Salem Political Snark

Flooding in Battle Creek area needs to be taken seriously

Here's another tale of how staff in the City of Salem Public Works Department are failing to be open, honest, and transparent with citizens.

Earlier this year I reported that documents received from a public records request proved that Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, and other staff lied about why a property on Taybin Road in West Salem was slated for purchase.

Fernandez, et. al, claimed it was for stormwater management. Actually, it was to buy right of way for Marine Drive in an area that the City Council had declared off-limits for ROW purchases.

So the credibility of city staff when it comes to stormwater (and other subjects also, like trees) is very shaky.

Keep this in mind when you read how Lora Meisner, a community activist in the Battle Creek area, describes the controversy over how seriously the City of Salem is taking the risk of flooding in that area. (Last year I wrote "Tell City officials you want Battle Creek Park to be left natural," which relates to this issue.)

This is a complex subject. Thus after Meisner and I spoke by phone, she sent me this brief summary of what's going on here.

City: “We’re doing all we can, we’re going to dig up detention ponds on Battle Creek to hold the flood water.”

Taxpayers: “So you’re counting on detention ponds which may take years to put in place depending on if all funding comes through and if/when the city has time. Doesn’t it make more sense to turn off/turn down the water faucet instead of installing more bath tubs? What happens when bath tubs are full?”

City: “They’ll never be full and the groundwater that will come up into the ponds initially will slowly seep out into Battle Creek. We have a model that shows these ponds can handle it even with “full build out.”

Taxpayers: “Really? Isn’t this modeling based mainly on past data? Because if you were using 'climate change projected rainfall impact”\' from the First Street Foundation projections which are found on Realtor.com web site, they show a very different story. According to people who served on the Storm Water Committee, they were told about it but city staff hid this information because developers/realtors who served on the Committee wanted to keep the info under wraps so as not to impact real estate here in Salem. How can city officials justify this lack of transparency?”

City: “Because we paid big bucks to a consultant who, based on the information WE gave him, shows everything will be OK.”

Taxpayers: “So you’re not going to deal with turning the faucet off or turning it down even though several years ago 1 inch of rain equaled 1 foot rise in Battle Creek and now less than 1 inch rain equals almost a 2 foot rise in the streams. I guess our tax dollars should go to paying for math lessons for the Public Works Department."

Much greater detail about the flooding concerns of people in the Battle Creek area can be found in a letter regarding changes to the Stormwater Management Plan submitted by SGNA, the South Gateway Neighborhood Association, to the Mayor and City Council on September 21, 2020. 
Download 9.21.20 SGNA Comments on Stormwater Management Plan

Here's an excerpt from the SGNA letter that talks about a key concern.

The FEMA flood maps for the Battle Creek Basin were developed from FEMA modeling done in the 1960s. This aged modeling has been used to regulate and approve the stormwater management in the basin for the past 50 years. Based on the 1996 and 2012 storm events SGNA residents have personal experience with how this planning has failed to protect the community.

The proposed Stormwater Master Plan looks at the Battlecreek Basin, for the first time using modern engineering methods, and identifies the issues that residents have stated to the Council and Public Works since 2007. 

“The old plan is not working. The creeks are beyond capacity. Turn the water off, please!”

We encourage adoption of this Stormwater Master Plan as it relates to the Battle Creek Basin. The City Code needs to reflect the findings identified, particularly changes related to storm duration. The current Salem Code uses a “24 hour Design Storm” language. The research used to identify stormwater issues in the plan demonstrate the failure of this metric to reflect the type of impact the two recent storm events had on the community. We strongly recommend the use of a 72 hour 100 year storm metric with detention on sight [sic] of large projects when the flow rate downstream will be increased greater than 350 cfs beyond current conditions.  

In other words, my understanding is that city staff are resisting making flooding predictions based on current knowledge about how global warming is affecting rainfall in our area. Around the country "100 year floods" are going to happen much more often, sometimes every year.

I took a look at some background information Meisner shared with me. A New York Times opinion piece shows the greatest risk from climate change faced by different parts of the country. Here's a screenshot for Marion County. The greatest risk is extreme rainfall.

