I watched some of Trump's hugely insane press conference after the G-7 summit on my iPhone. It was deeply disturbing.
He made just about zero sense, blabbing on and on, for example, about Putin being kicked out of the G-8 because Obama felt something or other -- completely failing to recognize that Putin was ousted because he took over Crimea in defiance of international law.
Then Trump blabbed on and on about how wonderful it was that the United States was extracting more oil, gas, and coal from the ground after being asked about his skepticism regarding climate change, and what he planned to do about it.
He walked off the stage while the reporter could be heard plaintively saying, "You didn't answer my question."
Just when I think Trump can't act worse than he already has, he surpasses his worseness. I just scrolled down the Washington Post page to remind myself of some of his recent WTF?! moments. They include, but aren't limited to...
Trump wants his border wall completed by election day in 2020, even if land has to be seized by eminent domain, or indeed, by any means at all. He's reported to have told federal employees that he'll pardon them if what they do to get the wall built is illegal.
Well, here's one more thing I strongly suspect Trump doesn't want. Having his ass kicked by a woman in the 2020 presidential election.
That's why I just donated $250 to Elizabeth Warren's campaign. I also like Kamala Harris, but Warren has come to seem like a more viable candidate to me. Her polling is gaining strength. Her policy positions are appealing and plentiful. She projects an air of strength, confidence, and winnability.
There's a long way until the Democratic nomination is settled. I'll be fine with anyone who takes on Trump. I simply felt good sending some money Warren's way, because in this age of Trumpism, it's important to find bright spots in all the darkness Trump exudes.
Dear Diary, first, I realize I'm not actually writing in a diary, but I use my blogs as a kind-of-diary, because that way I can remember really important stuff that happens in my life.
Like today, it dawned on me more than ever before that we've got an exceedingly crazy guy occupying the White House. There's not much of a chance that Donald Trump will get saner before he's removed from office.
Still, just in case today marks the high-water mark for Trump's ascent, or descent, into Unheard Of Presidential Incompetence, I want to jot down what happened this week.
Well, mostly today, which makes this shit even weirder, since usually presidents space out their WTF!? moments rather than cramming them all together.
A few days ago, Trump announced he wants to buy Greenland. OK, not him personally. But the United States. And since he thinks he's King, rather than president, I guess he thought he could do this by his Royal Command. The Danish Prime Minister, appropriately enough, called this absurd. Which got Trump all mad, since he doesn't like women to refuse his money. Heck, if a porn star was happy to get a check from Trump, why not a Prime Minister? That's how twisted Trump's mind is.
Trump also wants to do away with birthright citizenship for people born in the United States. Sure, that's in the Constitution, and no president can change the Constitution on their own. King Trump, though, doesn't let trivial details like something being unconstitutional stand in the way of his insane ideas. Neither do psychotic people.
Getting to today, Trump ordered American companies to stop making stuff in China. If a Democratic president had dared to exert government control over free enterprise decisions, they'd be torn to shreds (metaphorically) by defenders of our capitalist system. Corporations weren't happy with this crazy talk, but they must be used to getting a Daily Dose of Insanity in their Twitter feed, if they follow Trump.
Oh, here's a good one, also from today.
Trump asked whether the leader of China or the Chair of our Federal Reserve Board, who Trump appointed, is the bigger enemy. Words fail me, dear diary. Presidents rarely overtly try to influence the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be above politics. And never has a president compared the Chair of the Federal Reserve to a dictatorial leader of a semi-communist country.
Lastly, our Genius President (I'm being ironic, dear diary) just raised tariffs on China big time, thereby escalating the trade war that is generating talk of a coming recession. Why did he do this? Because Trump is worried about a weakening economy. So naturally he does the exact wrong thing, adding fuel to the trade war fire that's weakening our economy.
I know, dear diary, it's hard to believe a president of the United States could be this egotistical, clueless, and stupid. That's why I've written this batshit crazy stuff down, since when this country starts getting back to normal after Trump loses in 2020, people are going to begin to forget what an idiot Trump was.
Never forget! Because never again! Thanks for listening, dear diary.
