Salem Political Snark

I love the photo of top secret documents found in Trump's residence

When Trump is convicted of mishandling government documents, many of which were marked top secret, as I dearly hope will happen, this FBI photo will be part of the evidence that led to his downfall.

There's so much to love about this photo. For one thing, it demolishes any argument Trump could make that he didn't know the documents were marked as classified. 

The big red and yellow borders around the secret/top secret cover pages show that it would be impossible to miss that these were highly sensitive documents. Which, of course, belong to the U.S. Government, not Donald Trump, who is now a private citizen.

As plenty of people who had high-level security clearances have pointed out, if any ordinary person had so many documents marked secret/top secret in their possession, especially if they had refused requests to return them, as Trump did, they'd be facing some serious jail time.

That's exactly what Trump deserves. 

What's shown in the photo is just a portion of the secret/top secret documents recovered from Trump's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. These came from his office, though it isn't clear whether the photo was taken in his office. Not that it matters, since the photo was taken at Mar-a-Lago.

A Washington Post story describes how the photo came about.

The Justice Department used 35 pages of type in a court filing on Tuesday to provide new details of its investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of hundreds of classified documents that were taken from the White House at the end of his term.

But the most easily digestible element of the filing was appended at the end: a single photograph showing documents with secret and top secret markings arrayed on a patterned carpet, with a carton of framed pictures on one side. The photograph did not clearly display any details of the subject matter of the documents, which were conspicuously bordered in red when labeled secret and in yellow for top secret.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump took to his social media site to say that “the F.B.I., during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending that it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see.”

But the genesis of the photograph appears to be in keeping with standard protocols for how federal agents handle evidence they come across in a search.

The folders were arrayed by agents at Mar-a-Lago after being removed from what the filing indicated was Mr. Trump’s office — they were not discovered scattered on the floor, according to two federal law enforcement officials.

The Justice Department would not comment on the specifics of the photograph. But it is standard practice for the F.B.I. to take evidentiary pictures of materials recovered in a search to ensure that items are properly cataloged and accounted for.

The marking “2A” on a folded piece of paper in the picture corresponds to a listing in the inventory of items seized in the search that was made public along with the search warrant. In that inventory, the item marked as “2A” is described as “various classified TS/SCI documents.”

Files or documents are not tossed around randomly, even though they might appear that way; they are usually splayed out so they can be separately identified by their markings. The ruler seen in the image is to give a sense of their size in relation to other objects.

One noteworthy element of the photograph, as the Justice Department pointed out in its filing yesterday, is that none of the folders bear a label or stamp indicating that Mr. Trump declassified them, as he has periodically claimed when asked about his retention of government materials requested by the National Archives. Documents that have been declassified typically contain explicit markings indicating the change.

It's truly astounding that Trump would have secret/top secret documents lying around his office. Well, let's say rather that it would be astounding if any other former president had acted so irresponsibly. Trump is so egotistical and unethical, he thinks the world revolves around him.

His whole life, Trump has screwed people over and gotten away with it thanks to copious lies, legal threats, and powerful friends.

But it's looking more and more like the Justice Department is serious about holding Trump legally accountable for his mishandling of sensitive documents and obstructing efforts to retrieve them to their rightful owner, the United States government.

Salem Reporter editor criticizes secrecy of Salem city officials

Below is a indictment of what sure seems to be a coverup by officials at the City of Salem following a public records request by Salem Reporter concerning a suspicious $53,500 payment to former deputy police chief Steve Bellshaw.

Written by editor Les Zaitz, I'd intended to only use excerpts from Zaitz' column, since I respect the right of Salem Reporter to make content available only to subscribers, of whom I'm one.

But the more I thought about it, the more important it seemed to have this column read by as many people as possible. So I'm hoping Zaitz will be OK with this blog post, which includes the entire column. If he isn't, I'll edit the post.

Government transparency is vital. As you'll read in the column, Salem city officials are actively trying to keep the public from learning what went on with what I'm tempted to call Bellshawgate (obviously gave in to that temptation).