Another New York Times story is called "New Data Reveals Hidden Flood Risk Across America." Here's a screenshot for Marion County. It shows the difference between outdated FEMA estimates and more accurate maps from the First Street Foundation.

I checked out the First Street Foundation web site. You can put in an address and get a Flood Factor estimate for that place. The web page wouldn't recognize the Battle Creek Park address (1680 Waln Drive SE) so I used the address for Battle Creek Elementary School instead (1640 Waln Drive SE). 

Here's the result.

Bottom line: residents in the Battle Creek area appear justified in their concern that city officials are downplaying the risk of serious flooding in their neighborhood. Climate change needs to be taken into account when updating city ordinances and plans related to stormwater management. 

If this means restricting development in flood prone areas, or increasing SDCs (System Development Charges) paid by developers, so be it. It isn't fair to have home and business owners pay the price when their property is flooded. The cost of mitigating extreme rainfall  events needs to be shared equitably.

One Salem Police Chief candidate seems better than the other

The City of Salem has narrowed the search for a Police Chief to replace retiring Jerry Moore to two candidates, Malik Aziz and Trevor Womack. (That link allows you to submit a question to be asked of Aziz and Womack during their October 30 interviews in Salem.)

I spent some time today Googling Aziz and Womack. Obviously this is a very rough way of coming to a conclusion about which man would be best suited to lead Salem's Police Department. 

But, hey, us bloggers are opinionated, and I came up with an opinion: Malik Aziz.

First, and most obviously, Aziz is Black. This means something given how the Black Lives Matter movement has been casting a light on the treatment of people of color at the hands of police. 

Hiring Aziz would send a message that the police department is committed to ending racial disparities in policing. Sure, there's debate about how much systemic racism exists in the department, but there's clearly a widespread suspicion among a large segment of the community that there is.

Also, Aziz speaks Arabic. That may not mean much in Salem, but it's a cool ability.

Aziz has been a deputy chief in the Dallas, Texas police department and is now a Major, having been demoted in a reorganization recently. A 2016 profile by a Memphis reporter, where he was applying for the police chief job, contains some appealing observations about Aziz. 

Dallas Deputy Chief Malik Aziz likes to describe himself as a community guy who fights crime — and he says having that emphasis on the community has made him a better law enforcement officer.

"I'm a public servant and I'm obligated to make sure people are safe. I'm also obligated to hear people who have concerns. I've never gone to a place wearing my rank. I'm a community guy," Aziz said. "When you grow up in (those) communities, you have a better understanding of how to deal with issues that have been plaguing those communities for decades."

...Aziz has a national profile — perhaps more than any other candidate. He's appeared on CNN, PBS and National Public Radio talking about community policing, race relations, the deadly shooting in Dallas and being a black police officer.

...Sara Mokuria, co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality in Dallas, said that while she doesn't know Aziz personally, he reached out to her and they will meet next month.

"He said he wants to bridge the gap and move forward to repair the issues we have regarding police brutality," said Mokuria, whose father was killed by police in 1992.

Aaron Michaels founded the New Black Panther Party in Dallas in the 90s and is critical of the Dallas Police Department, but says Aziz is one of the best deputy chiefs he's ever worked with.

"We couldn't have done some of the things we needed (inside the police department) without him," said Michaels of Aziz.

Michaels says he's known Aziz for about 30 years and that Memphis would be lucky to have him leading the police department.

"He had a hard life coming up and he turned many of the negatives around," he said. "He brings that perspective to the table."

Michaels said Aziz is also not afraid to point out bad officers.

"He's able to spot problem officers."

Aziz currently also is one of six finalists for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin police chief job. He touts his progressivism in a story by a Milwaukee TV station. Since Salem is a progressive city, with six of eight city councilors in the progressive camp, this is another way Aziz would be a good fit for Salem.

A Dallas Police Major hopes he can bring his progressive style to the Milwaukee Police Department as its next chief.

“Whatever city that decides they want Malik Aziz as a progressive police chief, that’s it,” Major Malik Aziz said. “I’m a big city commander. Those things are commonplace, working with communities and progressive cities like Dallas. The Dallas Police Department is a very progressive police department. Very progressive for community relations.”

