Salem Political Snark

I've got an important question for Trump supporters in Salem

In 2016, Donald Trump got 38% of the presidential vote in Salem, while Hillary Clinton got 49%. So when I go grocery shopping, as I did today, likely around a third of the people I see are Trump supporters.

(I'm hoping his support has slipped a bit during the past four years.)

Obviously there's a wide gulf between conservatives and progressives these days. Yet being a moderate sort of progressive, in no way do I view those who want another four years of Trump as crazy.

Having been raised by a fiercely Republican mother, who never wavered on her conservative principles, I'm familiar with the traditional Republican mindset. 

Small government. Capitalism. Anti-communist. Low taxes. Strong military.

Heck, until I was about sixteen, I devoured the issues of National Review that came into our house. My political leanings were as conservative as my mother's. I then became more liberal, especially after going to college in 1966.

I mention this because I could have a good conversation with a Trump supporter about the sorts of conservative principles I cited above. There are decent arguments on both the progressive and conservative sides.

But here's what I don't understand about those who voted for Trump and plan to do so again.

How can you go along with the attacks on American democracy that Trump is engaged in? This is something that I find unforgivable and indefensible. 

Meaning, we can disagree about what elected officials should do once they are voted in. But fair elections should never be a matter of debate. Every American who is eligible to vote should be able to do so without hindrance.

Do you agree with that statement, Trump supporters? If you do, I'm encouraged. Maybe Trump is trying to lead a war on voting that lacks an army to back him up.

However, this doesn't fit with the acquiescence of Republicans to actions that deeply concern progressives like me. For example:

-- Trump has said that if he doesn't win in November, this shows that the election was rigged. 
-- Trump is attacking vote by mail. 
-- Trump favors voter I.D. laws even though voter fraud is almost nonexistent.
-- Trump wants police at polling sites, which is unlawful.
-- Trump opposes Postal Service funding that would support mail-in voting.

So how can Trump supporters claim to be patriotic Americans if they are OK with these attempts to prevent a fair election in November? 

The most disturbing answer to that question is that Trump supporters would be fine with the United States becoming an anti-democratic authoritarian nation, if this enables Trump to have another four years in office.

If I'm wrong about that, and I hope I am, then I look forward to learning what other reason Trump supporters have for going along with Trump's attempts to discourage voting. Feel free to leave a comment with your explanation.

Trump's use of the White House as a political prop -- disgusting

After more than three and a half years of enduring Trump's disgraceful presidency, I thought my psyche had become inoculated against further outrages. How much lower could Trump morally go than rock bottom?

But when I saw this image on Twitter last night, I realized the answer was, as low as he can get away with until he leaves office. Walter Shaub is a former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics.

Being 71, and interested in politics for almost my entire life, I've seen countless photos of the White House. This is the first time it has ever been used as a backdrop for a blatant political event. 

Not only does it look completely wrong to have Trump-Pence signs defiling government property, what makes it even more disturbing is that so far as I can tell, no Republican apologists for Trump see anything wrong with failing to abide by the Hatch Act, which this stunt likely did.

Until Trump became president, I'd strongly disagreed with Republican presidents like Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush. However, I never viewed them as denigrating the office they held, as Trump has done incessantly. Trump makes everything about him, due to his stupendous selfishness and egotism, which masks his low self-esteem, according to his psychologist niece, Mary Trump.

It's Trump's authoritarianism that is most disturbing.

I used to say "authoritarian tendencies," but those days are long past. Trump is a full-blown authoritarian now, held in check by the most fragile of restraints. This is why it's so crucial to vote him out of office this November before he can become even more of a wanna-be dictator.

Here's another example of how Trump is using the reins of power in unheard of ways. I'll let the New York Times story do the talking through an excerpt from "N.Y.C. Tenants Say They Were Tricked Into Appearing in R.N.C. Video."

It started with an unexpected call last week from Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York.

Ms. Patton told a leader of a tenants’ group at the New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority’s buildings, which have long been in poor repair.

Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. Three of the tenants were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air prominently on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, the three tenants said in interviews on Friday.

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

The episode represents another stark example of how President Trump has deployed government resources to further his political ambitions. Ms. Patton is head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and under the Hatch Act is barred from using her government position to engage in political activities.