Zaitz is asking people to email the Interim City Manager, Kristin Retherford:

Citizen voices can call for city leaders to reverse course. You can do that by writing an email to Interim City Manager Kristin Retherford ([email protected]). Describe why you think the people of Salem deserve this information. Explain what you want to happen – and copy us.

And Zaitz describes how the Marion County District Attorney's office not only rejected the appeal by Salem Reporter of the public records request denial by the City of Salem, but is displaying a disturbing lack of commitment to the public knowing what government is doing. 

Read on. Zaitz has written a compelling column.

Salem city officials are determined to keep from you the information on why a top official under investigation was able to leave office with an unearned $53,500.

Salem Reporter is working to change that, but powerful forces are lined up against us.

Faith in government and transparency in public affairs are at stake.

Here’s the issue.

Earlier this year, a deputy police chief in the Salem Police Department was under suspicion for some sort of misconduct.

As we have since learned, city leaders couldn’t advance their investigation because – and this is surprising – they couldn’t find an investigator.

Instead, they cut a deal with the executive, Steve Bellshaw. He would retire from his city job, pack up his office and walk out with an extra $53,500.

This seemed striking and seemed to warrant an explanation. Why would a top city official get paid to walk away while under investigation?

The city took nearly three weeks to release the single document, doing so only after our news organization initiated legal action to force its disclosure.

Salem city officials deflected question after question. Some questions were addressed with statements – but no explanation. On one occasion, a city official suggested that it was routine to pay off city employees leaving their jobs in these circumstances.

Salem Reporter learned about the payment after obtaining an agreement between Bellshaw and the city.

Getting even that document wasn’t easy.

The agreement required the city and Bellshaw to stay silent about terms, including the payout. No one was to say a word publicly.

When Salem Reporter asked for the agreement, the city took nearly three weeks to release the single document, doing so only after our news organization initiated legal action to force its disclosure.

And the city didn’t make it easy to get even routine information. Asked for the date Bellshaw was put on administrative leave, a city official wouldn’t answer, instead telling Salem Reporter a records request would be needed to get the date.

There is nothing sensitive about that date and the city official later conceded that was so. The deflection to a public records request had a aura of retribution to it – we’re going to make this hard for you at every single turn.

When the city declared every document about the matter was off limits, we followed Oregon law. Salem Reporter petitioned Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson, seeking an order requiring the city to release the documents. In such circumstances, Clarkson’s office acts as an informal court.

READ IT: Salem Reporter’s petition for disclosure 

District attorneys are charged with assessing the government’s claims to confidentiality. Some records are off limits by law, but there is no prohibition from releasing most. In Oregon, the public interest in seeing what government is doing generally trumps confidentiality. Our highest courts side with citizens over government in even close calls.

Salem Reporter outlined in a petition to Clarkson the reasons why the public ought to see the Bellshaw records. We cited over and over and in detail what was the public interest. This wasn’t snooping in some administrative aide’s personnel file. This was learning about potential corruption and the peculiar spending of public money.

In the resulting order, Clarkson’s office sided with the city. Amy Queen, the deputy district attorney who wrote the order that was endorsed by the district attorney, could not find one compelling reason for the public to see so much as a sentence.

READ IT: District attorney’s order 

The decision was surprising because courts in Oregon have been particularly clear that information about possible misconduct by high-ranking officials ought to be given to citizens.

In emails, Queen said she has never ordered the Salem Police Department to release public records. In fact, she said, she has never ordered any government agency to disclose records it wanted to keep away from citizens.

She explained that her “review process of many petitions have resulted in the government agency disclosing the records at issue” without being ordered to do so.

I have decades of experience in public records law. That explanation suggested to me that Queen warned public officials they would face an order to disclose if they didn’t release the documents. That gives agency officials the chance to avoid a public order that says they improperly withheld public records.

When I asked Queen to clarify, she didn’t answer. Instead, Clarkson suggested in an email there was a “misunderstanding” of Queen’s message that she wanted to ensure “does not lead to any mischaracterization, or implication thereof, related to a public agency’s disclosure of a record after a petition is filed,” she said.