All that said, Trevor Womack has some strong points in his police background also. 

A Bloomberg story talks about a pioneering program in Stockton, California, where Womack has been deputy police chief. I had trouble reading the story online, but was able to export a PDF file. 
Download What Police-Community Reconciliation Can Look Like - Bloomberg

Standing before the congregation of the Progressive Community Church of Stockton, California, Eric Jones, the city’s police chief, apologized.

It was July 2016, in the furious days after the police shootings of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Those were followed closely by the deadly ambush of police officers in Dallas, Texas, and in Baton Rouge after protests over the Sterling killing.

Nationwide, police departments were assuming a protective posture as outrage roiled cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. But Jones was out in his community, talking about the role of police in everything from pre-Civil War slave-catching to Jim Crow enforcement and the carceral policies of the War on Drugs.

“This needs to be said,” the white police chief told the largely African American congregation. “There was a time when police used to be dispatched to keep lynchings ‘civil,’ That’s a fact of our history that we need to acknowledge.”

...That apology marked the beginning of an unprecedented truth-and-reconciliation process with communities of color in Stockton, a high-poverty city in California’s Central Valley that for years has been struggling with a familiar American crisis. When Jones took over as chief in 2012, its annual murder rate was higher than Chicago’s.

That year, the city of 300,000 saw 71 homicides and an overall crime rate more than twice the national average. A municipal bankruptcy had slashed the size of the police force, and it could barely keep up with 911 calls.

After two decades of zero-tolerance policing tactics, a history of local abuse, and high-profile officer-involved shootings, there was a deep well of mistrust between police and the Stockton communities most beset by violence. A career Stockton officer, Jones had begun taking steps to improve, training his officers on fair practices and using more focused, less invasive strategiesto prevent violence.

But he came to believe that they wouldn’t make real headway on addressing the city’s public safety issues unless he embarked on something more radical: not just apologies but atonement.

...For the last two years, the Stockton Police Department has been working toward reconciliation using a trust-restoration script devised by American criminologists and international experts in transitional justice. Along with a host of departmental reforms, police in Stockton have held a series of dialogues and workshops designed to repair their shattered relationship with the communities they serve.

Rather than broad gestures at police “accountability” that promote measures like body cameras, the city has committed to changing departmental norms wholesale. It’s an uncertain, and maybe never-ending process, one that almost certainly will not conclude with a telegenic Hallmark display of forgiveness. What it might yield instead is a foundation for real trust and greater community control.

...Trevor Womack, one of Jones’s deputy chiefs, stood up. “I think what you just offered right there is one of the most important things in this entire training for me,” he said. “So I grew up in North Stockton. I never, ever had an experience where I was stopped by the police. No one that I knew was ever arrested. Nobody I knew was shot or killed.”

That was the understanding—or lack thereof—that he took to his first assignment as a 21-year-old white cop, when he was detaining and pointing his gun at residents of Southeast Stockton, he said. “I wish I could go back to the day I started and have this kind of conversation. I would have been a whole different police officer.”

That's great. Womack's words are admirable.

But the way I see it, Salem has a choice between hiring a Black man, Aziz, to be police chief who has direct personal experience of discrimination, and Womack, a white man who has had to learn second-hand about how police discriminate against people of color. 

That's why I favor Aziz.

Biden was warmly welcoming. Trump was coldly corrosive.

It wasn't a mistake for ABC and NBC to hold town halls with Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the same night, at the same time.

I thought it would be, but thanks to my DVR, I was able to watch the hour with Trump, then the hour and a half with Biden. I appreciated the immediate stark contrast.

Once again, Biden was the clear winner of the debate that wasn't, yet in a a way, was. The most obvious way Biden won was that he made no glaring mistakes, whereas Trump did.

Supposedly Biden is the one who makes verbal gaffes, but tonight it was Trump who had many moments that were so atrocious, there's reason to wonder whether he even cares about winning the election -- just trying to steal it.

Savannah Guthrie, who moderated the NBC town hall, did a great job holding Trump's feet to the factual fire.

For the first twenty minutes or so she elicited responses from Trump that cast a lot of light on the B.S. that he gets away with when reporters aren't able to ask follow-up questions, which Guthrie was able to do.