City official issues tree removal permit 105 days after they were cut down

Peter Fernandez, the City of Salem Public Works Director, is still doing outrageous tree stuff -- seven years after public records that I got proved that Fernandez made an unethical backroom deal with a bank president to have five beautiful, large, healthy downtown trees removed for no good reason.

The newest Fernandez outrage is well-documented in an appeal by the Southwest Association of Neighbors (SWAN) of a tree removal permit that was issued on June 25, with an effective date of June 28, even though the five trees were cut down on April 15.
Download Salem Heights Tree Removal Permit Appeal Final 7-26-20

Wow. Even though Peter Fernandez is a crappy Public Works Director, he does apparently have a superpower: the ability to go back in time and grant a permit for something that was already illegally done.

Here's photos from the SWAN appeal that show what Fernandez and the developer who removed the trees (I'm assuming this was Thomas Kay) have wrought. 

This photo shows a view of Salem Heights Avenue before the trees were removed.

This photo shows Salem Heights Avenue after the trees were removed without a permit. Or, as Peter Fernandez would call it, a "street improvement."

And this photo shows the required neighborhood notice of a tree removal permit application. The notice had to be posted on a utility pole because the trees had already been cut down. Or, as Peter Fernandez would call it, "a delicious irony."

Now, you may have picked up some subtle, or not-so-subtle, clues in this blog post that I'm not a fan of Peter Fernandez.

Which is absolutely correct! I'll give some additional reasons for my attitude after I share a few excerpts from the SWAN appeal that show how distastefully Fernandez acted. I've boldfaced some especially pertinent parts.

(Note: Fernandez is only referred to as the "Director" in the appeal.)

Among the reasons for this appeal is the trees listed for potential removal - two significant white oak trees, two locust trees and a Douglas Fir tree - have already been cut down and removed prior to issuance of a permit for removal in violation of City Code contained within SRC Chapter 86. We believe the Director’s conclusion that there was no “reasonable alternative” was in error. We believe there were, or may have been reasonable alternatives.

City staff has confirmed with us that the trees were removed on April 15 in violation of the Code because the order granting the removal was not issued until June 25 with an effective date of July 28, 105 calendar days after they were cut down.

We believe the City Tree Code should be enforced in a way that protects the city’s trees. Granting a permit after trees have been cut, as in this case, sends a message the Code enforcement is lax. We intend to show that the cutting of trees along the 500 block of Salem Heights Avenue violated City Code.

We believe city residents deserve the opportunity to offer reasonable alternatives during the permit application process. This was denied in particular to the removal of the white oaks. The Director has concluded, without explanation in the order, that there was no reasonable alternative to cutting the trees. Our appeal will show the possibility that a reasonable alternative existed before the trees were removed.

This cutting and removal of trees on city-owned right of way prior to issuance of a tree removal permit is an egregious breach of current law and an affront to the citizens of Salem - a “tree” city. Cutting and removal of the trees in question prior to issuance of a tree removal permit is also an extreme breach of due process afforded by the tree removal permit application process.

It is ironic that the effort of city staff to comply with posting of the tree removal order and appeal process as required by the Code to be posted “where the tree or trees are located” had to be posted to a utility pole ​after​ the trees were reduced to stumpage. Again, this cutting was done prior to the issuance of a removal permit or posting of the required notice of removal.

If this was the only time Peter Fernandez abused the power of his position as Public Works Director, a single lapse in judgment could be forgiven. But it definitely isn't. Here's a couple of other examples, the second occurring only yesterday, though the first is more significant.

Earlier this month I described how Fernandez misled the City Council regarding the purchase of property in West Salem. See: "Salem City Council bamboozled by staff on Taybin Road property purchase."

I spent hundreds of dollars on a public records request that proved the actual reason Fernandez wanted to buy this property was for Marine Drive right-of-way in an area that the council had declared off-limits for a right-of-way acquisition. So Fernandez and other Public Works officials concocted a stormwater reason for the purchase that allowed them to use a different pot of money for it.

Then, last night the City Council voted to overturn Fernandez's recommendation for a right-turn lane that was planned to be part of a road diet at Broadway and Pine. I'd written about this in "Salem City Hall, where staff always are right and concerned citizens wrong."