She went on to write that any “request for clarification” from her office made to a government official is shared with the petitioners. But that doesn’t explicitly deny that her office gives government a heads up it is about to lose the case. On Monday, she amplified that she found my read of the review process “completely inaccurate.”

There is one other concerning aspect to all of this that suggests that government is stacked against the people.

Queen is married to a Salem Police Department officer. (Clarkson was too – until her husband left last year for another job). That means Queen is ruling on whether her husband’s employer is improperly withholding information from the public. In addition, one of the largest donors to Queen’s current campaign to become a state judge: the Salem Police Employees Union, which gave $3,000 on Aug. 18.

That seems a significant conflict – and one not disclosed by Queen, Clarkson or the resulting order that said the public wasn’t entitled to a single piece of paper about this matter.

Queen didn’t respond to questions about the matter and neither did Clarkson. They stayed silent. Clarkson didn’t respond to a telephone message and an email last week inviting her to discuss the apparent conflict.

Instead, Clarkson pointed out Salem Reporter could sue in state court if we didn’t agree with the order. Clarkson knows state courts are jammed, clearing cases backed up by the pandemic. She knows such litigation is expensive and takes years – hardly the route to transparency.

But the community has seen this before. Salem city officials for years fought one newspaper’s request to see a police report. The city likely spent a small fortune on the fight. And it lost. On top of that, courts told the city to pay $100,000 or so in legal costs run up by the newspaper that simply was trying to hold government accountable.

Salem city officials can brush off Salem Reporter, using the new shield that Clarkson’s office fashioned for them. We anticipate being denied even more records we have requested.

What they can’t do, however, is blunt public opinion and this is where you come in.

Citizen voices can call for city leaders to reverse course. You can do that by writing an email to Interim City Manager Kristin Retherford ([email protected]). Describe why you think the people of Salem deserve this information. Explain what you want to happen – and copy us.

Meantime, we won’t relent in our reporting on your behalf. In the matter of a deputy police chief who had to clear out his office on a Sunday while under supervision, we’ll keep pressing too.

Les Zaitz is editor of Salem Reporter. Contact him by email at [email protected].

What is Salem Police Department hiding from the public?

If anyone thought that a new police chief, Trevor Womack, would usher in an era of transparency and openness for the Salem Police Department, that thought needs to be dumped in the trashcan of unmet expectations.

Last month I described two examples of the department hiding facts from the public. The people trying to lift the lid on police secrecy are experienced journalists: Joe Douglass and Ardeshir Tabrizian.

When Douglass hit roadblocks from the Salem Police Department with his public record request for information related to communications between police officers and the Proud Boys militia group prior to a 2021 gun rights rally at Riverfront Park, he appealed the department's refusal to provide certain records to the Marion County District Attorney office.

A Deputy District Attorney rejected the appeal, showing how tight knit police and district attorneys can be when they want to join forces in keeping things secret.

Likewise, the Salem Reporter, where Tabrizian works, appealed the refusal of the police department to provide public records related to a $53,500 payment to former deputy chief Steve Bellshaw. Here's excerpts from yesterday's Salem Reporter story, "DA backs Salem's effort to keep police misconduct files secret."

The city of Salem paid a departing police official an extra $53,500 while he faced a city misconduct investigation that was never finished.

But city officials are keeping records confidential about the matter, and the Marion County District Attorney’s Office Monday sided with city officials, concluding there was insufficient public interest to require disclosure.

Deputy District Attorney Amy Queen notified Salem Reporter that she would allow the city to keep secret records sought by the news organization detailing the allegations against former Deputy Chief Steve Bellshaw.

That decision means the public isn’t allowed information about misconduct allegations against Bellshaw that the city never fully investigated.

The city earlier this year struck a deal with Bellshaw and both sides tried to keep that deal from the public. It was disclosed only after Salem Reporter sought legal recourse to force its disclosure. Under that agreement, Bellshaw declared his intent to retire but the city also agreed to pay him $53,500 for reasons it has yet to fully explain.