Bad decisions have consequences. Daniel Rollings, a member of Salem's Human Rights Commission, resigned his position today after City officials ignored the unanimous statement of the Commission calling for a location other than the Capital Press building owned by the Salem Alliance Church to be used as a temporary public library.
Rollings testifying against using the church-owned building
The Human Rights Commission took that action because the church denies LGBTQ rights, and members of the LGBTQ community have said they won't use the library if it is housed in a building leased from an organization that considers them second-class citizens.
Here's the resignation email that Rollings sent:
Mayor Bennett & HRC Chair Meyer,
In light of the recent actions by City Council and the lack of transparency in regards to the site selection of the temporary library, I am officially tendering my resignation from the City's Human Rights Commission. I refuse to be a rubber stamp on a City Commission and don't feel as if the City Council listened to the Human Rights issues presented about this very real concern.
Furthermore, I do not believe City staff was earnest in their efforts in selecting a location, the City has not been upfront and transparent in regards to the communication about said site (particularly the Open Record Requests that have been made), and the disparaging remarks made (at a recorded library meeting) by a City Councilor about the LGBTQ community and an LGBTQ organization in Salem is very disheartening. This is a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community and I am aghast at this behavior. Sadly, when this is coupled with the recent hate crime against an LGBTQ youth and his family (that made national news), the City of Salem is proving to NOT be an open and welcoming community.
Please accept this e-mail as my official and immediate resignation.
Respectfully,
- Daniel Rollings
I admire Rollings for standing up for LGBTQ rights.
I wish I could say the same about the Salem City Council, but I can't, since the council voted 6-1 to approve a lease that funnels almost half a million dollars of taxpayer money into the bank account of the LGBTQ-unfriendly Salem Alliance Church.
Councilor Jackie Leung was the only council member who did the right thing and voted "Nay." The "Aye" Hall of Shame consists of Mayor Chuck Bennett and Councilors Chris Hoy, Cara Kaser, Matt Ausec, Jim Lewis, and Brad Nanke.
(Councilors Tom Andersen and Sally Cook were absent; their representatives said they would have opposed approving the lease agreement.)
This episode has been a well-deserved public relations disaster for the City of Salem. Willamette Week ran a story with a right-on headline.
Daniel Rollings is entirely justified in being deeply upset at City officials.
As I noted in a blog post about the disturbing wrongness of the City Council decision to go along with the horribly flawed choice of the church-owned building for a temporary library, even though virtually all of the written and verbal testimony from citizens was in opposition to leasing the Capital Press building, no one on the City Council asked any obvious questions of City staff.
Like, since the lease for the Capital Press building will cost less than what was budgeted for a temporary library, are there other locations in Salem that would cost more, but wouldn't carry the baggage of the library being in a building owned by an organization that opposes LGBTQ rights?
I talked with two commercial realtors who told me that, of course, other viable locations exist for a temporary library. But apparently nobody on the City Council thought of doing the same thing, even though I told the council in both written and verbal testimony what I learned from the commercial realtors.
In his resignation letter, Rollings alluded to a public records request I've filed (and paid $476.80 for) that has resulted in exactly zero records being delivered after two weeks. Worse, I've been told that City of Salem staff have to review over 2,700 emails to decide which ones relate to the choice of the church-owned building for a temporary library.
I've been told that it will be at least another two weeks before that job is done, and it could end up costing me more. So it sure seems like either City officials are hoping I'll give up on my public records request (which isn't going to happen), or record-keeping by the City of Salem is astoundingly inept.
Here's one more bit of weirdness. Today the Statesman Journal ran a lengthy story about how the Salem Alliance Church has been buying up a lot of property surrounding its church, which includes the Capital Press building that will house a temporary public library.
What's weird is that the story by Tracy Loew isn't on the Statesman Journal web site, even though it was prominently featured above the fold in the MidValley section. I wanted to share a link to the story on Facebook, so searched for the story both on the Statesman Journal web site, on the paper's Facebook page, and via Google News.
Nothing. I emailed Tracy Loew and her colleague Jonathan Bach, asking for a link to the online story. No response. It sure looks like the Statesman Journal doesn't want this story to be accessible online via Google or Google News. Which is too bad, since this part of the story calls out for sharing.