As I said in that post, Fernandez believes that traffic will steadily increase in Salem, necessitating ever more road construction, even though the City of Salem's own Strategic Plan calls for greenhouse gas reductions in our city, and transportation is the largest source of carbon pollution.

Fortunately, a majority of the City Council (Mayor Bennett and Councilors Lewis and Nanke being the minority) didn't buy the anti-environment B.S. that Fernandez was trying to sell at yesterday's council meeting. Councilors Tom Andersen, Vanessa Nordyke, and Chris Hoy were especially persuasive in their arguments against the carcentric philosophy that the right-turn lane represented.

After all, Andersen and Hoy are ardent cyclists. They spoke of how unnerving it is to have a bike lane be squeezed between a right-turn lane and a traffic lane, since vehicles can be on both sides of the person riding a bicycle. But Fernandez was concerned about traffic being able to move along as swiftly as possible.

Which shows that Peter Fernandez is wildly out of touch with the citizenry when it comes to protecting trees and the environment. And that makes him a very poor choice for Salem's Public Works Director.

NEXT DAY UPDATE: Someone just sent me a copy of an email from City Manager Steve Powers regarding this issue, plus a readable photo of the Notice of Hearing shown in a photo above. Here's what I said to Powers in an email a little while ago:
-----------------------------

Mr. Powers, since I wrote about the Salem Heights Avenue tree removal issue yesterday, someone just sent me your email denial that a permit was issued retroactively allowing the removal of five trees. You said, in part:

The developer prematurely removed trees from the Salem Heights Road right-of-way.  Staff has not decided to retroactively issue a permit for the removal of the trees.

However, I also got a photo of the Notice of Public Hearing that was attached to the utility pole in the neighborhood, which I didn’t have a clear image of until now. That notice says that the purpose of the hearing is to review the Public Works Director’s decision to approve a tree removal permit.

 

So please explain the discrepancy between what you have emailed to city councilors, and possibly also others, and what the Notice of Public Hearing says. I’m attaching the photo that I got, along with an enlarged screenshot of the portion I just quoted. Logically, either the Notice of Public Hearing was wrong, or your email was wrong. Which was it?

 

UPDATE TO UPDATE: I got this reply from Steve Powers. I thanked him for the correction to his earlier email, but told him both the developer and Peter Fernandez need to be held accountable for their failure to act in accord with the City Tree Code. Fernandez' malfeasance is especially outrageous, since he is responsible for enforcing the City Tree Code.

Mr. Hines,

Thank you for the question. Staff determined a permit was needed regardless of the timing of the tree removal.  The Public Works Director approved the developer’s  tree removal permit based on criteria in SRC 86.090(a)(8). In my earlier email I stated that no permit had been issued.  I regret the error in my earlier email.

Steve Powers

City Manager
City of Salem

"End of suburbs" one of countless Republican Convention lies

The good news is, my brain survived -- watching part of the first night of the Republican National Convention.

Yes, it came close to exploding at times (actually, many times), but I was able to press the "stop" button on my remote fast enough to avoid serious damage to my truth-loving neurons.

The bad news is, just about everything else. 

Given all the GOP talk about the Democratic Convention being too dismal and dark, with the Republican Convention going to be all Reagan'esque sunshine and positivity, I was thinking that maybe that actually would happen.

Nope. 

Fear and trembling before the dreadful specter of Socialist Joe Biden and his sidekick Communist Kamala Harris was a recurring theme.

The McCloskey's, a couple who pulled guns on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters walking past their St. Louis home, said that if Biden wins it is the end of the suburbs. 

Wow.

I wasn't aware that Sleepy Joe Biden, as Trump calls him, had the power to reduce the suburbs to a pile of smoldering rubble, upon which hordes of poor Black people will dance as they celebrate getting to live in the low-income housing that will replace the demolished single-family homes.

At least, that's what I assume will happen after watching as much of tonight's Republican Convention as I could endure.

On the plus side, I learned how to put on a Republican Convention after watching just a portion of the proceedings, which I assume reflected what the nation will be subjected to for the next three nights.

Here's the recipe:

(1) A stage.
(2) With American flags.
(3) Lots of them.
(4) Speakers.
(5) Who lie.
(6) Almost constantly.

And that's about it. An initial video was slickly produced, but the rest of the convention looked like it was produced and directed by a community college television class. 

