Salem Political Snark

Joyous day! Trump is indicted.

Nothing like an indictment of Donald Trump to make my day brighter. When I first saw a mention that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict him, I thought this might be a joke.

But when I realized the news was true, I felt freaking great! 

It's been a long time coming. Trump has been lying and cheating and stealing his way through life for many decades, yet until now had avoided a criminal indictment.

So it was richly deserved, even if making a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star just before the 2016 presidential election that wasn't reported as a campaign contribution isn't the worst thing Trump has done.

However, likely Trump also will be indicted on other charges: conspiring to overturn the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden, encouraging the January 6 insurrection at the capitol, obstructing justice by failing to return top secret documents that he took with him after leaving the White House.

I'll be even happier when those indictments happen. For now, though, I'm basking in the pleasure that comes from the even hand of justice being fairly applied to the absolute worst president in modern history.

And we don't even have the details of the indictment yet. That should come next week, after Trump is arraigned before a New York judge. His trial will be fascinating to follow. 

Here's some tweets about today's wonderful news.

Israeli people fight authoritarianism in their country as GOP promotes it in U.S.

At the moment Israel is being torn apart by the attempt of their right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to pass bills that would do away with the balance of power in that country by allowing the legislature to control the judiciary and stop investigations into wrongdoing by Netanyahu.

If that sounds familiar, it's akin to what Republicans in our House of Representatives want to do to protect Donald Trump from prosecution. 

A trio of House Republican committee chairs say the House of Representatives could soon take up legislation to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority to prosecute former presidents in response to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s potential indictment of former president Donald Trump.

Note: this would apply to former presidents.

So Trump could murder someone as the private citizen that he is now, and he couldn't be prosecuted at the state or local level. This seems completely unconstitutional, but a little thing like the Constitution doesn't matter to GOP politicians still determined to kiss Trump's ass any time the Orange One demands their subservience.

Fortunately, with the Senate and Presidency in Democratic control, there's zero chance a House bill prohibiting former presidents from criminal prosecution would become law any time soon. So for now there's no need for the public to protest this horrible Republican proposal.

In Israel, though, Netanyahu wants to begin to pass his Protect Benjamin Netanyahu Act next week. That's why massive protests have erupted in Israel after Netanyahu fired his defense minister for criticizing this highly controversial legislation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defense minister on Sunday, just a day after he called on the embattled premier to halt a controversial plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary.

The proposal to remake Israel’s courts has plunged the nation into crisis, spurring protests in major cities in recent weeks. On Sunday, Netanyahu’s decision to remove Yoav Gallant, a fellow Likud Party member, prompted at least 150 demonstrations across Israel, according to police.

Crowds gathered around the Knesset building in Jerusalem after police deployed water cannons near Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem. Some demonstrators hoisted Israeli flags and shouted, “De-mo-cra-cy!” while others set fire to a major highway.

...Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister, another once-fringe settler extremist, has come out in support of the reform, saying that Gallant had “surrendered to the blackmail of the anarchists” — a word he has frequently used to describe the demonstrators.

Ben Gvir has vowed to advance legislation that would cancel Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, in which he has been indicted in three separate cases and faces potential prison time.

Here's some Twitter tweets I came across today about the uproar in Israel.

Good and bad of Mayor Hoy's 2023 State of the City address

A few days ago Salem Mayor Chris Hoy gave his first State of the City address at the Salem Convention Center. You can read what he had to say by clicking on the "continuation" link at the end of this blog post.

Hoy's talk was well-written and informative. I came away impressed by the rundown on what has been accomplished in Salem. 

The homelessness section made me think that maybe, just maybe, we're finally making a dent in the number of people without a place of their own to call home. The micro shelters are helping with this. The Navigation Center to be opened in a few months sounds like a terrific addition to our homeless services.

I noticed in the section of the speech below that Mayor Hoy failed to mention that a big reason why the homeless person wasn't arrested for methamphetamine use is Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs like meth.

I'm a supporter of Measure 110, so I wanted to point out that it facilitates addicts asking for help, since now they don't have to worry about jail time. Hoy said: 

In fact, an officer recently contacted an individual living on the streets who was an admitted methamphetamine addict. He told the officer he was ready for help. The officer knew it was critical to get the person into help right then. Through his contacts with local service providers, they were collectively able to get him into substance abuse treatment. Previous approaches would have resulted in the individuals arrest, but now he is getting the intervention he needs that will hopefully help him break the cycle of addiction. 

Mayor Hoy says that paid on-street parking in the downtown area is inevitable. Well, maybe. I just hope that before the City Council approves downtown parking meters, doing away with the current 3-hour free on-street parking, there's a genuine attempt to gauge public opinion on this.

City officials shouldn't assume that the people pushing for parking meters, which I suspect includes the Salem Main Street Association, truly represent a broad cross-section of downtown visitors, business owners, and residents.