Her most amazing feat was getting Trump to admit that maybe he had a negative test before the first debate, and maybe he didn't. Trump claimed that he couldn't remember whether he had a covid test on the day of the debate, as required by debate rules agreed to by both campaigns. So almost certainly Trump didn't have a test.

Over and over Trump exhibited his annoying inability to answer even the simplest question. Guthrie teed up what should have been a slam dunk response from Trump, to mix a couple of sporting metaphors.

Is QAnon a purveyor of baseless conspiracy theories? Obviously it is, since neither the deep state, nor leading Democrats, are operating a pedophile ring -- not out of the basement of a pizza parlor, not anywhere. 

But Trump whiffed his answer, claiming that he didn't know anything about QAnon. Nor did Trump have an answer about how he would provide health care to Americans if the Affordable Care Act is overturned by the Supreme Court, as the Trump administration is hoping will happen. 

Guthrie pointed out that Trump has had four years to come up with the great health care plan that is better than Obamacare and way cheaper, as Trump blathers on about at every opportunity. And once again Trump had nothing substantive to say.

His demeanor wasn't as nasty as at the first debate with Biden, but Trump didn't do himself any favors by being biting, insulting, and sarcastic in his interactions with Guthrie.

Sure seems like Trump has a big problem with assertive women. Since women favor Biden over Trump by more than thirty points, Trump blew another chance to look like a caring guy, rather than an arrogant asshole.

Biden, on the other hand, was appealingly boring.

Well, boring is a bit unfair, since Biden did have some crisp compelling answers to audience questions, notably what he said about the state of international relations after Trump has done his best to coddle dictators and offend our allies. 

Much of the time, though, I was silently pleading inside my head, "Joe, make a simple point, then shut up. You're going into way too much detail." However, this did show Biden's impressive capacity to offer up a comprehensive answer to any question, something Trump is utterly incapable of. 

When a woman with a transgender child asked about how Biden would restore the rights of transgender people that Trump has trashed, Biden looked down as the question was being asked with an impossible-to-fake expression of concern on his face. This also is something Trump is utterly incapable of -- being empathetic and caring to someone who is hurting.

Likely the headline of the Biden town hall will be his sort-of answer to a question from George Stephanopolous about Biden's stance on adding judges to the Supreme Court, a.k.a. court packing. After side-stepping the question, Biden finally promised to provide a clear answer before the election, after he sees how Republican's handle Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination hearing.

And, gosh, Biden is OK with fracking so long as it is safe and used as a bridge to renewable energy and a carbon neutral United States. Biden acted like the moderate that he is, which is why he won the Democratic presidential nomination and is doing so well in the polls against Trump.

All in all, my progressive self felt really good about the dueling town halls.

Trump is the one who has to make up electoral ground, yet tonight he acted like the same old Trump. Uninformed, irritating, lying. So boring Biden won by being himself, a normal human being who wants to be president.

Danielle Bethell getting big bucks from anti-abortion groups

Here's some fun facts about Danielle Bethell, a Republican who is running against Democrat Ashley Carson Cottingham for a seat on the Marion County Board of Commissioners.

(1) Campaign finance reports show that to date, Bethell has gotten cash contributions of $7,500 from Oregon Right to Life and in-kind contributions of $57,263 from the Women's Leadership Coalition PAC -- which is a thinly-disguised arm of Oregon Right to Life.

(2) So far, in 2020 Friends of Danielle Bethell, her campaign finance organization, has gotten $151,939 in contributions. So the $64,763 Bethell has gotten from the two anti-abortion groups make up 43% of her total contributions. 

(3) At a Salem City Club meeting on October 9, Bethell and Cottingham were asked who the top three donors to their campaigns were. Bethell said Freres Lumber, Mountain West Investment, and Mid Valley Association of Realtors.

(4) What Bethell told the City Club audience, which included me, wasn't true.

She failed to mention Oregon Right to Life and the Women's Leadership Coalition PAC, both of which have given her much more than Freres Lumber ($12,500), Mountain West Investment ($5,000), and Mid Valley Association of Realtors ($0, yes, zero, according to the campaign finance reports I reviewed via ORESTAR).