I also watched a good portion of the CNN commentary that followed the prime time convention proceedings.

Not surprisingly, the GOP talking heads felt that the convention convincingly warned the country of the Dempocalypse that would come on the heels of a Biden victory in November.

The other CNN commentators made sense. 

Namely, there was no effort by anyone other than Trump himself to make Trump look like a caring, empathetic person, because he isn't. Also, the GOP strategy is to fire up the base, not to appeal to undecided independent voters with a reasonable message.

And most disturbingly -- a point stressed by Van Jones -- the whole "end of suburbs" thing is a very thinly disguised racist dog whistle.

Watch out, white folks! Those socialist Black Lives Matter protesters are going to bring crime and chaos to your beloved cul-de-sacs. Well, after Biden takes your guns away so you have no means of protecting yourself. 

I deeply doubt that this absurd message will resonate with the mythical "suburban housewives" Trump likes to talk about. I think Trump is mired in the situation comedies of the 50's and 60's where no women worked outside the house, and focused on keeping their husband happy when he came home after earning the family living.

Jones correctly noted that almost all of the Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful. Yes, troublemakers have committed crimes at some protests, including nearby Portland, Oregon. 

That needs to stop, while peaceful protests need to continue.

Trump and the Republican Party would have been smart to make that their message, rather than talking about protesters being Marxist revolutionaries. Huh? My wife and I took part in a protest here in Salem, along with thousands of other people -- none of whom appeared to be a Marxist revolutionary. 

But maybe I was fooled by the masks they were wearing.

Mary Trump reveals Trump's pathologies in her compelling book

Sure, we all know what a pitiful human being Donald Trump is. Weak, a crybaby, narcissistic, egotistical, incapable of empathy -- to name but a few of his pathologies.

But it took reading the book by his niece, Mary Trump, a Ph.D. psychologist, to make me fully appreciate how badly our country is being served by a president who is utterly incapable of meeting even the most basic demands of the office he holds.

Last week Barack Obama made a right-on comment in his speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't.

Today I finished Mary Trump's book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." With the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow, I thought this would be an opportune time to share excerpts from a concluding chapter where she summarizes some key psychological insights into Trump's screwed-up psyche.

Enjoy. Or, not.

Either way, these truths have to be told, because the United States absolutely has to get rid of Trump in the November election. Read on...

Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information.

Donald's need for affirmation is so great that he doesn't seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn't condescend to be seen with outside of a rally.

His deep-seated insecurities have created in him a black hole of need that constantly requires the light of compliments that disappears as soon as he's soaked it in. 

Nothing is ever enough. This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows he has never been loved.

So he must draw you in if he can by getting you to assent to even the most seemingly insignificant thing: "Isn't this plane great?" "Yes, Donald, this plane is great." It would be rude to begrudge him that small concession.

Thus he makes his vulnerabilities and insecurities your responsibility: you must assuage them, you must take care of him. Failing to do so leaves a vacuum that is unbearable for him to withstand for long.

If you're someone who cares about his approval, you'll say anything to retain it. He has suffered mightily, and if you aren't doing all you can to alleviate that suffering, you should suffer, too.

...Though Donald's fundamental nature hasn't changed, since his inauguration the amount of stress he's under has changed dramatically. It's not the stress of the job, because he isn't doing the job -- unless watching TV and tweeting insults count.

It's the effort to keep the rest of us distracted from the fact that he knows nothing -- about politics, civics, or simple human decency -- that requires an enormous amount of work. 

For decades, he has gotten publicity, good and bad, but he's rarely been subjected to close scrutiny, and he's never had to face significant opposition. His entire sense of himself and the world is being questioned.

...The walls of his very expensive and well-guarded padded cell are starting to disintegrate. The people with access to him are weaker than Donald is, more craven, but just as desperate. Their futures are directly dependent on his success and favor. They either fail to see or refuse to believe that their fate will be the same as that of anyone who pledged loyalty to him in the past.

...When Donald Trump became a serious contender for the Republican Party nomination and then the nominee, the national media treated his pathologies (his mendacity, his delusional grandiosity), as well as his racism and misogyny, as if they were entertaining idiosyncrasies beneath which lurked maturity and seriousness of purpose.

