Salem Political Snark

Supreme Court gives Trump a big victory. But voters will decide his fate.

For progressives like me, or indeed anyone who wants to see Trump held accountable for his actions during the January 6 insurrection at the nation's capitol, today's Supreme Court decision was hugely disappointing.

Trump asked the court to put on hold the January 6 case being overseen by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan until the court could rule on his bizarre contention that a president has immunity for whatever  he or she does while in office.

Since it took the Supreme Court about two weeks before issuing a ruling on that request, many legal observers expected that the delay was caused by a conservative justice, such as Alito, needing time to write a minority opinion if the court let stand a unanimous decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals that a president isn't immune for criminal acts committed during their term in office.

Well, those observers were wrong. The two week delay appears to be an effort to give Trump what he has  been angling for in all of his civil and criminal cases: delay. The court's order today was only a page long. Hard to see how that would take two weeks to compose.

Worse, the court set the week of April 22 as the date for briefing regarding the immunity claim. No matter that both the Justice Department and Trump's attorneys had fully briefed this issue before a district judge and the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court delayed their hearing on this case for almost two months.

Then the court will have to issue an opinion, which could either happen rapidly (unlikely) or as late as the end of June, when the current court session ends.

Since Judge Chutkan has given Trump's legal team 88 days to prepare for trial, this means that the trial may not begin until late September or early October, which is too close to the election to fit with a Justice Department policy prohibiting actions near to an election that could sway the outcome. 

(James Comey ignored this policy when he spoke in a negative fashion about Hillary Clinton's email server just before the 2016 election, even though no charges were brought against Clinton.)

A story in Mother Jones describes how dangerous it would be if the Supreme Court were somehow to rule that a president is immune from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office.

Trump’s theory of absolute immunity for former presidents is radical and dangerous, elevating the office of the president to a king-like status above the law. Trump’s lawyers are asking the court to find that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for actions taken in the course of their presidency unless they are first impeached and convicted by Congress over the same issue. 

The DC federal district court and a federal appeals court disagreed with this theory, leading to Trump’s last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court. If his theory is ultimately upheld, it could lead to absurd results. During oral arguments before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, a Trump lawyer acknowledged that by his logic a president could order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political opponent and avoid prosecution for it unless he was first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate for that crime.

...This is not the only way that Trump’s theory of immunity would subvert American democracy. If a president could attempt to overturn the results of an election with impunity, then the promise of a free and fair election is gone. As the appellate court held on February 9, “We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power—the recognition and implementation of election results.”

For these reasons, it’s unlikely that a majority of the justices will buy Trump’s sweeping immunity claim. But regardless of what the high court eventually holds, the justices’ decision to take up the case delays his trial date, affording him a significant political win as he seeks to retake the White House.

If re-elected, he will presumably be in a position to have his Justice Department halt the prosecution, and escape one of the most significant avenues for accountability for his attempt to overturn the election.

All this is distressing. A reasonable response is outrage that the Supreme Court would play games with justice in a way that has a high probability of preventing a decision in the January 6 case before the November election.

This afternoon I watched Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell discuss on MSNBC the court's decision to take up the question of presidential immunity. Given the way this occurred -- slow walking Chutkan's case so a trial and verdict probably won't occur before the election -- Hayes and Maddow were in full outrage mode.

I couldn't disagree with what they were saying.

The public does indeed deserve to know whether a jury would convict Trump for his actions on January 6 before they vote on whether he should have another term as president. And it is indeed unlikely that even the conservative Supreme Court would end up ruling that whatever a president does, he or she is immune from prosecution for it, up to and including the murder of a political opponent.

But my heart was with O'Donnell. He lifted my spirits by saying that even if a jury is unable to reach a verdict on Trump's actions before the November election, this should spur citizens to issue their own "verdict" by voting for Trump's opponent, President Biden.

In other words, all is not lost. Democracy can still be saved. Trump can be held to account. If Trump loses the 2024 presidential election, there will be plenty of time to complete the legal cases against him, which includes the January 6 case.

So there needs to be an all-out push to defeat Trump and reelect Biden. Though the Supreme Court has tilted toward Trump, American voters can tilt toward protecting democracy. 

The Kid's Guide to President Trump is a scam. Naturally.

Driving around today, while listening to MSNBC on satellite radio I was surprised to hear an ad for The Kid's Guide to President Trump. 

Curious to learn what this was all about, when I got home I headed to the web site mentioned in the ad. Yes, there it was -- not only the guide itself but a bundle!

Even though I don't have any kids (my 52 year old daughter is an avid progressive, and no longer a kid), I like free stuff. So I was eager to get a free Kid's Guide to the Presidential Election if I ordered The Kid's Guide to President Trump.

But then I noticed the asterisks around *free*. While these weren't quotation marks, they seemed to serve the same purpose of indicating that *free*, like "free," was different from the usual sense of the word.

Indeed, down at the very bottom of the web page, there was a tiny link that said *Offer Details.

The details of the offer showed that Mike Huckabee was engaging in a thinly-disguised scam, which struck me as entirely appropriate for a web site aimed at praising Donald Trump.

It turned out that after you paid $2.00 for shipping and processing of the bundle, you'd then be billed monthly for other stuff that cost much more.