Thus Danielle Bethell failed to inform the City Club audience that she has gotten $64,763 from anti-abortion groups, and so far as I can tell, fabricated a non-existent contribution from the Mid Valley Association of Realtors. 

Is this someone who should be on the Marion County Board of Commissioners? In my opinion, absolutely not. Which is why I urge you to vote for Ashley Carson Cottingham. (She correctly said that SEIU and other unions have been her major contributors.)

Daniielle Bethell (lower left) and Ashley Carson Cottingham (top right) at City Club ZOOM meeting

Now, maybe you're thinking that Bethell wasn't aware of the anti-abortion contributions because they came in shortly before the October 9 City Club meeting. Think again.

The three contributions from the Women's Leadership Coalition PAC that totaled $57,263 were received by her campaign on October 3 and October 5. The $5,000 Mountain West Investment contribution was received on October 6. 

Yet Bethell mentioned Mountain West Investment, but not the larger $7,500 that Oregon Right to Life contributed to her campaign on July 28 and September 15, nor the Women's Leadership Coalition PAC contribution that is by far the largest donation Bethell has received.

Seemingly a candidate would remember getting $57,263 less than a week before the City Club meeting. So why did Danielle Bethell fail to mention this?

My suspicion is that Bethell realizes that most people in Salem and Keizer favor a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion. In my May 2019 blog post, "Oregon Right to Life behind deceptive Marty Heyen postcard," I shared this chart of how people in this area voted on a Measure that would have prohibited public funding of abortions.

Note that a No vote, in blue, implied support for a woman's right to choose, whereas a Yes vote, in red, implied anti-abortion support. Likely Bethell realizes that her opposition to abortion is out-of-step with a majority of Marion County voters, or at least a very large percentage of Marion County voters.

Don't be fooled if you get a mailer from the Women's Leadership Coalition PAC supporting Danielle Bethell. This is a front group for Oregon Right to Life. The two directors of the PAC work for Oregon Right to Life.

Danielle Bethell is a right-wing Republican who is trying to appear more moderate than she really is. Fortunately, the massive amount of money she's getting from anti-abortion groups is speaking the truth about who Bethell really is.

Vote for Cottingham. A Democrat should be on the Marion County Board of Commissioners to bring balance to the board, which currently is made up of three Republicans.

UPDATE: Wanted to add that at the City Club debate, Danielle Bethell said that she doesn't believe in universal health care, while Ashley Carson Cottingham said that she does. Another reason to vote for Cottingham, since Marion County provides health services to underserved populations.

Urge the Salem City Council to adopt strong greenhouse gas reduction goals

Want to do your part to preserve our one and only planet Earth for human habitation? Of course you do.

Good news is, it'll just take a few minutes for you to have that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with doing the right thing -- for those of us alive today, and for generations to come. 

Next Monday, October 12, the Salem City Council will vote on a motion by Councilor Tom Andersen that sets strong greenhouse gas reduction goals for the Climate Action Plan being worked on this year and 2021. 

The short and simple motion says: 

I move that the City Council adopt the following goals as part of the City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP):

•  By 2035, Salem’s greenhouse gas emissions shall be reduced to 50% of the citywide greenhouse gas emissions for the baseline year of 2016, and

•  By 2050, Salem should be carbon neutral.

Beautiful! This brings Salem in line with other Oregon cities that have established greenhouse gas reduction goals, as described in background information on Andersen's motion: Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, Bend, Milwaukie, Ashland. 

So let the City Council know that you support Agenda Item 5.b, Motion from Councilor Tom Andersen regarding adopting goals as part of the City’s Climate Action Plan. Email: [email protected]

This makes great good sense for one key reason: there is no scientific debate about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a lot, as quickly as possible, if humanity is to avoid suffering the worst impacts of global warming. 

Which includes the drought afflicting Oregon that exacerbated the recent devastating wildfires. 

Thus there is no reason to waste time in the Climate Action Plan process discussing the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By setting forth the goals in Andersen's motion now, city officials and the public at large can focus on how to bring about the necessary reductions in carbon pollution. 

