view the Fiesta Bowl as not only a contest between two opposing football teams, but also as a clash between two political persuasions. For while Liberty students and faculty will be doing a lot of praying before the game, Oregon fans are more likely to be doing some serious marijuana imbibing.

Who knows, Liberty might pull off a highly unexpected upset. I sure hope this doesn't happen, because that would be viewed as a miracle by the true believing Liberty fans. My dream is that Oregon crushes Liberty. That would ease the pain of the loss to Washington and give me hope for Oregon's future in the Big Ten.

But if that dream becomes a nightmare of a Liberty victory, I've always got my supply of quality Oregon pot to raise my godless spirits.

Israel knew details of a planned Hamas attack but did nothing

Thanks to a New York Times story, "Israel Knew Hamas's Attack Plan Over a Year Ago," the astounding incompetence of the right-wing Netanyahu administration is now even clearer -- though it was on full display before the news broke about Israel's failure to blunt or stop the Hamas attack even though it knew exactly how it would take place.

Hopefully this will be another nail in the coffin of Netanyahu's ambition to use his position as Prime Minister to avoid being convicted of several serious offenses by subverting Israeli democracy through a takeover of the judicial system by his allies in Parliament. 

If that sounds familiar, it should. Because while Netanyahu is smarter and a better speaker than Donald Trump, they have a lot in common. Each man is much more interested in being in power than in doing what is best for their country.

Netanyahu and his far right cabinet were so preoccupied with controlling the Israeli legal system and making the West Bank a haven for illegal settlements on Palestinian land, they failed to heed the warnings of their country's intelligence analysts that Hamas was planning an attack across the Gaza border.

I'm assuming that those warnings were passed on to cabinet officials and Netanyahu himself. If not, that fact is equally damning, since it shows that high ranking government officials had set up a system where only intelligence findings that fit their right wing political beliefs made its way to them. 

The details of this debacle are in the New York Times story, which you should be able to read in full, as I've gifted the story via my online subscription. Here's how it starts out.

Hamas fighters in captured Israeli military vehicle

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.

Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.

The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.

The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.

Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.

“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.

Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.

But a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.

“I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,” the analyst wrote in the email exchanges. The Hamas training exercise, she said, fully matched “the content of Jericho Wall.”

“It is a plan designed to start a war,” she added. “It’s not just a raid on a village.”

Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.

It'll be Hoy vs. Hoy in 2024 Salem Mayor race. Marvelous!

Since politics isn't always played fairly, occasionally I'll hear of a candidate who enters a race because they have the last name of a popular politician of the opposite party and want to fool voters into casting a ballot for them.                                                                                             Julie Hoy and Chris Hoy

But here in Salem, Oregon, a not-so-sleepy city of about 180,000 people, we're going to have a race for Mayor in 2024 that features two Hoys: Chris Hoy, the progressive incumbent, and Julie Hoy, the conservative challenger.

It would have been cool if Julie and Chris were related, but they're not. However, they're "related" in this sense. In 2022 Julie won Chris' Ward 6 City Council seat after Chris first ran for Mayor, which I theorized in a blog post sounded like the last name political dirty trick noted above.

Julie Hoy and Stacey Vieyra-Braendle are the candidates seeking to fill Chris Hoy's seat. I could be completely wrong about this, but it seems strange that an unrelated Hoy just happens to hope to replace Chris Hoy. 

This is the sort of thing Republicans would do. So I'll indulge my conspiracy theory mind and theorize that Julie Hoy leans conservative. I know nothing about Vieyra-Braendle. If she turns out to be conservative, I wouldn't be all that surprised, but for now I'm guessing she's the more liberal candidate.

I learned about the Hoy vs. Hoy matchup in a Salem Reporter story, "Julie Hoy will challenge Chris Hoy as Salem's Mayor."

Salem City Councilor Julie Hoy announced Tuesday that she will run for mayor in 2024 against incumbent Chris Hoy, setting up a competition between two city leaders who share the same last name but are often at odds over city spending and public safety. 

Councilor Hoy said she chose to run because she believes Salem is in crisis.