Given that I strongly suspect the push to bring back commercial passenger air service to the Salem airport is doomed to fail like previous attempts have, the laudatory mention of this effort by Mayor Hoy may not age well when looked at in a few years.

Since air travel is one of the biggest ways individuals contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions, it's perplexing that Hoy, who strongly supported the Salem Climate Action Plan, is so positive about bringing commercial passenger air travel to the Salem airport.

My biggest problem with Mayor Hoy's talk was his unabashed support for adding 70 new officers to the Salem Police Department and 111 new firefighters to the Salem Fire Department. Those departments already suck up the majority of general fund tax dollars, about 60% to my understanding.

Crime rates in Salem are stable. Salem has about the same number of police officers per 1,000 population as other Oregon cities our size. So adding 70 new officers seems wildly out of place.

Fires are a small proportion of calls to the Fire Department, since it mostly is a "Medical Department." It's crazy that giant fire engines are used to respond to medical calls, that all of those engines need to be replaced at considerable cost, and that there's an effort to add 111 new firefighters to the Salem Fire Department without first looking at ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the department.

Mayor Hoy began his talk by saying "It's a time of fresh ideas." OK, then let's explore fresh ideas for the Police and Fire Departments that don't involve massive tax increases to pay for many more officers and firefighters who, apparently, would be doing the same un-fresh things.

You can read Mayor Hoy's talk below.

Conservative Salem city councilors flame out on neighborhood association motion

As I noted back in March 2022, before the May election for Mayor and half of the Salem City Council seats, the main qualification for Ward 6 candidate Julie Hoy seemed to be her last name -- which probably not coincidentally also is the last name of Chris Hoy, who was the previous Ward 6 councilor and now is Mayor Hoy.

So the way I see it, conservatives in Salem recruited Julie Hoy to be a right-wing replacement for Chris Hoy, hoping that their shared name would make Ward 6 voters think Julie was similar to Chris. Which, for sure, she isn't.

Because Chris Hoy is a progressive. And Julie Hoy is a conservative.

Evidence of Julie Hoy's political leaning came when she introduced a peculiar City Council motion aimed at having term limits for the Chair and Vice-Chair of neighborhood associations. That's such a weird idea, only someone with a right-wing agenda would think it made sense. 

After all, these days most conservatives mistrust democracy. They prefer to have decisions made from the top down rather the bottom up. So if neighborhood associations in Salem can be weakened by forcing current leaders to leave their positions, that's a dream come true for Julie Hoy.

This is a screenshot of Councilor Hoy doing her best to argue for her motion at the March 13 City Council meeting. Because she didn't have any good reasons for her term limits motion, that was an uphill battle.

In discussing her ill-considered motion, most of the progressive councilors politely said that Hoy's motion was put forward with "good will" and "good intentions." They're much nicer than I am. I think her motion was introduced with ill will and bad intentions. 

As was noted in the discussion period by Councilor Nordyke, with longevity of neighborhood association leaders comes institutional memory. So kicking the Chair and Vice-Chair out of office via term limits would tend to weaken neighborhood associations.

Further, elections for leadership positions are held regularly. If members of a neighborhood association don't like the job being done by the Chair and Vice Chair, they can be voted out.

Mayor Hoy added another reason to vote against Hoy's motion: he said that we don't like it when the state tries to take authority away from the city; likewise, neighborhood associations don't like being told what to do by the City of Salem.

The vote on Councilor Hoy's motion was 6 against and 3 in favor. The three "ayes" came from the conservative members of the City Council: Julie Hoy, Deanna Gwyn, and Jose Gonzalez. The six "nays" came from the progressive members: Vanessa Nordyke, Micki Varney, Virginia Stapleton, Linda Nishioka, Trevor Phillips, and Mayor Chris Hoy.

If Julie Hoy and her conservative colleagues want to make a difference on the City Council, they should shelve their right-wing agendas and work collaboratively with the progressives on policies that benefit everybody in Salem -- not just Republicans and other conservatives. 

Now we know Fox News doesn't care about news

Unless you're a MAGA sort of Republican who only watches Fox News, you should be aware that legal filings submitted by Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox have made it crystal clear that Fox News doesn't care about reporting the truth.

All it cares about is keeping its viewers happy by telling them only what they want to believe, not what they should know.

So bizarrely, Fox News hasn't been reporting on the lawsuit that is one of the biggest news stories in the country right now.

Because court documents show that both executives and on-air personalities at Fox News knew that the 2020 election wasn't stolen from Trump, but they were afraid to tell their viewers this truth out of a fear that they'd turn off Fox and go to even crazier right-wing media like OAN.

Thus Fox News spread lies about Dominion machines switching votes from Trump to Biden, and gave lots of airtime to other conspiracy theories concerning Trump's Big Lie that he actually won the presidential election.

Watching coverage of the Fox News scandal today, I was struck by a mention on MSNBC that for lots of Fox News viewers, probably a majority, Fox is the only place they go to learn about what's happening.