...After the election, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Mitch McConnell, all of whom bear more than a passing psychological resemblance to Fred [Trump's father], recognized in a way others should have but did not that Donald's checkered personal history and his unique personality flaws make him extremely vulnerable to manipulation by smarter, more powerful men.

His pathologies have rendered him so simple-minded that it takes nothing more than repeating to him the things he says to and about himself dozens of times a day -- he's the smartest, the greatest, the best -- to get him to do whatever they want, whether it's imprisoning children in concentration camps, betraying allies, implementing economy-crushing tax cuts, or degrading every institution that's contributed to the United States' rise and the flourishing of liberal democracy.

...Every time you hear Donald talking about how something is the greatest, the best, the biggest, the most tremendous (the implication being that he made them so), you have to remember that the man speaking is still, in essential ways, the same little boy who is desperately worried that he, like his older brother, is inadequate and that he, too, will be destroyed for this inadequacy.

At a very deep level, his bragging and false bravado are not directed at the audience in front of him but at the audience of one: his long-dead father. 

...If what he was doing during the 2016 campaign hadn't worked, he would have kept doing it anyway, because lying, playing to the lowest common denominator, cheating, and sowing division are all he knows. He is as incapable of adjusting to changing circumstances as he is of becoming "presidential."

Salem City Hall, where staff always are right and concerned citizens wrong

We here at the world headquarters of Salem Political Snark, which just happens to be Salem, Oregon, absolutely love well-reasoned factual blog posts with a healthy dose of snark.

Especially when those posts haven't been written by us. (Well, me, though there's always me, myself, and I, the unholy trinity.)

So here's a big snarky thumbs-up to the always-interesting Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger for including these lines in a post today, "City Council, August 24 - Nonsense on Broadway at Pine."

This is a real problem at the City. They have trouble admitting they are wrong. It sure seems like they dig in on every issue, every time.

Sure thing, City of Salem. You bet. We know you always tell the truth.

The nonsense being talked about is the stubborn determination of the Public Works Department to always assume that traffic volumes in Salem will increase forever and ever, thereby needing constant expensive road improvements at the expense of the environment, greenhouse gas emissions, and the safety of pedestrians/cyclists.

Thus the well-informed advice of Gary Obery, an expert on walking and biking safety at the Oregon Department of Transportation, that a right-turn lane isn't needed in a Broadway widening project is discounted because, as noted above, City of Salem staff think they always are right and concerned citizens wrong.

The Breakfast on Bikes blog post goes into considerable detail about why the staff report for Monday's City Council meeting is misguided. Here's the overarching right-on concern.

We'll zoom out a little and start with climate. The slow-moving train wreck that is our approach to climate is going to dwarf our problem with traffic violence. If our forthcoming Climate Action Plan is to be effective, it will have to influence, even determine, traffic planning. Currently we plan our roads as if there was no emergency on climate.

Two weeks ago Council tabled the matter of widening Broadway Street NW at Pine Street. The Oberys, Angela and Gary, had raised questions and Council wanted more information.

On the project the City published a Supplemental Report with an enumerated list of responses to the objections and concerns. One of the primary justifications for the turn lane is that we are planning for more driving.

But this is not at all where we need to be. Though there are problems with ODOT's "Every Mile Counts" program, even ODOT is beginning to see that we have to reduce driving. They dodge a little and say we need to "reduce vehicle miles traveled per capita," and of course what is necessary is a total reduction of VMT, not merely a per person reduction. The sum matters more than the rate here. But VMT reduction is on the table now at ODOT.

The City also needs to start talking about VMT reduction. We have to stop planning for more driving, and need to start planning for less driving. We will never hit our climate goals if our planning continues to assume as axiomatic that "traffic volumes are expected to grow."

A new turn lane goes in the wrong direction.

It sure does. And the insistence of City of Salem staff that a new turn lane is needed also shows how muddled things are at City Hall, where the City Manager, Steve Powers, has failed to do what his job title demands that he do -- manage his employees in accord with high-level goals set forth in the 2017 Strategic Plan.

Like...