“I see things differently, maybe because I’m a business owner and a mom, but I feel a tremendous amount of need for public safety and a sense of security that I believe is missing,” she said. “And that will be hard for me to do anything about from a minority position on council.”

She represents ward 6, in east Salem, which Chris Hoy represented before being elected mayor in 2022. The two are not related.

Julie Hoy said that the payroll tax was a major reason she chose to run, and where she showed she is consistent in her messaging and decisions when she felt the city was not giving voters enough information about plans.

She was one of four councilors who voted in July against imposing a tax without sending it to voters, and tried unsuccessfully to repeal the tax ahead of the November election after voters referred the measure to the ballot.

Voters rejected the tax decisively, with 82% opposed.

Chris Hoy was a strong supporter of the payroll tax. So it will be interesting to see whether voters hold that against him, given that the tax was favored by only 18% of the electorate.

That may partly depend on how Mayor Hoy, the City Manager, and the City Council approach another try at convincing voters to approve more money for the City of Salem.

Another Salem Reporter story that included news (seriously consider subscribing, if you haven't already) about the formation of a revenue task force indicates that city officials are acting more wisely this time around. One reason the payroll tax suffered such a massive defeat was that those officials had an annoying attitude of We know best, so we're not going to put the tax up for a vote of the people.

That backfired big time when opponents of the payroll tax had little problem gathering enough signatures on a petition that required the tax be on the November 2023 ballot. But the Salem Reporter story shows that city officials appear to have learned some things from that 82% opposed debacle.

The council met on Oct. 25 to discuss forming the [revenue] task force, and directed staff to prioritize community engagement and a wide range of perspectives.

Consultant group Moss Adams will manage the task force, and will collaborate with city staff and the council to identify revenue options and the pros, cons and risks of them. The group prepared a scope of work plan that outlines the next several months. 

Moss Adams’ fees will cost the city $120,000, and city staff do not have the capacity to facilitate the task force without the consultants, Eggleston said.

City staff also recommend working with community engagement consultants Parachute Strategies, who would cost $55,000 and polling from DHM that would cost $45,000.

Community engagement will include eight focus groups, one per council district, community surveys and three town halls, according to Moss Adams.

If all that goes well, and enough of it happens before the May 2024 election for Mayor, Chris Hoy will have an easier time with his campaign, since by and large, his progressive views are more in tune with those of Salem voters than the conservative stances of Julie Hoy.

A business sent us a Judeo-Christian Thanksgiving card. But we're atheists.

A few days ago my wife and I got a Thanksgiving card from a business that we use regularly. This is the front of the card.

The back said, "We are awed by the blessings God has poured out on us this past year. Thank you for your trust in and support of our business. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!"

OK. Nice sentiments. Aside from the God parts. That didn't go over well with us, since we're atheists. 

We realize that Judeo-Christianity is the dominant faith in the United States. So we're used to being exposed to all kinds of Biblical messages. It just felt different to have a business assume that we'd enjoy receiving a Psalm verse that we heartily disagree with.

For while we're as thankful as anyone this time of year, we definitely don't give thanks because God is near. If anything, we're thankful that there's no demonstrable evidence of God being either near or far, because there's no convincing evidence God exists.

Further, we live in a pluralistic society. I doubt that the people who sent us the card would enjoy getting a message from us that said "We give thanks for our atheism." And I also doubt that any Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, or followers of other religions who got this card resonated with the Psalm.

It struck me as strange to get a Judeo-Christian Thanksgiving card. I realize that Christmas is about Christ, since the holiday has Christ's name. But when did giving thanks become Judeo-Christian? Guess I missed the memo, since I don't go to a church or synagogue.

And how the heck does any believer in God, know that God poured blessings on them this past year? Not only do I deeply doubt that this is true, I have no idea how good things that come from God can be distinguished from good things that come from natural rather than supernatural causes.

My wife and I wondered about the motivation of the business owners who sent us the card. We don't know them, so have no way of knowing what their politics are. However, these days politics is hard to ignore when it comes to religiosity, given how religious nationalism is being pushed by the far-right.

Anyway, we're happy with the services we get from this business. The card doesn't doesn't change that in the slightest.

We did sent them an email saying that they might want to rethink the wisdom of sending out a Judeo-Christian Thanksgiving card to their customers, given how many different faiths, including no faith, those customers likely embrace. 