By contrast, liberals like me have many options. I watch CNN and MSNBC. I read the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other news sources that I find on Google News and elsewhere.

This makes the failure of Fox News to accurately report news more serious than it would be if avid conservatives could turn to other sources of information about current events in the United States and the rest of the world.

Sometimes I wonder how my mother, a hard core Republican, would look upon the sorry state of conservatism in our country. She was an intellectual. My mother loved to learn. She devoured books and magazines, along with listening to right-wing radio commentators like Paul Harvey.

I'm pretty sure she would be aghast at how so many modern-day Republicans care so little about truth. My mother could be an annoying person to talk politics with, because she had such strong conservative opinions.

But she always tried to be factual.

That's why even though as a divorced woman without much money during my childhood, my mother subscribed to all of the major news magazines in the 1950s and 60s. Time, Life, Look, Saturday Review, National Geographic, National Review (a conservative publication with smart, well written stories).

There's simply no basis for saying that in 2023 Fox News and MSNBC, say, are equally biased toward one side of the political spectrum. Fox News lies. MSNBC either tells the truth or admits when it got something wrong. 

 

This blogger is irked at a Florida bill aimed at censoring bloggers

Well, if Florida state Senator Jason Brodeur, a Republican, wanted to get himself criticized by bloggers, his introduction of a bill that would take away the free speech rights of bloggers was a genius move.

But unfortunately, Brodeur has other motivations than social media masochism.

That seems clear, given that Florida governor Ron DeSantis hates the media because they call him on his right-wing authoritarian bullshit.

It's unclear whether Brodeur's bill has a chance of becoming law.

Regardless, it grabbed the attention of the New York Times editorial board, which published "Florida Is Trying to Take Away the American Right to Speak Freely" today. Here's how it starts out:

A homeowner gets angry at a county commission over a zoning dispute and writes a Facebook post accusing a local buildings official of being in the pocket of developers.

A right-wing broadcaster criticizing border policies accuses the secretary of homeland security of being a traitor.

A parent upset about the removal of a gay-themed book from library shelves goes to a school board meeting and calls the board chair a bigot and a homophobe.

All three are examples of Americans engaging in clamorous but perfectly legal speech about public figures that is broadly protected by the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in a case that dates back nearly 60 years, ruled that even if that speech might be damaging or include errors, it should generally be protected against claims of libel and slander.

All three would lose that protection — and be subject to ruinous defamation lawsuits — under a bill that is moving through the Florida House and is based on longstanding goals of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The bill represents a dangerous threat to free expression in the United States, not only for the news media, but for all Americans, whatever their political beliefs. There’s still time for Florida lawmakers to reject this crude pandering and ensure that their constituents retain the right to free speech.

“This isn’t just a press issue,” said Bobby Block, executive director of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. “This is a death-to-public-discourse bill. Everyone, even conservatives, would have to second-guess themselves whenever they open their mouths to speak or sit in front of a keyboard.”

I don't make any money from blogging. My three blogs have never had any ads, and never will. Anyone can read what I write for free. In fact, I have to pay Typepad, my blogging service, an annual fee. So I lose money from blogging.

However, I have nothing against bloggers who get paid. After all, reporters get paid for their journalistic work, and blogging is a form of journalism -- just less formal and more opinionated than most other types.

The MaddowBlog on MSNBC describes the Florida bill.

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

As NBC News’ report added, the measure defines “elected state officer” as “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.”

Those who failed to comply could face thousands of dollars in state penalties.

If this approach sounds at all familiar, it might be because Vladimir Putin signed a similar measure — known as the “bloggers law” — in 2014, requiring online writers to register with the Russian government.

This bill is so horrible, and so obviously unconstitutional, that in normal times few people would take it seriously. But we don't live in normal times. 

Under Trump and his MAGA devotees, the Republican Party has dedicated itself to disparaging the media and promoting lies that, bizarrely, when the falsehoods are pointed out by reputable journalists, earns the epithet of "fake news," even though it's the lies that are truly fake news.

And the Supreme Court has shown that it is capable of taking away fundamental rights of Americans on a whim, as occurred when fifty years of women having the right to an abortion was trashed just because three Trump-appointed justices felt they wanted to do this and were part of a 6-3 majority.

Read the entire New York Times opinion piece to learn how bad the Florida bill is. It does more than just require paid bloggers to register with the state. 

The bill goes much further than this attempt to hobble the press. It makes it clear that the new defamation rules would also apply to any single “utterance on the internet,” which could mean a tweet or a Facebook post written by anyone, or “any one presentation to an audience,” which could include statements made at school board hearings and other public meetings.

In a direct attack on a key aspect of free expression, it says that whenever someone is accused of discriminating against others on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation, that accusation is automatically considered enough to sue for defamation.

Any person accused of bigotry based on sexual orientation or gender identity could file a defamation lawsuit and be virtually guaranteed of winning by saying the discrimination was based on personal religious or scientific beliefs. The penalty for calling someone a bigot would be a minimum of $35,000.