Instead, Powers sits back in his City Manager easy chair and lets Peter Fernandez, the Public Works Director, carry on with the out-dated rule-of-thumb that Fernandez has been inflicting on Salem for many years: speeding traffic along as rapidly as possible takes precedence over reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

So city staff can't take Gary Obery's expert opinion about the new turn lane seriously, because this would be a crack in the wall of the Public Works Department always being right about everything -- even when their wrongness is on full display, since a new turn lane is at odds with the City's own Strategic Plan.

The basic problem is that the people who should be in charge of things at City Hall aren't, while those who shouldn't be in charge are. 

Salem has a City Council with a 6-3 progressive majority. However, Salem has a strong City Manager/weak City Council system. Currently we're suffering through a weak City Manager, Steve Powers, who excels at bean-counting but not at making clear to his staff what beans most deserve to be planted and fertilized.

This leaves the bureaucracy free to do what bureaucrats do best: the same thing, over and over.

No matter that the Earth is warming dangerously. No matter that we humans have ten years, at most, to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. No matter that the initial greenhouse gas inventory for Salem showed that the transportation sector is the largest contributor to our carbon pollution.

Fernandez and Co. have always used now-outdated traffic planning rules, and they will keep on using them until the Earth goes up in flames unless a higher-up says, "Stop! We're doing things differently now. The internal combustion engine no longer is Salem's priority. The well-being of our people is."

In the absence of a City Manager capable and competent enough to lead Salem forward into the 21 century, rather than backward into the previous century, the City Council needs to serve as a check on the bureaucracy. So far, the council hasn't shown much interest in doing this.

The upcoming council meeting on August 24 will be a test of whether City of Salem staff get to continue to ignore the well-informed views of concerned citizens. Because sometimes a turn lane on Broadway is way more important than it seems, being a window into the desired future of Salem.

Four reasons why I'm loving the 2020 Democratic National Convention

Via CNN, so far I've watched every minute of the two hour prime time broadcast of the Democratic National Convention. After two days of pleasurable viewing, I'm planning to do the same tonight and tomorrow.

Being a political junkie who has watched every Democratic convention for as long as I can remember, I was prepared to be underwhelmed by this year's virtual/online format. Instead, I'm finding it way more inspiring than all of those previous in-person conventions.

Here's four reasons why.

Crisper. This online convention moves along with pleasing crispness. There's no dead time. Speeches are short. Last night I could watch Bill Clinton and John Kerry without thinking, "Please, don't drone on for an hour." They said what needed saying, then stopped saying it. 

I watch every second of the two hours, even though it's been recorded on our DVR, because I know that a boring segment is going to pass quickly and a more interesting one will follow.

Real people. I admire Democratic party activists who earn the right to attend a convention. But in a hall, they don't come across with as much of a real people vibe as those featured in the online convention.

The stories told by the wonderfully diverse people who appear in brief online segments are compelling. I was almost moved to tears by the man with ALS, I think it was, who has lost the ability to speak, yet communicated with America about the need for universal health care through his computer's voice.

Inspiring. I'm more emotionally engaged with this convention. Whoever designed the overall format, and each day's presentations, should get an Oscar. Yes, there are some flat moments. Overall, though, my heart is engaged throughout the entire two hours, with my head tagging along.

This video from Day 1, Monday, really moved me. Watching it the second time just now, even more.

Good person. Lastly, I'm deeply resonating with Joe Biden's unmistakable goodness. It's hugely refreshing to see someone seeking to be our next president who, unlike Trump, comes across as a warm, unassuming, competent, caring person. I knew this was true of Biden, but the convention is showcasing the depths of his humanity, along with that of his wife, Jill.

Until this week I wasn't fully aware what a difference it would make to my frame of mind to know that the leader of our country actually cares. About other people. The environment. The rest of the world. About justice, fairness, equity.

So the convention has fired me up for November. I've been getting countless (almost) emails from Sara Gideon, who is running against Susan Collins in a race that could decide whether Democrats end up with a Senate majority. This week I sent $100 off to her.

I'll be happy if every Democratic convention from now on is in the current online format. It sure works for me.

Mark Coutis slammed by West Salem Neighborhood Association Ethics Committee

Ouch.

The Vice-Chair of the West Salem Neighborhood Association (WSNA), Mark Coutis, has been slammed hard by an ethics committee formed to look into his offensive remarks about Black Lives Matter, along with other subjects -- including how Coutis insulted people in his role as a WSNA Facebook site administrator.