Today the church considers the neighborhood, including its schools, part of its ministry.
As it's grown, the church has faced criticism.
Some neighbors say taking down buildings to create parking lots isn't helping the neighborhood.
They complain that some of Salem Alliance's properties are dilapidated, boarded up and targets for crime. Conversely, they worry about neighborhood gentrification.
And they object to mixing religion with business and city affairs.
The latter came to a boil last month when the city of Salem leased the former Capital Press building, which the church bought a few months ago, to house its public library while the library building is renovated.
Critics say members of the LGBTQ community, or others uncomfortable with conservative evangelical religion, won't feel welcome in the church-owned building.
That's exactly what the Salem Human Rights Commission said in its statement condemning use of the church-owned building for a temporary library. But as Rollings noted in his resignation letter, Councilor Jim Lewis' attitude was, if someone supports LGBTQ rights and doesn't want to use the temporary library, too bad.
And with the exception of Jackie Leung, the rest of the City Council in attendance at the July 22 meeting went along with using the church-owned building -- knowing full well that some members of the community won't use the library for the two years or so it will be housed in that building.
Here's what Rollings told the City Council. Other videos are in the preceding blog post link. Thank you, Daniel, for your heartfelt honest testimony, and for having the courage to resign from the Human Rights Commission in protest of City officials and the City Council denying LGBTQ rights.
"It shouldn't be this difficult." That's what runs through my mind, too often, when it comes to getting public records from the City of Salem.
(Oregon variety; maybe the Massachusetts Salem can conjure up a spell and get records to requestors more easily, given their witch heritage.)
Here's a chronology of my current frustration:
July 29, 2019. Request submitted. I fill out a Public Records Request form, scan it, and email it to the City Recorder's office, which oversees requests. I ask for:
All documents, emails, and other communications relating to the use of the Capital Press building owned by the Salem Alliance Church as a temporary public library by the City of Salem.
August 1, 2019. Cost estimate provided and paid. I get an email from a legal assistant in the City of Salem Legal Department. Rather confusingly, these two items are checked under "In response to your public records request:"
-- The City is the custodian of (maintains) the requested record(s). (IT Dept, City Manager's Office, Urban Development Dept.) -- The City is uncertain whether it maintains the requested record(s). (CD Library)
I'm perplexed by the "uncertain" statement. What the heck is a CD Library?
We're not talking about ancient history here. The controversial selection of the church-owned building to house a temporary library (because the Salem Alliance Church denies LGBTQ rights) happened this spring and summer. So how could these records not be maintained by the City of Salem?
I'm given a cost estimate of $476.80 to get the records.
Only six hours of staff time are required, plus $10 for a CD. However, two hours are for someone making $89.90 an hour, two hours are for someone making $96.80 an hour, and two hours ae for someone making $46.70 an hour.
Annualizing that hourly wage (40 hours/week times 52 weeks/year), I find that my humble request is being handled by staff costing $186,992, $201,344, and $97,136 a year. Heading to Amazon, I also find that a bundle of 100 recordable CDs can be had for $17, or seventeen cents a CD, with free shipping. So $10 for a CD seems outrageous. As does the hourly staff time costs.
Nonetheless, I drive to the City Recorder's office that same day and pay the amount requested. Why? Choose one or more reasons, all valid: (1) I'm crazy. (2) I'm obsessed with the temporary library issue. (3) I care deeply about LGBTQ rights. (4) I believe in government transparency.
August 16, 2019. Things have changed. Yesterday I saw that I'd gotten an email about my public records request. Since two weeks had passed since I'd forked over the $476.80, at first I thought that the records were being sent to me. But no, the email said something else.
Mr. Hines:
I wanted to let you know that due to the voluminous amount of records associated with your request and the staff time that it will take to review the records, I estimate the records will not be available for release until August 30, 2019, and perhaps even later . To give you some idea of the magnitude of the request, the initial email sweep contained a whopping 2,700+ emails! Right now, we’re in the process of narrowing the scope of the search as much as we can, to reduce the amount of non-responsive records that were captured in the initial email sweep, since we must review each email one-by-one to ensure they’re responsive to the request.
Please note, there may be additional costs for the review time, but we’ll send you an estimate if or when one becomes available.