Public input isn't needed on why those reductions are needed. That question was settled many years ago. The scientific community agrees that global warming is happening, humans are causing it via steadily increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and actions need to be taken to reduce those emissions.

Anyone who doubts this is a climate change denier. There are plenty of them in Salem, as elsewhere in the country. They're entitled to their misguided opinion, but the facts of climate change are unaffected by attempts to discount the scientific consensus of global warming as "fake news." 

Because it isn't. 

What Twitter is saying about Trump's Covid illness

Here's 17 right-on tweets about Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization, including his attempt to do a Mussolini impression from a White House balcony after being released from the hospital. Sure, I could try to be as informed and witty as these people I follow on Twitter, but why try? Easier to simply share screenshots of their tweets. 

Why Deb Patterson deserves your vote, not Denyc Boles

Last Friday the Salem City Club had a debate via Zoom between Deb Patterson and Denyc Boles, who are running for the Senate District 10 seat in the Oregon legislature. A libertarian candidate also took part in the debate, but he has a virtually zero chance of winning.

I favored Deb Patterson, the Democrat, before the debate. After it, I favored Patterson even more, because I learned how bad Denyc Boles, the Republican, really is. I'll explain below.

Boles came across as a right-wing politician who is trying to look more moderate than she really is. That's a typical campaign ploy for Republicans in Oregon, especially in swing districts like Senate District 10. 

They talk middle of the road while trying to be elected. (Boles was appointed to her seat after Jackie Winters died, so this is her first election as a state senator.) Then they veer strongly rightward if they succeed in making it to the legislature. 

To her credit, Denyc Boles didn't try to hide the fact that she is strongly against a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. So this is one key issue that shows how extreme Boles is. Patterson defended a woman's right to choose.

What should disturb Democrats and non-affiliated voters just as much, if not more, is that Boles doesn't want Oregon to reduce the carbon pollution that is fueling global warming, and thus drying out our forests, creating conditions for highly destructive wildfires.

I got to ask Boles a question about this in the Q&A part of the debate. It was:

Senator Boles, you have received many thousands of dollars of campaign contributions from the fossil fuel and logging industries, including the Koch Brothers, Chevron, BP, Tesoro, and Weyerhaeuser. How did that influence your decision to participate in the Republican walk-out last February to prevent passage of important legislation to address the Climate Emergency which recently has destroyed entire communities in Oregon?

Boles responded that she didn't like the implication that her vote can be bought. But that wasn't really the point of my question.

It is difficult to prove that a politician acted a certain way because they got money from special interests. However, it is easy to show that a politician got money from special interests because they know how the politician will act.

Here's a table based on campaign finance reports filed by Denyc Boles that someone sent me.

I made a screenshot of contributions of $5,000 or more. The highlighted contributors have a special interest in defeating legislation that reduces carbon pollution in Oregon. Boles has gotten a lot of money from them, as she has from Oregon Right to Life and other right-wing special interests.
By contrast, Deb Patterson said that she is in favor of creating clean energy jobs in Oregon.

This year Denyc Boles walked out of a legislative session where bills to reduce wildfire risk in our state likely would have passed if the Republicans hadn't gone on a paid vacation to deny the quorum needed to do the people's business.

So if you live in Senate District 10, vote for Deb Patterson. Her web site contains information about Patterson's background (she's a minister) and positions on key issues.

Reality is the big winner in Trump's COVID-19 infection

I'm deeply political, so naturally I find opinions about how Trump coming down with COVID-19 will affect the November 3 election highly interesting. My bet is that this increases Biden's odds, but no bet is absolutely certain, including mine.

When I first heard the news about this last night, my snap reaction was This will really help the fight against the coronavirus.

I thought this because Trump has been the biggest super spreader of covid misinformation about masks, social distancing, hand washing, and other public health measures called for by scientific experts. He also has touted unproven remedies, none of which, I'm pretty sure, he will be taking now that he's come down with COVID-19.

So hopefully the many Americans who have scoffed at the need to wear masks and socially distance will reconsider their irrational reluctance to do what needs to be done to fight this pandemic. 