A Wikipedia article about "Irreligion in the United States" says:

The percentage of Americans without religious affiliation, often labeled as "Nones", is around 20-29% – with people who identify as "nothing in particular" accounting for the growing majority of this demographic, and both atheists and agnostics accounting for the relatively unchanged minority of this demographic.

Election workers deserve our thanks in these divisive times

We should be thankful all of the time, not just around Thanksgiving.

But it was auspicious timing for the Salem City Club to have an "Elections Under the Microscope" presentation last Friday, since I came away from the presentations by Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess and Polk County Clerk Kim Williams with an increased feeling of thankfulness for the often thankless job election workers do in these divisive times.

Bill Burgess

By divisive, naturally I'm referring to the indisputable fact that one of our two major national political parties, the Republican, is in the thrall of Donald Trump, a notorious election denier since to this day he continues to falsely claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

In addition to describing how their offices function, Burgess and Williams spoke about how the threats, intimidation, and baseless claims of election fraud being directed at election workers is creating a lot of stress. 

Williams is new to her position as Polk County Clerk following the resignation of her predecessor, Val Unger, last September. In Burgess' slide presentation, he shared this description of what Unger faced after the 2020 election.
Things have gotten worse since.

Burgess described instances of recent threats against election workers in Oregon, including a letter containing white powder sent to the Lane County election office. The Postal Service notified Burgess to look for a similar letter sent to the Marion County election office. It was discovered before being delivered to the office.

There's simply no reason to be concerned about the integrity of elections in Oregon. Our vote by mail system is highly secure. Fraud is almost nonexistent.

Here's the slides from Burgess' presentation that describe the procedures used to make sure that every ballot is counted accurately. Hopefully I've gotten them in the right order (these are scans I made from a printed handout that didn't have slide numbers).

It begins with the ballot envelope that a voter signs. The bar code contains an ID number for each ballot. So once a ballot has been returned, there's no way another ballot with that number can be counted. Here's what happens after a ballot has been received. Under each image I'll repeat the text, since it is kind of small to read in the slides.

A unique ID # on each ballot return envelope records voter ballot returns statewide. The signature is verified before the envelope can be opened. Verified return envelopes are sorted by precinct. Envelopes with signature issues are set aside awaiting signature verification "cure " by voter within 21 days after election to be opened and counted.

Opening boards, comprised of Election Board Workers from different parties remove the ballot, security sleeve and other contents from the ballot return envelope. Any empty ballot return envelope is noted. The ballot return envelope is stored in a blue bin. The ballot goes to the pre-inspection board.


This room is not connected to the internet. Ballots are scanned. Teams of two EBWs [Election Board Workers] review images to assure voter intent is recorded. For instance, did the voter really vote for two candidates, or did they cross out one or otherwise indicate their choice? Results are transported outside the secure counting room by a clean USB drive to be posted on the internet.

Man awarded $3 million due to excessive force and false arrest by Salem police officer

Not a positive moment for the reputation of the Salem Police Department, to put it mildly. Last week a jury awarded $3,150,000 to Christopher Garza after a Salem police officer, David S. Baker, treated him badly in 2021.

Christopher Garza (Oregonian photo)

An Oregonian story by Maxine Bernstein tells the tale in "Jury awards $3 million to Salem man falsely arrested by an officer who used excessive force." (The Salem Reporter reprinted this story.) Excerpts:

A jury Thursday awarded more than $3 million in damages to a Salem man wrongly accused by a police officer of stealing a car and then shoved against a patrol car and handcuffed after he walked away.

The eight-member jury ordered the city of Salem to pay $2 million to Christopher Garza in punitive damages, $1 million in non-economic damages and $150,000 in economic damages after finding Salem Officer David S. Baker used excessive force in violation of Garza’s civil rights and committed battery and false arrest under state law.

Punitive damages are awarded to punish the city and officer and to deter similar wrongdoing. Non-economic damages are for the mental suffering, distress or humiliation Garza suffered from the officer’s actions, and the economic damages are for the cost of his medical care, loss of income and earning capacity.