What Coutis did was the subject of a public comment at a recent Salem City Council meeting.

You can read the juicy details in a report issued by an Ethics Committee formed to look into a complaint filed against Coutis. I've shared screeenshots of the PDF file below.
Download WSNA Ethics Committee Findings_August 2020_signed copy plus Coutis response

Mark Coutis apparently is aligned with the Salem Bridge Solutions "goon squad," as I called it at the time, that disrupted the West Salem Neighborhood Association in the course of taking control of WSNA a few years ago. A 2016 Statesman Journal story about the heated debate over building a Third Bridge across the Willamette said:

During the break outside the meeting, one businessman balked at the climate change argument.

“Salem is not getting any smaller,” said Mark Coutis, who works with a construction firm. He said cars burn fuel while they’re waiting in traffic.

His solution: Not one bridge, but two. And he wants his firm to build them.

The motto of the West Salem Neighborhood Association is "Positive and Productive." Read the following findings of the Ethics Committee and I think you'll agree that positive sure wasn't how Coutis acted.

UPDATE: I just noticed a Salem Reporter story on this subject, "Vice chair of West Salem Neighborhood Association resigns after derogatory Facebook comment investigated." Pleasingly, the story says, "The committee’s findings and Coutis’ response were first reported by a Salem blogger, Brian Hines." Yes, but it took a genuine journalist to learn that Coutis had resigned on Monday.

Trump's attack on Postal Service needs to backfire on him

With a 91% approval rating, the U.S. Postal Service is American's favorite government agency. So Trump's attacks on the USPS and mail-in voting should lead to a substantial backfire upon his already-depressed approval rating and re-election prospect.

But this won't happen all by itself. Defenders of the Postal Service and mail-in voting have to apply maximum pressure, keeping this issue front and center in the minds of voters from now until election day.

A few days ago I started following the American Postal Workers Union on Twitter -- @APWUnational. I seem to recall that they had something like 60,000 followers at the time. Now they have 185,000 followers.

So this shows that people are waking up to the danger Trump's new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, poses to our democracy. Today one of the union tweets said:

Postal workers will do what it takes to #SaveThePostOffice The stakes of letting this happen are just too high!

For sure. The big question, though, is what can be done. I've seen a few calls for a postal worker strike. This would draw a lot of attention to the USPS crisis Trump and deJoy are causing.

However, it has to be a last resort, since slowing down or stopping the mail through a strike would be at odds with the reason for that action: Trump and DeJoy purposely slowing down the mail to make voting by mail more difficult. 

The basic problem is one that has perplexed progressives like me since Trump became president. We're used to presidents having some capacity for shame when they're caught doing the wrong thing.

But Trump is shameless. All he cares about is wielding power, and as president he has a lot of power at his disposal. Trump doesn't care about our outrage. He doesn't care about destroying the fabric of our election system. Trump just wants to win re-election.

If he lies, cheats, and steals his way to victory this November, Trump will smile as he takes another oath of office. He'll rejoice in pulling off a sleazy win over Joe Biden. Then he'll turn to making his second term even more autocratic than his first term, including the likelihood of getting one or two additional Trump ass-kissers on the Supreme Court.

So Trump's USPS dismantling scheme has to be stopped. I'm not sure how this can be done. Here's some ideas I've come across today.

First, it is good to see that people are protesting outside Louis DeJoy's condo in Washington, D.C. This is a small thing, but helps to keep publicity on DeJoy's policies aimed at slowing down the delivery of mail.

Those policies are self-defeating for Trump, as the Daily Kos argues in "Stupid Trump tries to cheat, but screws his own voters instead."

Yes, Trump’s attack on the postal service is serious, a veritable coup attempt. It is an attack on democracy. But it is also an attack on rural Americans and seniors—Trump’s two strongest core constituencies. It is an attack on their communications lifeline, on their ability to get packages, on their ability to get life-sustaining medications, on jobs in their communities.

Thus Trump's crusade against the Postal Service should backfire as rural people and seniors realize how they're being hurt by delayed mail deliveries. Problem is, Trump thinks -- perhaps correctly -- that he has more to gain than lose by trashing the ability of the USPS to deliver mail.

Will some Trump supporters hurt by what he's doing vote for Biden instead? Sure. However, if he can depress Biden votes more than his losses among those who currently support him, that's a win for Trump. And again, winning is all he cares about.