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Amy Johnson Deputy City Recorder City of Salem
Before I comment on Johnson's message, I want to say that I've found the City Recorder's Office to be, by and large, efficient and responsive to my public records requests. The problems exist elsewhere in the City of Salem bureaucracy, I'm quite confident. That said...
How is it possible that 2,700+ emails are associated with the selection of the Capital Press building owned by the Salem Alliance Church as a temporary library location? Not knowing how it would be possible, naturally now I'm more curious than ever to learn what those emails say.
Which is what I'm going to tell Johnson when I reply to her message: please don't leave out any emails relating to the subject of my public records request. Yet I'm also going to tell her that I don't consider I should have to pay for staff time involved in sorting through irrelevant email messages.
Look, I'm not a highly organized person. But I do get dozens of emails a day, some of them important. For example, for the past few months I've been working on getting a book I wrote ready to be sold on Amazon. (Click here to see the Break Free of Dogma Amazon listing.)
I save the messages from the book designer and Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing staff in a special folder. Ditto for documents related to the book project. If someone wanted to see all the documents related to my book, it'd be easy for me to find the emails and documents.
So I don't understand why the City of Salem has such difficulty locating communications related to my public records request. It sure seems like City staff should be required to keep all emails and documents concerning a project in specific folders -- mostly digital, but in paper form also when there is no electronic copy.
It seems very strange that someone has to review every one of 2,700+ email messages in order to comply with my public records request. Again, I want all of the relevant communications, and I don't want to have to pay the City of Salem to find communications related to my request that should have been properly organized from the outset.
Also, a public records request shouldn't take a month or more to fulfill, as Johnson says is likely.
Nor should it cost markedly more than the original cost estimate. It sure seems like the City of Salem staff responsible for selecting the Capital Press building for a temporary library would have a very good idea of how many emails and other documents were involved in this effort.
I'm going to ask for a fee waiver, given that my public records request is very much in the public interest, given how controversial it was to choose the church-owned building for a temporary library.
At the very least, I don't believe I should be charged any more than the original cost estimate, especially since it now appears that it is going to take a month or more for the City of Salem to fulfill my public records request.
This was a nasty day on Wall Street. Also, on Main Street, for anyone who owns stocks or mutual funds. A 3% drop in a single trading session would grab one's attention under any circumstances, as an iPhone screenshot shows.
However, these aren't normal economic times. Nothing is normal, so long as Donald Trump is president. Which makes it more likely that a recession is on the horizon, given that everything Trump touches turns to shit.
Economic analysts dance around the issue of Trump's massive incompetence by saying things like "trade wars are undermining corporate confidence." A more honest statement would be, "Trump's idiotic love of tariffs, exacerbated by the fact that he doesn't even understand how tariffs work, is screwing up the world economy."
Tariffs on Chinese goods are paid by the importing companies, not by the Chinese.
So tariffs basically are taxes on Americans. This is why Trump just put off imposing more tariffs on Chinese imports until after the Christmas buying season. He and his re-election campaign don't want to be blamed for toys and other stuff that cost considerably more than they would without the Trump tariff tax.
But tariffs are just the tip of the Trump incompetence iceberg.
He's also making a mess of foreign affairs, immigration, fiscal policy, and so much more. Example: somehow Trump and his GOP cronies have managed to orchestrate a massive increase in the federal budget deficit, even though the economy has been quite strong up to now.
Our country is on the verge of trillion dollar annual deficits. Yes, trillion. Yet the deficit hawks in the Republican party have thrown in their Tea Party towel, yawning away as Trump embraces huge debts with no reasonable way to repay them.
Which was Trump's business strategy, of course.
It's no wonder Trump refuses to make his tax returns public. Almost certainly they'd show that his reputation as a savvy businessman rests on nothing but smoke and mirrors, a fantasy that his gullible supporters eat up without questioning how they're being conned.
Corporate CEOs, by and large, have a clearer understanding of Trump's weaknesses. This is one reason a recession is more likely now. There's always been economic ups and downs. But never before has the United States been led by such an incompetent, sleazy, fact-fearing, lying president.