Baker had accused Garza of stealing a car when he pulled up to Garza and two other men who were working on a broken car in the OK Tire lot about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 17, 2021.

Garza, who is part Native American and Latino, lived in an RV on the property.

He testified that Baker asked him if he was stealing the car. Garza said he told the officer he wasn’t stealing the car and asked who had called police, saying: “Why are you here?

“I felt like he was stereotyping me, like he was profiling me,” Garza, 49, testified. “And I turned around and walked back to the car.”

That’s when Baker grabbed Garza’s arm, shoved him against the hood of his police car, handcuffed him and wrenched one of his arms in the air, injuring Garza’s shoulder, according to court testimony and a video of the encounter. Garza was placed in the back of the police car but released about 10 minutes later with no charges.

Baker, who joined Salem police in 2013, forcefully raised Garza’s arm up and lifted Garza’s feet off the ground after he had handcuffed him with no justification and in violation of his training, Garza’s lawyer, Jason Kafoury, argued.

...“This wasn’t an armed robbery,” Kafoury argued at closing arguments. “It was just three Hispanic guys sitting around with a broken car.”

The jury of five men and three women returned its verdict after deliberating for about 90 minutes following a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez in Portland.

...“This was avoidable. Officer Baker never had to use any force. And this never would have happened,” Kafoury said. “He was the initiator. He was the controller of every single use of force that happened to my client.”

He said a Salem police sergeant signed off on Baker’s report 18 minutes after it was written, without investigating why force was used against someone who wasn’t charged with a crime.

...Attorney Greg Kafoury, who also represented Garza, said the verdict should send a message “far and wide to police departments that even the citizens of the smallest towns in Oregon care about integrity in police agencies and deserve the kinds of officers who will serve and protect all of us.”

It's unclear whether the City of Salem will be paying the $3,150,000 to Garza directly, or if the money awarded by the jury will come from a liability insurance policy.

Regardless, it sure seems that this shameful incident should spur the Salem Police Department to engage in better training of its officers. Something obviously is wrong when a Latino/Native American man is working on a car with a few other guys and is accused of stealing it, then roughed up for no reason by a police officer.

Resounding defeat of payroll tax should spur City officials to explore fresh ideas

In elections, usually even the most unqualified and unknown candidate gets 30 to 40% of the vote.

So when the payroll tax got a "Yes" from only 18% of Salem voters in yesterday's election, they weren't just sending a message. They were screaming it from the rooftops. Both in the Marion County part of Salem and the Polk County part in west Salem (where just 16% said "Yes").

With the election over, and the certainty that remaining ballots to be counted won't appreciably change the outcome, we enter the what now? phase. 

A Salem Reporter story about the payroll tax defeat indicates that at the moment, City officials seem to be repeating the same ideas and policies that led up to the defeat. 

The city is planning to convene a revenue task force to seek additional options for bringing in money for city services. The city’s last revenue task force met in 2018, and their recommendations included adding the operations fee to utility bills and implementing a payroll tax.

...Without the $27 million a year estimated from the payroll tax, the city plans to cut spending on services to preserve its financial reserves. Their baseline proposal for cuts over the next five years, which councilors will continue to discuss, includes pulling funding from homeless shelters, closing the West Salem Branch of the library, reducing park maintenance, cutting specialized police teams and closing a fire station.

...“We just can’t make cuts as drastic as will be necessary without the revenue, so we’ve got to come up with a new plan,” [Mayor] Hoy said, adding that nothing is off the table when it comes to revenue options, including a payroll tax in a different form. He said the city council is going to take lessons from this election before making a new decision.

I heartily agree with Mayor Hoy that the city council should learn lessons from the election. However, I'd like city officials to be as expansive as possible in that exercise.

The most important thing they can do is shine a spotlight not on voters or on opponents of the payroll tax, but on themselves. Salem's Angry Owl had this to say in two tweets (I refuse to call it an X post, even though Twitter and Tweets are no more).

Great questions.

Was it City Manager Stahley who recommended the payroll tax? Was it someone else in the City Manager's office? Whoever it was, that person (or people) needs some urgent reeducation about how to deal with a City of Salem budget problem. Because the payroll tax proposal was a debacle that calls to mind the famous SNAFU acronym.