A Pew Research poll found that 80% of likely Trump voters plan to vote in person, while 58% of likely Biden voters say their preference is to vote by mail. This is why Trump is going all-out to trash vote by mail.

More encouraging is news that Nancy Pelosi is considering calling the House back into session this month to deal with the Postal Service crisis. OK, that would cast a bigger spotlight on what Trump and DeJoy are doing. But DeJoy likely would ignore a subpoena to testify, as almost all Trump officials do.

It's hard to visualize DeJoy being taken into custody by the House sergeant-at-arms as some have suggested. That just isn't going to happen. So House hearings could help, but aren't the entire answer.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has gotten the USPS Inspector General to review DeJoy's policy changes and ethics conflicts.

Well, if Trump doesn't fire the Inspector General before a report can be prepared, there's little doubt that the report will get a bunch of media attention, after which DeJoy and Trump will persist in making mail-in voting as difficult and dicey as possible.

So I like the approach suggested by noted attorney Laurence Tribe, which already appears to be followed by some state Attorney's General. File lawsuits based on either the equal protection clause of the Fourth Amendment, or state constitutions.

Now, I assume what Tribe means by "a postmark rule" is allowing a mail-in ballot to be counted if it has a postmark on or before November 3, 2020 -- showing that the voter mailed the ballot prior to the election deadline. 

Oregon, where I live, doesn't allow this, even though all of our elections have been 100% vote by mail for many years. The states to our north and south, Washington and California, do allow this, which is why it often takes days or even weeks to declare a winner, since it takes a while for all ballots to be delivered that were mailed on or before election day.

It does seem like a sound legal strategy to argue that a voter shouldn't be disenfranchised just because mail delivery is unusually slow in their area, leaving aside the reason for this. Why should I have to guess how long it will take for my ballot to arrive at the Marion County election office?

Getting as many states as possible to abide by a postmark rule would undermine Trump and DeJoy's plot to slow down mail delivery to such an extent, the ballots of many Biden voters would be disqualified because they didn't arrive by election day. 

Heck, while I enjoy Oregon's ability to know most election results either on election day or the day after, I'd be fine with my state changing to a postmark rule from the current "must be received by 8 pm on election day" rule. Some ballots might lack postmarks, but they should be counted whenever they arrive.

Denyc Boles killed water project funding she's taking credit for

Republican State Senator Denyc Boles should make "Hypocrisy" her middle name.

Locked in a close election fight with Democrat challenger Deb Patterson, Boles is bizarrely trying to take credit for $20 million in funding for water projects in Salem and Turner that she helped block back in February of this year when she and other Senate Republicans walked out of the legislature to stop a climate action bill.

Here's the Boles press release, which I've branded Inaccurate, because it is.

Oh my, Denyc Boles is so proud of her hard work to get the money for water system upgrades.

Actually, Boles went on a taxpayer-funded vacation earlier this year when she joined ten other Republican senators in a walkout that led to nothing being accomplished by a legislative session for lack of a quorum. That childish stunt led to a $27 million water system bill being killed.

So says a Statesman Journal story.

Don't be fooled by Boles' attempt to look like like a hard-working legislator who brings home money for her constituents. She put Republican Party loyalty first when she joined the February walkout. 

And don't forget that Boles is against the effort to reduce Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions that caused the Republican walkout.

Boles was appointed to her Senate seat after Senator Jackie Winters died. The November election is her first attempt to win the votes of citizens in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans. 

Naturally Denyc Boles is trying to hide the fact that she was all-in on the outrageous effort by Senate Republicans to thwart democracy by not participating in the 2020 short legislative session. Hopefully voters won't be fooled.

Here's an excerpt from my March 5, 2020 blog post, "Make Oregon Republicans pay for their anti-democracy walkout." Electing Deb Patterson this November would be an excellent start on this.

Four days ago I titled a blog post, "It's a make-or-break week for democracy in Oregon." Well, today we learned that Democrats in the state legislature stood firm in defense of democracy, while the Republicans who walked out basically said screw you, democracy.

Oregonians need to remember this in the upcoming November election. Democrats care about democracy. Republicans don't. It's that simple. Vote accordingly on the local, state, and national level.