After all, if Trump can come down with the coronavirus given the special protective measures afforded to the President of the United States, anyone can. Of course, White House staff and other Trump cronies have been especially resistant to simple ways to prevent infection, so arguably ordinary people are at less risk if they follow the advice of experts.

Being as deeply philosophical as I am deeply political, I now want to broaden my take on the meaning of Trump coming down with COVID-19. It's a big win for reality!

Not that reality needs any help. Reality always comes out on top in the end, because, well, reality is the only thing that is truly real. 

A short blog post isn't the place to discuss what I mean by "truly" and "real." So here's my brief take on those words. Everything that exists is real, or it wouldn't exist. Thus dreams are real, as are hallucinations. Fantasies are real, as are lies. Those things exist, but not truly.

To exist truly, something has to posses a certain substance and objective nature. As I said in "The best one-sentence metaphysics ever written," I love Phillip K. Dick's definition of reality.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

Donald Trump didn't believe in the seriousness of the coronavirus. He thought it would go away when the United States had just 15 cases. He thought it would go away in warmer weather. He thought this country had turned the corner on the pandemic. Those beliefs, and many more, were spectacularly wrong. 

No matter. Whatever Trump or anyone else believes about COVID-19 has no bearing on the coronavirus. It just keeps on doing what viruses are so good at: spreading. We humans have learned a lot about how to slow or stop that spread. Those measures work whether or not anyone believes in them.

Trump and others in his administration have a strong bias against reality. They believe that if a lie is repeated often enough and strongly enough, many people will believe it. Sadly, this is true. But I'm optimistic that most people won't.

Presidential election polling bears this out.

More Americans favor Biden than Trump. Biden has a vastly stronger truthfulness rating on PolitiFact than Trump does. Biden accepts the science of global warming; Trump doesn't. And Biden has been following public health guidelines in his campaigning, including wearing a mask, while Trump hasn't. 

Now Trump has COVID-19. He's been admitted to the Walter Reed Medical Center. He faces a potentially lengthy recovery period, though there is a chance that even at the age of 74 and with underlying conditions such as obesity, Trump will get well fairly quickly. Time will tell. 

What won't change with time is the primacy of reality. It always wins out in the end. Always. 

So it's fitting that in the month before the election where, hopefully, Trump is tossed out of office by voters, the Liar-in-Chief is suffering from the disease that he has been downplaying for many months. To adapt a familiar phrase, the wheels of reality turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine. 

Here's my five takeaways from the ghastly Biden-Trump debate

There isn't anything good to say about how Donald Trump acted in the first 2020 presidential debate last night. So if you're a Trump fan who is in deep denial about what a horrible person your Dear Leader is, prepare to be faced with some uncomfortable truths about the debate.

Here's five takeaways regarding the debate. I've backed up my opinions with views from knowledgeable political observers.

(1) This was the worst presidential debate ever, because of Trump. Being a progressive who strongly favors Biden, my biggest pre-debate fear was that Trump would do the smart thing for him politically and act presidential for 95 minutes.

After all, currently Five Thirty Eight gives Biden a 78% chance of winning the election. Trump needed to do something to shake the race up. Instead, he dug himself into a worse political position by acting like a complete asshole, which isn't how you attract undecided voters or peel away Biden's advantage among women voters.

The TV critic for the Washington Post thought the debate was one of the worst moments in television history. 

Tuesday night’s debate between President Trump and Joe Biden was a low point for television, for politics, for America — 95 minutes of proof that the nation has slipped into irredeemable darkness.

It was some of the worst TV that the country should ever have to see; years from now, I expect to see it ranked alongside terrorist attacks, space shuttle explosions and erroneous Oscar announcements. The blame for this goes to the president, who I’m sure believes he did a wonderful job, but who, in fact, debased the medium that made him.

One candidate, Biden, came prepared to debate; the president came with only the intent to disrupt the event, impervious to any attempt by an often helpless moderator, “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace, to conduct an actual discourse. Trump’s lone asset (besides a bronzer glow-up to a bizarre shade of crayon that isn’t yet included in the box) was the energy and ferocity with which he interrupted Biden’s attempts to answer.

Trump delivered a constant, unhinged and fulsome pelting of dubious examples, strange retorts, immature insults and outright lies.