Situation normal: all fucked up. 

Now, depending on someone's point of view toward City Council goings on, there's room for debate about the extent to which the fuck up on the payroll tax reflects the normal situation at City Hall.My perspective is that it's quite common, which is why I'm advocating for a No More Business As Usual approach to the what now? question.

I say this because it's going to be temping for city staff, the mayor, and city council to take a technocratic approach where what's talked about is different revenue sources and different budget cuts, ignoring the elephant in the room that is the way city government typically functions.

As Angry Owl said, the mayor and city council are volunteers. They have no staff of their own. They need to cram in their governmental duties along with their usual job, family life, and such. This makes them dependent on City of Salem staff for just about everything.

Those staff may be called public servants, but often they serve the bureaucracy to which they belong more than the public. The payroll tax brought this out clearly. With the strong resistance both to the tax itself and to it being imposed without a vote of the people, it should have been obvious that the payroll tax was almost certainly doomed.

Yet the reaction of city officials was along the lines of: The public doesn't understand the budget as clearly as we do, so we just need to explain things to them; then they'll come around to our way of seeing things, which obviously is the correct way.

There's a lot of arrogance and condescension in this perspective. That irritated people.

Rather than viewing criticism of the payroll tax and the initial choice to not refer it to voters (until they were forced to by a petition referendum) as an opportunity to rethink this revenue option, city officials and a 5-4 majority on the city council decided to go full steam ahead and damn the torpedo of it being voted down -- which it was, big time.

Now, I realize that the chance of city officials using the defeat of the payroll tax to rethink how they engage with the public and involve citizens in policy decisions is small, minuscule even. And maybe they're right. Perhaps some tweaks to the tax and a better marketing campaign is all that's needed.

I simply see a bigger problem here. This debacle has led to a marked decline in public trust toward city officials, the mayor, and city council. Restoring that trust should be Job #1, not appointing a new revenue committee to come up with other revenue options.

The City of Salem doesn't need to do everything differently. But any observer of City Hall knows that they need to do lots of things differently. The payroll tax just made that more obvious, because the need has always been there.

I'm freaking out about Biden's weakness against Trump

With a year to go until the 2024 presidential election, is it too soon for Democrats to freak out about the horrific New York Times/Siena College poll released yesterday?

President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.

The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of four to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.

Hell, no. This is a perfect time for me to freak out, and judging by posts on my X feed (I really miss Twitter), so are many other political observers who I respect.

In a Politico story, Obama strategist David Axelrod raised questions about whether Biden should run for a second term. 

David Axelrod, a prominent Democratic political strategist and former White House official, said on Sunday that President Joe Biden needed to think carefully about whether he should continue to seek reelection.

“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision,” Axelrod wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”

Axelrod — who is best known as the driving force behind former President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 runs for president and served as a senior adviser in his administration — was responding to new polling from The New York Times and Siena that showed Biden struggling in key battleground states against former President Donald Trump. Axelrod posited those numbers as a reality check.

“It’s very late to change horses,” Axelrod wrote, “a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm.”

“He’s defied CW before,” Axelrod continued, most likely referring to the conventional wisdom — “but this will send tremors of doubt thru the party — not ‘bed-wetting’ but legitimate concern.”

Even though I often find Bill Maher to be irritating, when he referred to "Ruth Bader Biden" on his Real Time show last Friday I thought right on!

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was so attached to being on the Supreme Court, she passed on the chance to resign and have Obama appoint her successor. Reportedly Ginsberg was convinced that Hillary Clinton would become president in the 2016 election, and she liked the idea of having the first woman president choose her replacement.

Problem was, Trump won, and Ginsberg died in September 2020 from a longstanding bout with cancer during Trump's last year in office. So Ginsberg made the fatal mistake of hanging on too long, elevating her personal desire over the good of the country, and Trump got to choose her successor.

I see Biden doing the same thing. During his campaign against Trump I recall Biden talking about how his goal was to serve one term, then pass the presidential torch to someone younger. But now Biden is all in on running for a second term, at the end of which he would be 86. 

That's way too old. And I speak as someone who is 75 and has friends in their 80s who are as mentally sharp as when they were much younger. But they're not president of the United States!