Thus Trump has introduced an extra risk factor into calculations of where the national and world economies are heading: himself.
There's no rhyme or reason to Trump's decisions. He doesn't listen to experts. He doesn't have an overarching political philosophy. He doesn't have a coherent vision. He just does what his Twitter-inflamed mind urges him to do, long-term consequences be damned.
So American corporations are sitting on large amounts of cash, unwilling to spend the money because they have no idea what craziness Trump is going to unleash next. It won't be surprising if many, or most, Wall Street types endorse whoever wins the Democratic presidential nomination, given how bad Trump is for business and investment interests.
They want some assurance that the usual business/investment cycle isn't going to become a topsy-turvy Trumpian thrill ride fueled by his boundless ego and narcissism.
Up to now Trump has gotten by on the momentum of the Obama economic recovery. But good times can't last forever when an Idiot-in-Chief inhabits the White House.
Today may mark the beginning of a Trump recession. That'd be bad for Americans. However, since a recession would markedly decrease Trump's re-election chance, in the long run it would be good for the country, since civilization as we know it wouldn't survive four more years of Trump.
We here at the world headquarters of the Salem Political Snark blog -- located, appropriately enough, in Salem, Oregon -- strongly believe in citizens being actively involved in politics.
One great way to do this is by contributing to political campaigns.
So when a fellow patriot shared with me a spreadsheet of Salem donors to President Trump's re-election campaign, information that is publicly available via the Federal Election Commission, I had two strong reactions.
(1) I'm so clueless about spreadsheets, it's damn impressive that someone was able to combine donations to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee and the Donald J. Trump for President Committee into a single file. Miraculous!
(2) I need to thank these Trump supporters in a blog post for their service to our democracy.
I believe I succeeded in correctly copying in the names of the 77 Salem residents who have donated to the above-mentioned committees since January 1 of 2018.
If my senior citizen eyes missed a donor, consult the spreadsheet file I worked with. (Note: the aggregated amounts are in a separate tab.) Download Salem Trump Contributors
Following is an alphabetical list of the reported Salem contributors to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee and the Donald J. Trump for President Committee.
I've honored the top ten contributors by putting their names in red. Again, this is public information, as a recent Vox story makes clear.
That story describes how donors come to be listed in Federal Election Commission reports: "Once contributions add up to more than $200 during a two-year cycle to a certain candidate, then campaigns have to report them to the FEC, including the amount, date of receipt, and the contributor’s name, address, occupation, and employer."
ALCALA, JORGE ANDRETTA, DEAN ATKINSON, MARCIA BARBIE, EDWIN BEACH, MICHAEL BLEVINS, ROYA BOMAN, CHARLES D[tied #10 contributor $875] BROUSE, GORDON BUNDY, DEAN [#3 contributor $1,724] CANALES, ALFONSO H. MR. CASE, FLYNN D. MR. CHANDLER, RONNA L MS. CHOATE, BARBARA J MRS. COFFEY, MARY E MS. CUTLER, EVA MS. [#2 contributor $1,900] DAMM, ALVIN DONACA, RONALD L. MR. DONACA, RONALD M.[#7 contributor $1,275] DONACA, RONALD M. MRS. [#1 contributor $2,200] !!!!!!!!!! DUNAGAN, PENNY ESQUEDA, FLOYD FARRINGTON, DAN A. FITZWATER, PAUL FOSTER, BILLIE S GILLETT, KIRK GREGORICH, FLOYD HADLEY, SHARON HAMMER, LINDA J. MRS. HERHARD, CAROL HEYN, ALFRED HOCKETT, TERRY HODGES, MARIS HODGES, MIKE KELLY HUNT, SARAH HYDEN, CONNIE KAUFMAN, DEAN[#6 contributor $1,384] KEYT, LINDA KIFLU, GABRIEL[#5 contributor $1,438] KOCH, GRANT[#9 contributor $1,058] KRONSTEINER, LONNIE LATULIPPE, STEVEN LATULIPPE, TERESA LAY, MARY R MS. LOWERY, SHARI MARKS, JOHN R. MR. MATLOCK, CARRIE MEYER, MURIEL L. MRS. MILLER, LOUISE MILLER, MARY MOFFENBIER, SHIRLEY NORMAN, JAKE OLIVER, PATRICIA D. MS. POPE, ANNE PURNELL, WILLIAM E. QUIJANO, NICHOLE RAGAIN, DENNIS RALSTON, LINDA MS[tied #10 contributor $875] RAY, LINDA RITTER, JOHN ROGERS, ANN MARIE ROGERS, LAURIE ANN ROISEN, LOIS A. MRS. ROTSOLK, ANTOINETTE SATTER, ROY SCHAEFER, ROGER J MR. SKOROHODOV, LADONNA SPAFFORD, SHARON STANLEY, DEBRA STUBBS, RODNEY TOVAR, RICH TRAN, TUE T[#4 contributor $1,546] VANDERHOEK, SUSAN WEBB, THOMAS L[#8 contributor $1,125] WHITE-THORUD, SUSANNE WILLIAMSON, JANICE R. MRS. WIX, CAROL M. MS.[tied #10 contributor $875] WOOD, LOU WILMA
Every day Donald Trump does something that irritates me. But there's One Big Thing at the heart of Trumpism that worries me the most, because there's a danger it will live on after, hopefully, Trump departs the White House in January 2021.