Subsequently, the Oregon Department of Professional Safety Standards and Training, the state’s police licensing agency, opened an investigation of Bellshaw on May 9. It did so based on the city’s report to the agency that Salem officials had a pending investigation of Bellshaw when he left.

What a lame excuse from the District Attorney's office: "insufficient public interest to require disclosure." 

I'm pretty damn sure that if Salem citizens were asked if they wanted to know why city officials gave Bellshaw a gift of $53,500 from the Police Department budget when he was being investigated for misconduct, they'd say, Absolutely, tell us what went on here. 

But Chief Womack wants to keep this secret, probably because it would make the Salem Police Department look bad if the facts of Bellshaw's shady retirement came to light. 

Here's what Womack and other city officials are forgetting: as the saying goes, often it isn't the crime, but the coverup that makes public employees look bad. Citizens deserve to know what Bellshaw was accused of, and why he was given the $53,500 as a going-away gift from the Salem Police Department.

Great letter in support of Jamie McLeod-Skinner

Salem isn't in the 5th Congressional District now, being put in the new 6th Congressional District after Oregon gained a seat in the House of Representatives when the 2020 census showed we deserved it.

But most of Marion County is. So if you're a 5th Congressional District voter, or know someone who is, urge them to cast their ballot for Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the November election. 

Here's a letter to the editor in today's Oregonian newspaper in support of McLeod-Skinner. Cathy Whiting, the person who wrote it, is a friend who lives in Canby. She's a member of the Salon discussion group that my wife and I are part of.

My 72-year-old self was stunned to discover first-hand the difficulties a young person faces getting their independent life started in northwestern Oregon.

My stepdaughter tried to move from another state to Clackamas County to be near her father as she seeks better opportunities for herself and her young son. She had seen ads for affordable apartments but found nothing when she got here.

Widening the search still failed to produce anything that would allow this hard-working young woman to put food on the table and pay for necessities like health care, child care and transportation. How on earth do young people get their lives started?

The problem is widespread. We need more voices in Congress advocating for working families and opportunities for our young people.

Having heard, spoken personally with and then researched Jamie McLeod-Skinner, I can’t overstate my enthusiasm for this dynamic woman running to represent the 5th Congressional District. Check her out. She relates to regular Oregonians, cares about these problems and will work to deliver for us.

     Cathy Whiting, Canby

The Cook Political Report has the race between Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner and Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer as a tossup. I agree with Cathy Whiting that McLeod-Skinner clearly is the superior candidate. 

Here's the priorities of McLeod-Skinner.

Let's imagine President Hillary Clinton acting like Trump

I realize that almost everybody is biased toward the members of their own political "tribe."

For sure, I am. I readily admit that I'm more willing to overlook transgressions of fellow Democrat politicians than Republican politicians.

But I deeply doubt that most Democrats would put up with all the crap that Donald Trump has done as president and post-president. At least, nowhere near to the extent that Republicans still bow down at the Altar of Trump.

If you're a Republican who disagrees with that assessment, here's a thought experiment for you to consider. Imagine this alternative reality...

In November 2016 Hillary Clinton confirmed what most pollsters predicted: she defeated Donald Trump and was elected president of the United States.

Right away, though, rough spots started to appear on her presidential image. Clinton claimed that the crowd at her inauguration was much vaster than it actually was. But her supporters brushed that mistake off, saying Clinton was just being Clinton.

Things got worse, much worse. Fact checkers documented how many lies Clinton was spreading. The Washington Post reported 30,573 false or misleading claims in four years, an average of more than 20.9 per day.

No problem for most Democrats. They excused Clinton's falsehoods, being much more concerned about her appointing three justices to the Supreme Court, assuring a liberal majority for decades to come. 

Sure, there were lots of scandals in the Clinton administration. She appointed people to cabinet positions who were loyal to her, not because they had the experience and temperament needed to do their job.

But again, Clinton's Democratic base loved how she used the levers of government to increase taxes on the wealthy, combat global warming, assure equal rights for minorities, impose more regulations on corporations, and fulfill other aspects of liberal wish lists.