I like Biden. I think he's done a good job as president. I'm hugely grateful that he saved us from four more years of a Trump presidency. But along with most Americans, I'm utterly unenthused about having to choose between Biden vs. Trump again. 

Been there, done that.

Gretchen Whitmer

Time for a new face of the Democratic party. A younger face. A female face. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer could be that face if Biden would simply realize that for the good of the country, he can't be the Democratic candidate in 2024, because there's too great a chance that Trump will beat him. And that would be a total disaster for the United States and the world.

Israel is squandering its moral authority with attack on refugee camp

Like most people, after Hamas terrorists brutally attacked Israeli civilians on October 7 my sympathies were almost totally with Israel.

Sure, I was aware that Israel has treated Palestinians badly and has done little recently to move toward the two-state solution that is recognized by everybody except for far right Israelis as the best way to assure lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors.

But I felt that Israel occupied the moral high ground after the Hamas attacks. Now, though, Israel is squandering that moral authority by the brutal way it is conducting war in Gaza, which is run by Hamas.

Today came news that an Israeli warplane, reportedly a F-16 supplied by the United States, fired missiles at a refugee camp in the northern part of Gaza in an attempt to kill a Hamas leader. As you can see from the photo above, this wasn't a newly established refugee camp with tents and such. 

According to the United Nations, the Jabalia refugee camp has existed since 1948 and has 116,000 Palestinians registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency. Wikipedia says it is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, being only 1.4 square kilometers in size.

Yet to target the Hamas leader, Israel bombed the refugee camp, causing hundreds of people -- women, children, the elderly -- to be dead or wounded. The casualties are still being counted due to the need to search for bodies under collapsed buildings. 

Here's how a Washington Post story, "Israel strikes on Jabalya refugee camp kill and injure hundreds in Gaza," starts out.

A series of Israeli strikes targeting a senior Hamas commander in the northern Gaza Strip left scores of dead and wounded in a crowded refugee camp Tuesday as Israel expands its assault by air and land. The Gaza Health Ministry and the director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the attack.

Palestinians carried away the injured and dead on blankets and mattresses in the densely packed Jabalya refugee camp. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a senior Hamas commander, Ibrahim Biari, was killed in the strikes.

The blasts left a deep crater and crumbled buildings. Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense emergency services, said about 20 buildings were destroyed. The breakdown of dead and wounded was not immediately clear amid ongoing rescue efforts.

The IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, claims credit for the attack -- as if a military should be proud of killing innocent civilians. Disgusting. Here's a post on X that was in my feed today.

No, the IDF spokesman is lying. Israel isn't doing everything it can to minimize civilian deaths.

It deliberately targeted civilians in the refugee camp by attempting to kill the Hamas leader. Israel isn't doing itself any favors by spewing the sort of self-serving B.S. that one expects from politicians, but not from a country that claims to stand for democratic values.

Today I heard a woman from Doctors Without Borders interviewed on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show. She said that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is the worst she'd ever encountered in her lengthy experience with horrible situations.

The woman said this is why Doctors Without Borders is calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. That is needed to safely bring aid -- food, water, medical supplies, fuel -- to the hospitals in Gaza and the people of Gaza. She said that it is impossible for all civilians in northern Gaza to move to the southern part, given how many people are in hospitals and otherwise unable to travel.

Yet Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected a cease-fire. A Washington Post story says that Netanyahu is using World War II rhetoric to justify the Gaza war. That's a dubious proposition, given the many differences between that war and the Gaza war.

One difference noted in the story is that even though allied bombings killed many innocent civilians, this occurred before the international community established rules of war in response to the horrendous impact of World War II on civilians.

Similarly, the context for discussion of war crimes in this [Gaza] conflict is sharply different now than it was in 1945. Much of what we now call International Humanitarian Law, sometimes dubbed the rules of war, would only be formalized after World War II. That’s because they were a response to it.

So Israel has no excuse for committing what appear to be war crimes. Whether they truly are or not hopefully will be determined after the Gaza war is over. Regardless, Israel should start acting like the morally upright nation it claims to be and stop killing Palestinians for no good reason.