Denigrating objective reality to such a degree, people aren't able to tell the difference between fact and fiction.
There are lots of signs of this happening to a scarily great extent. Here's some of them.
-- Trump decrying "fake news!" at every opportunity, even though the mainstream media is hugely more truthful than the lies that constantly spew from Trump's lips.
-- The Trump administration censoring and silencing scientists, especially when it comes to research involving the environment and climate change.
-- Trump's demagoguery where he responds to valid attacks on his character by spewing venomous epithets at those who dare to criticize him. Here's a screenshot from my iPhone today that illustrates this. (Bottom tweet came first, then the one above.)
-- Trump's shameless self-promotion where he tries to make everything about him, thereby doing his best to relegate the most important aspects of reality to the background, while he preens and prances in the foreground. Here's an example from the recent mass killing in El Paso. His smiling thumbs-up speaks wordless volumes about Trump's depravity.
I'd been figuring that, as Wikipedia says, QAnon was just a wacky offshoot of the insane Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which claimed a pizzeria was the headquarters of a child trafficking ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta.
But Rosenberg discusses in a fascinating fashion how deep the tendrils of the QAnon mentality are reaching into certain gullible sectors of the American citizenry. Excerpts:
President Trump and his allies, including former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, are waging a covert campaign to root out an elite child-sex-trafficking ring. Mass arrests are imminent. John F. Kennedy Jr. is about to reveal that he has been alive all along so he can take Vice President Pence’s place on the 2020 Republican presidential ticket. And a mysterious government official using the handle “Q Clearance Patriot” is recruiting soldiers to the cause.
To most of us, these statements are almost too bizarre to be fathomed. But, for believers in the conspiracy theory known as QAnon, which the FBI recently identified as a domestic terrorist threat, they are important truths. I understand the temptation to dismiss anyone who believes in this wild concoction as merely easily misled.
Such disdain makes it easier to believe that QAnon and beliefs like it remain at the fringes of American life. But to focus merely on QAnon’s content and not the form it takes is to miss why the conspiracy theory has spread so widely — and why similar ideas may prove incredibly difficult to combat.
The best way to think of QAnon may be not as a conspiracy theory, but as an unusually absorbing alternate-reality game with extremely low barriers to entry. The “Q” poster’s cryptic missives give believers a task to complete on a semiregular basis. Even more so than conventional video games such as “Fortnite Battle Royale,” which rolls out new seasons with new scenarios roughly every 10 weeks, QAnon is open-ended — or it will be as long as the revelations continue.
...Once a person has started consuming QAnon content, the actual gameplay is relatively simple. Participants concoct their own interpretations of Q’s gnostic “bread crumbs,” or share those dreamed up by others.
If this were a conventional game, the play might end there. But QAnon players have shown an increasing tendency to enlist the rest of us as unwilling participants in their fantasies, sometimes with violent consequences.
...While most QAnon believers will never engage in violence, part of the appeal of QAnon for participants is that the conspiracy theory assigns enormous significance to even relatively minor acts such as posting on message boards or sharing Facebook posts.