(2) Jake Tapper had the best pithy description of the debate. The post-debate analysis on CNN was scathing. Dana Bash said it was a "shitshow," because of Trump's despicable behavior. Not long after, Jake Tapper said:

“That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck," Tapper told viewers. "That was the worst debate I have ever seen, in fact it wasn't even a debate. It was a disgrace."

(3) Trump's refusal to condemn white supremacy was his worst of many bad moments. Debate moderator Chris Wallace teed up what should have an easy question for Biden and Trump to answer about whether they condemn white supremacy. But Trump refused to do this. 

That led Van Jones to speak passionately on CNN. Here's a tweet from him.

(4) The debate was a national embarrassment. Once in a while I see videos of altercations, fights, basically, taking place between members of parliament in a foreign country -- such as Iraq. But last night's debate was much more of a national embarrassment. 

The rest of the world saw the President of the United States acting like a two year old. He bullied. He failed to keep to the debate rules he'd agreed to. He talked over Biden. He called Biden names. He lied. 

And he did all this not a few times but almost non-stop. Yes, Biden made a couple of intemperate remarks. However, Biden only did this after Trump had exhibited intolerable childish behavior on the debate stage. 

I'm pretty sure that I've watched every presidential debate during the last fifty years. (Yeah, I'm old.) As others have noted in stories about last night's debate, there was a huge controversy over one of the Bush's looking at his watch during a debate, and Al Gore emitting an audible sigh. In the old days, that's what passed for inappropriate debate behavior.

Trump went so far beyond those standards, he broke new ground in how to act like a complete jerk in a debate. Most of the rest of the world already laughs at the United States for having a clown as president. Now they have even more reason to feel superior toward us. A Politico story says:

Sure, it is easy to make fun of civics-class pieties about how the election ultimately belongs to the voters, and how America as the oldest democracy serves as an example to the world. But aren’t those maxims supposed to be at least kind of true?

It is hard to imagine how the evening could have been more disrespectful to voters, or a more embarrassing glimpse into the state of American political culture at moment when the country’s reputation in the world is already under severe challenge. Cumulatively this made the debate simply uncomfortable, like accidentally opening the office supply closet and seeing a naked colleague—just avert your gaze and walk away.

(5) Trump's lies about voter fraud were especially disturbing in his torrent of falsehoods. Lie after lie spewed from Trump's mouth during the debate. It's hard to pick the worst lie, since they all were disgusting.

However, his lies about voter fraud rose to the top for me, in part because they seem designed to establish an erroneous foundation for federal courts and state legislatures to step in and override the will of the people by declaring victory for Trump in states where he actually lost to Biden. 

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post analysis of Trump's lies about voter fraud.  (They call it disinformation; I prefer lies.)

Chris Wallace made clear in advance of Tuesday night’s first 2020 presidential debate that his role, by the rules, wasn’t to be a fact-checker. That disappointed President Trump’s critics, especially after Wallace so deftly and brutally fact-checked Trump in an interview two months ago.

Nowhere was such a moderator more sorely needed than when voter fraud came up.

Trump unleashed a barrage of false, unproven and sometimes unintelligible claims about mail-in voting. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden disputed some of them in broad terms, but there was otherwise no indication for the casual viewer that Trump was inventing and exaggerating the true threat of voter fraud come Nov. 3.

Let’s run through some of Trump’s claims, vs. what the actual record shows.

Sixteen deliciously snarky tweets about Trump's tax returns

Today the New York Times released a blockbuster story about Trump's failure to pay federal taxes for 11 of the 18 years that the newspaper was able to examine his tax returns for. In 2017 his tax bill was just $750. (Related NYT stories are here, here, and here.)

And Trump's businesses have lost a lot of money, demolishing his oft-repeated claim that he's an amazing businessman. It appears that his most successful "business" was appearing on the reality TV show, The Apprentice. Trump is personally responsible for $421 million in loans that are mostly coming due in four years.

Naturally Twitter has been aflame with marvelous tweets about the revelations based on tax returns that the New York Times was able to examine in a totally legal fashion. Here's sixteen good ones that popped up in my Twitter feed.