Nearing the end of her first term, Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives because she tried to get political dirt on a GOP presidential contender by withholding aid from a foreign country that supposedly could provide evidence of a scandal involving the contender's son.

She was easily acquitted by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Clinton viewed this vindication as a green light to do whatever she wanted in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, including using the White House as a prop for campaign events.

Sure, that was against the rules. Clinton, though, endorsed the adage, "It isn't a crime if the president does it." 

Clinton mismanaged the Covid crisis when it hit the United States. That led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, according to experts. However, neither Clinton nor her supporters cared about what experts said, nor what the mainstream media said. 

Power was what mattered to Clinton, not rules, nor ethics, nor going along with how things always had been done. 

It turned out, though, that American voters were tried of all the drama of the Clinton years. Her constant lying and grandstanding was wearing people out. So in November 2020 she lost to her Republican challenger.

Or so the headlines said.

Clinton refused to accept the outcome of the election. She filed 60 frivolous lawsuits claiming election fraud, even though there was no evidence of any widespread fraud. Even after losing all but one of the suits, Clinton kept on loudly asserting that she had won the election.

A mob of her Democratic supporters stormed the nation's capitol on January 6, beating police officers and looking for politicians they could harm, so great was their anger at the election supposedly being stolen from Clinton, and so strong was their belief that Clinton was correct in asserting massive voter fraud.

That led to Clinton being impeached a second time. And being acquitted by the Senate a second time. 

President Clinton did leave the White House for her home in New York. But in a final defiant gesture, Clinton took many boxes of government documents with her, including top secret documents. When the FBI demanded their return, it took a subpoena for that to happen.

Turns out, though, that even though Clinton's lawyer swore that all classified documents had been returned to the government, a search of her property under a warrant signed by a federal judge turned up eleven more boxes of documents, some of them highly secret.

Per usual, Clinton lied her way through this post-presidential scandal. At first she claimed that the FBI had planted incriminating documents during their search.

Then a variety of other excuses were put forward, including that Clinton was so sure she was going to stay in office, she didn't start packing until a few days before she had to leave the White House and got the classified documents mixed up with other stuff.

Again, all this was no problem for most Democratic politicians and her supporters. They're eager for her to run for president again in 2024 so she and her fellow Democrats can punish Republicans for causing her so much grief during her first term as president.

If you're not OK with this alternative reality, Republicans, how is it that most of you are absolutely fine with Trump doing the same things?

Tom Andersen will be missed as a Salem city councilor

Councilor Tom Andersen has resigned from the Salem City Council to focus on his campaign for Oregon House District 19 state representative. 

He'll be missed. 

Andersen was the most unforgettable councilor, in my decidedly personal opinion. I'm not great at remembering how I met people (other than my wife, I hasten to add), but I have no problem recalling what I'm pretty sure was my first face-to-face with Andersen.

It was at a Salem City Club meeting. Someone introduced us. I was instantly taken by Andersen's intensity. His eyes were unusually alive when he spoke to me. He struck me as kind of crazy, in a good way.

Meaning, Tom Andersen was comfortable in his own skin. I'm kind of reticent. Tom surely isn't. Once in a while I'd run into him at LifeSource Natural Foods. I'd hear a booming voice in the parking lot say, "Hey Brian...", followed by whatever was on his mind at the moment.

He was the perfect guy to kick off the renaissance of progressives on the City Council. Andersen's force of personality was instrumental in leading liberals from council irrelevance to their current 7-2 majority. 

In March 2014 I attended a house party for his initial candidacy. I titled the blog post I wrote about the party, "Tom Andersen would be a great Salem City Councilor." Good prediction. 

In February 2019 I wrote a blog post about a talk Andersen gave to a Progressive Salem audience at the Marco Polo restaurant (photo above), calling it "Tom Andersen: progressivism is alive and well in Salem."

True, in no small part due to him. Some excerpts:

He was the lone Progressive Salem-backed councilor when elected in 2014. As he put it, "organized people beat organized money." That formula has been successful ever since, with progressives now being a 6-3 majority on the City Council following the election of Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Matt Ausec, Chris Hoy, and Jackie Leung. 