...“It is addictive in the same way that a game is,” says Travis View, a researcher who studies QAnon. By contrast, “conventional political participation” is oriented toward far more mundane processes, and “That all has the impact of what, hopefully getting a state assembly member elected that you feel at best ambivalent about?”
View suggests that “Q offers something a hell of a lot more. You can sit at your computer and search for information and then post about what you find, and Q basically promises that through this process, you are going to radically change the country, institute this incredible, almost bloodless revolution, and then be part of this historical movement that will be written about for generations.”
...It’s one thing to try to debunk QAnon and white-supremacist ideas, whether by trying to prove that John F. Kennedy Jr. is definitively dead or to combat demographic narratives of “replacement.” It’s quite another to figure out how to offer adherents of QAnon and other distorted worldviews experiences that will be as thrilling and fulfilling as conspiracy games have become.
As View put it, we’re living not in a marketplace of ideas but in a “marketplace of realities.” And the tools of gaming have given disaffected people the ability to bend our reality to theirs, whether we like it or not.
A marketplace of realities. Great way to put it.
Like many progressives, I look back with a strange fondness upon the presidential days of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
I disagreed with most of their policies, but at least our disagreements occurred in the same reality. Sure, they fudged the truth from time to time. Every president does.
However, in comparison to our current Reality Denier In Chief, these old style Republicans now seem appealingly reasonable. By and large, these conservatives embraced the same facts as their liberal opponents. So policy discussions occurred in the same reality, which is essential for productive debates.,
Trump, on the other hand, views everything through a political lens. He doesn't want intelligence officials to tell him what is actually going on in the world. He wants them to tell him what he desires to hear, a very dangerous presidential proclivity.
I thought I couldn't get any more irritated at the Salem City Council and City officials, and I was plenty mad before, but now I'm way more pissed off.
I just learned that those officials have signed a contract with the Salem Alliance Church to lease a building owned by the church for a temporary public library, even though City Council rules allow for reconsideration of any council decision at the next meeting, which is August 12.
The City Council voted to approve the lease on a 6-1 vote at the July 22 council meeting. But this was a hugely controversial issue. And two councilors were absent, Tom Andersen and Sally Cook. Jackie Leung was the sole sane vote in opposition to this crazy idea.
The Salem Human Rights Commission unanimously said that another location for a temporary library should be chosen even if it cost more and was less efficient operationally, because the Salem Alliance Church rejects LGBTQ rights and their Broadway Coffee House has been the subject of a boycott due to the church's discriminatory practices.
There are alternative locations to house a temporary library, such as Liberty Plaza, which was one of the top three choices of the Library Renovation Subcommittee. Virtually everybody who submitted written or verbal testimony to the City Council was against using the church-owned Capital Press building.
And people have been contacting the Mayor and city councilors urging that the City Council reconsider approval of the Salem Alliance Church lease agreement at the council's next meeting on August 12. Reconsideration is allowed by a City Council rule.
Yet a little while ago I learned that City staff went ahead and signed the Salem Alliance Church contract, thereby taking away the ability for this issue to be reconsidered by the City Council -- essentially screaming a loud Screw you! at supporters of LGBTQ rights in Salem.
Margaret Stephens conveyed the contract-signing news via a comment on the Save Our Books at Salem Public Library Facebook page. Here's what Stephens wrote. I've boldfaced a portion that deserves emphasis.
Jackie Leung, the sole no vote on the use of Salem Alliance Church property for the temporary Library, kindly responded to my questions about whether anything could be done at this point. She said:
"Because I voted no, I am not able to ask for a reconsideration. One of the councilors, such as Councilor Kaser, who voted yes, will need to call it up. I can issue a plea at the council meeting for reconsideration, though no one may do so.
It also depends on if city council already signed a lease with SAC. If it has already been signed, I am afraid that there is no way to stop it from moving forward. As a frequent library user, it also concerns me about the use of the Capitol Press and what it means to our community.
Thank you for your email. Please continue reaching out to Councilor Kaser. Perhaps she will be willing to request a reconsideration if it is not too late."