What a difference five years makes. Elections matter.

Running unopposed for re-election in 2018, Andersen joked that he was disappointed to only get 99% of the vote. Someone did write in the name of his wife, Jessica Maxwell. It could have been Andersen himself, though.

...Here's some other accomplishments during Andersen's first term as a councilor that he mentioned in his talk today.

-- Salem is officially an "Inclusive City."
-- Supported DACA and Dreamers.
-- Opposed the Trump administration's border plan and Measure 105.
-- Voted to develop an Environmental Action Plan for Salem.
-- Defeated a sit/lie ordinance.
-- Said no to the Salem River Crossing project.
-- Established a downtown Congestion Relief Task Force.
-- Banned most plastic bags in grocery stores.
-- Increased system development charges to pay for new parks and traffic improvements.

I didn't agree with Andersen on everything. But then, I don't even agree with myself on everything. Even when I disagreed with a position he took on the City Council, I admired how Andersen would set forth cogent reasons for his point of view.

Hopefully he'll win his House District 19 race and go on to be a great member of the Oregon legislature.

Eight cartoons about FBI raid on Trump's Florida home

I was so happy yesterday when I heard that the FBI had raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in search of classified documents that the worst president in our nation's history had carted off illegally.

Word is that the FBI agents left with about a dozen boxes, which follows on the fifteen boxes that were sent back to the National Archives earlier. 

Since a federal search warrant can't be issued without a judge affirming that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed, and that evidence of the crime could be destroyed without the warrant, it sure seems like Trump could be in serious legal trouble.

Along with all of his other well-deserved legal troubles. 

To keep the anti-Trump smile on my face fresh, today I searched for cartoons about the Mar-a-Lago raid. Here's what I found. A recurring theme is how while president, Trump would rip up documents and flush them down a toilet. There's proof!

Enjoy the cartoons...

The Guardian:


The New Yorker:

Tucson Sentinel:

Charlotte Observer:

Morten Morland:

Christian Adams:

Sacramento Bee:

WUN:

New plan for commercial air service at Salem airport sounds like old failed plans

Here we go again, the Chamber of Commerce and Travel Salem engaging in another round of fantasies about commercial air service returning to the Salem airport.

Salem's Angry Owl isn't impressed. Neither am I.

Having moved to Salem in 1977, back then there really were airlines flying out of the Salem airport to places people actually wanted to go. Can't remember exactly what they were, but I recall there were frequent flights to the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, and probably other locations.

Now a Salem Reporter story paints a decidedly less rosy picture of where it might be possible to fly.

Avelo Airlines, a budget carrier based in Houston, Texas, was one of the airlines signing in support of the grant. Paskell said they’ve expressed interest in offering two passenger flights weekly to either Burbank, California — in the Los Angeles area —  or Las Vegas, then growing to offer flights to both destinations.

...In addition to Avelo, Aha!, another budget airline, has also expressed interest in serving Salem with two weekly flights to Reno.

Wow. I'm underwhelmed.

A possibility of two flights weekly to either Burbank or Las Vegas, plus two weekly flights to Reno. All that for a mere $4 million to $12 million in terminal renovations, money that the City of Salem doesn't have.

Like Lucy and the football, periodically there's another effort to have commercial air service return to Salem, which gets some people excited, then the whole scheme collapses like Charlie Brown falling on his butt when Lucy snatches the ball away as he's trying to kick it.

The B.S. already is starting to spew from backers of this new dumb idea. 

The Salem Reporter story quotes Angie Onyewuchi, CEO of Travel Salem, as claiming commercial air service will result in a carbon footprint reduction. That's absurd. Traveling by air is, mile for mile, the most damaging way to travel for the climate. We need to discourage air travel, not encourage it.

Bizarrely, Onyewuchi also says “This critical grant funding moves us closer to launching our first flights and provides a direct connection between Oregon’s spectacular wine country and the world.”

No, it doesn't.

Unless by "the world" she means Burbank, Las Vegas, and Reno, because those are the only direct connections planned from the Salem airport. I suppose with enough extra connections from those places you could get anywhere in the world.

Or you could simply drive to the Portland International Airport and do that much more easily.

Sadly, a majority of the Salem City Council appears to have bought into the hype surrounding this newest commercial air service scheme. When it fails, as it likely will, only Councilor Tom Andersen is going to come off looking wise.

Dissenting from his colleagues, Councilor Tom Andersen questioned the business sense of the effort, and expressed skepticism that the effort would reduce carbon emissions.

South Salem Office Depot kicks out farm stand and food trucks

Office Depot acted like a corporate jerk when it kicked out a farm stand and two food carts from their vast and mostly empty south Salem parking lot.

A Statesman Journal story, "Where did the food carts at the South Salem Office Depot parking lot go?," describes the bullshit reason for this decidedly unneighborly act of corporate asshole'ness.

The departure was fueled by an order from Office Depot's corporate office claiming the food trucks and stands were taking up too many parking spots, food cart owners said. This left staff of the South Salem location, who confirmed the move, to force Don Chuy's Tacos, Cary's Bakeshop and Nanneman Farms Fruit Stand off the property.

Today around 2 pm I took some photos of the Office Depot parking lot, which supposedly is so jammed to overflowing that there's absolutely no room for the farm stand and food trucks.

That's a big fat corporate lie.

The shady side of the parking lot where the fruit stand used to be had one car in it, with just a few cars nearby.

I recall that the food trucks used to be on the other side of the Office Depot parking lot. It was completely empty.

The middle of the parking lot did have some cars in it. But even here, there were plenty of empty spaces.

And on the side of the building, there's a huge parking area that had precisely zero vehicles in it. 

So a lack of spots for parking definitely wasn't the reason Office Depot kicked out the farm stand and food trucks. 

That leaves me to speculate that the Office Depot corporate office just wanted to be mean.

OK. Now I want to buy my office supplies from anywhere other than the South Salem Office Depot. Amazon. Fred Meyer. A store in Outer Mongolia. 

Since Office Depot wants its parking lot as empty as possible, I'm glad to oblige by not having my car take up one of the spaces. If the farm stand and food trucks return, so will I.

Kansas votes for abortion rights. Good news for Democrats.

Being an avid Democrat, I needed this. A big win for abortion rights in Kansas today. Yes, Kansas. A decidedly red state. 

A Washington Post headline buoyed my liberal spirits.

Political prognosticators were saying the vote in Kansas would be close. Actually, it wasn't. 

This bodes well for Democrats in the November midterms.

The Kansas legislature, dominated by Republicans, put this constitutional amendment question on the ballot in what they thought would be a low-turnout primary election, hoping that Kansas voters would sleepwalk their way to approving a change to the state's constitution that would take away a woman's private right to choose an abortion.

But the people of Kansas woke up and smelled the risk to freedom that the constitutional amendment posed. 

Sure, it remains to be seen how big an impact abortion rights will have in the midterms, since abortion won't be a single issue being voted on, as it was in Kansas today. Yet it sure seems that if Democrats play their cards right, they can lead voters to see that electing Republicans means trashing abortion rights.

So things are looking up for Democrats. They've had some successes in Washington D.C. recently.

Passage of a bill to bolster American computer chip manufacturing. Agreement with Joe Manchin on a bill to fight climate change, lower prescription drug prices, and do other good stuff. Killing of the Al Qaeda leader via a drone strike in Afghanistan. 

Polls show that Democrats have a better chance of keeping control of the Senate, thanks to some weak, and very extreme, Republican candidates. The House still seems likely to shift to the GOP, but this isn't guaranteed. 

(Nothing in politics is.)

Up in Washington state, at the moment two Republican House members who voted for Trump's impeachment are leading their Trump-backed opponents. Washington has an open top-two primary, where the two candidates who get the most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party.

Nice to see Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse in the GOP lead. I'd prefer to have a Democrat win in November. Since this is unlikely given the nature of their districts, returning these two non-Trumpist Republicans to Congress is the next best thing.