Then I found out that the lease has been already signed. But before that, I contacted Councilor Cara Kaser (Ward 1, in which I live). Here is what she wrote:
"I hope you either watched live or the recording of City Council meeting when this issue was discussed. Councilor Chris Hoy summed up my position on this issue exactly. If you didn’t get a chance to watch Councilor Hoy’s remarks, I hope that you will.
The Library sub-committee charged with finding a temporary build to house the library collection recommended this location after going through several other properties. For one reason and another, the former Capital Press building was the only feasible site to relocate the library and met the sub-committee’s criteria for relocation.
The building is owned by a religious organization but the building itself is not a religious building (i.e. it’s not a church, sanctuary, chapel, etc.). Also, the building will be under lease and operated by the City, and not by a religious organization.
The City will follow it’s own ordinances and codes of conduct while the library is at this temporary location, just as it follows rules now at the permanent library site. Because of this, I believe that the temporary location for the library will be a welcoming and accepting place for all members of our community, just like our permanent library location is now."
Since I already knew that the property was owned by SAC and not a "religious" building, the only thing to take away from Councilor Kaser's comment is that her position was the same as Hoy's.
And Hoy's pertinent comment was that basically "if we (the City) scrutinizes all entities that the City does business with, it is a slippery slope"
...And my comment regarding that is that if the City does NOT look at the policies of entities, then THAT is the real slippery slope.
Would the City do business with an entity with an avowed white nationalist agenda? Would the City do business with an entity that was against marriage between different races? I think not.
So why are LGBTQIA people, their friends, allies, and loved ones being thrown under the bus? Answer that please, "progressive" council members.
Great question.
Councilors Hoy, Kaser, and Ausec, each of whom claims to be progressive, along with Mayor Bennett and councilors Lewis and Nanke, all knew full well that the Human Rights Commission and LGBTQ community in Salem understood that the temporary library was going to be operated by City staff, not by the church.
That was irrelevant to supporters of LGBTQ rights. Which makes what Councilor Kaser said above, and what Councilor Hoy said at the July 22 council meeting, also irrelevant.
What mattered is what Stephens said: the Salem Alliance Church opposes LGBTQ rights.
Yet not only does the City of Salem see no problem with paying almost $500,000 to the Salem Alliance Church to house a temporary library that won't be used by members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters, it rushed ahead with signing the lease contract in order to prevent public opinion from forcing a reconsideration vote at the August 12 council meeting.
UPDATE: I just realized that there's a decent chance one or more of the six members of the City Council who voted to go ahead with leasing the church owned library for a temporary library pressed City staff to sign the Salem Alliance Church lease before the next council meeting to avoid the spectacle of a reconsideration request being discussed at the meeting.
Also, here's a cogent comment from ardent library supporter Jim Scheppke that he left on a Facebook page where I shared this blog post:
"I agree with Brian that the City staff should have waited until after the August 12th meeting to sign the lease to allow Councilors Cook and Andersen to weigh in on this issue on behalf of their constituents. We heard at the last meeting from substitute Councilor Evan White that Councilor Cook was opposed to leasing the church property. I would not be surprised to learn that Councilor Andersen is also opposed.
There was very little discussion of the issue at the last meeting because it came at the end of a long meeting and the Councilors were clearly rushing through the end of the agenda as they often do. A decision that affects a large portion of the community (LGBTQ citizens and their friends, family and supporters and others who care deeply about human rights) should not be railroaded. I also disagree that the church building was the only viable choice. I think that's false. It was the cheapest choice."
Disgusting. Outrageous. Shameful. And those are the least profane words that spring to mind.
Yesterday I paid $476.80 to the City of Salem for the required fee to get public records related to the selection of the church-owned Capital Press building for a temporary library.
I submitted the public records request because I figured there was a good chance I'd get the documents prior to the August 12 City Council meeting where a reconsideration might have been discussed.
I figured wrong, failing to anticipate that City officials would forestall reconsideration by rushing ahead with signing the contract, even though the library won't start moving into a temporary location until December.
However, I'm still glad that I'm getting the documents and emails, because I believe the public needs to understand as clearly as possible how this horrible choice of the Capital Press building happened.
Recent Comments