Approximately 30 days after we send your first Kids Guides, we will begin to send you two new titles from The Kids Guide or other great educational content from eSpired, every 3-4 weeks. These items will be automatically billed the low price of $14.98 each ($29.96 total) to the credit or debit card that we have on file, plus sales tax where applicable. Shipping is free. You can easily cancel at any time through your member account at members.espired.com or complete the contact us form found at espired.com/contact-us. Provided your account remains active and in good standing, your membership in The 1776 Kids Club will continue at no additional cost to you.  

I suspect that it actually isn't so easy to cancel the recurring credit/debit card charges, but that's just my reasonable assumption given how this whole Kid's Guide to President Trump thing reeks with a scammy odor.

That assumption is supported by customer reviews of espired on a Better Business Bureau web page. Here's a sampling.

Julie Hoy has much more money than Chris Hoy in Salem Mayor race

As I noted in the title of a post from last November, "It'll be Hoy vs. Hoy in 2024 Salem Mayor race. Marvelous!"

Julie Hoy and Chris Hoy

City councilor Julie Hoy and incumbent Mayor Chris Hoy aren't related. They also aren't in the same ballpark when it comes to the current state of their campaign finances, according to the ORESTAR system that tracks this in Oregon.

It's a familiar story when it comes to local races in Salem. Almost always, the conservative candidate (in this case Julie Hoy) raises more money than the progressive candidate (in this case Chris Hoy).

Here's how their campaigns stack up at the moment, with several months remaining until the May election. There's plenty of time for Chris Hoy to ramp up his campaign, but so far the money momentum decidedly favors Julie Hoy.

2024 contributions
Julie Hoy: $57,788
Chris Hoy: $5,216

2024 expenditures
Julie Hoy: $28,428
Chris Hoy: $594

Cash balance
Julie Hoy: $41,419
Chris Hoy: $16,656

Number of contributors in 2024
Julie Hoy: 50
Chris Hoy: 16

Largest contributor
Julie Hoy: $20,000 from Lawrence Tokarski
Chris Hoy: $2,500 from Trevor Phillips

Christian fundamentalism behind wacko Alabama court decision on IVF

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a popular way for women to have a child who have trouble conceiving in the usual fashion. A CNN story says that about 2% of births in this country are from IVF. It works this way:

In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is when an egg is removed from a woman’s body and combined with sperm inside a laboratory before being implanted, said Dr. Eve Feinberg, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

To accomplish that, patients undergo eight to 10 days of fertility injections with hormones that help their eggs mature, said Dr. Mamie McLean, an infertility specialist at Alabama Fertility in Birmingham. Egg retrieval procedures are done either in an outpatient or hospital setting and sometimes under conscious sedation, she added.

After fertilization, doctors watch the embryos as they develop, and what Feinberg often sees is that human reproduction is really inefficient, she said.

If 10 eggs are exposed to sperm, about seven will fertilize, she said. Of those seven, only 25% to 50% will grow in the laboratory long enough to be considered a more mature embryo called a blastocyst, Feinberg said.

From there, depending on the age of the patient, the blastocyst has between a 10% and 60% likelihood of becoming a baby, she said.

Because human reproduction is so inefficient, fertilized IVF eggs are commonly frozen, one reason being that the woman then will have another chance of conceiving if the first IVF treatment fails. Those eggs only consist of a small number of cells, so in no sense could they be considered a child.

Well, unless you're the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled recently that after some frozen eggs were accidentally destroyed, this was a serious offense, because in the court's view life begins at conception, so the small number of cells has the rights of a person.

This is a crazy conclusion. It makes no sense. So the court had to resort to some fundamentalist Christian theology to justify their wacko legal decision. A USA Today story says:

An Alabama Supreme Court's ruling has torn open a long-simmering and emotionally charged debate about whether some aspects of in vitro fertilization represent a form of abortion and should be banned under religious principles.

Christian opposition to abortion has long driven the debate over reproductive rights. Abortion opponents say life begins at conception, and even a handful of cells deserves the same legal protections as a person.

In his concurring opinion last week, Chief Justice Tom Parker, an elected Republican, invoked similar reasoning.

"In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself."

This is the dream of Christian nationalists, who wrongly believe that the United States was founded on Christian principles, so our laws need to be examined through the lens of what the Christian God supposedly wants our country to become.

Which is complete and utter B.S. of course. Leaving aside the not-insignificant problem that there's no convincing evidence that any sort of God exists, much less the Christian conception of God, there's no way the Alabama Supreme Court, or anyone else, could claim to know what God wants.

Such as an end to IVF, which is a decided possibility in Alabama following the court's decision. Some Alabama legislators want to make sure that IVF remains legal in their state, but court members have said that this wouldn't matter, as the Alabama constitution would forbid it.

The only good I can see coming out of this attack on IVF is that it illustrates the craziness at the heart of Republican politics. Most Republicans say they are "pro life." Well, IVF is a way of bringing children into the world, so you'd think that Republicans would favor the procedure. 

Which, I suspect, most do. Especially female Republicans. But the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party is in charge both now and for the foreseeable future.

So likely we'll see other red states following in Alabama's footsteps, instituting their own unpopular policies on IVF because, hey, a small number of frozen cells in a laboratory is a person with more rights than the couple hoping IVF will enable them to have a baby.

Bill to make standard time permanent in Oregon falters in legislature

Good news today for most people in Oregon, given that national polls show that about 2/3 of people either want daylight saving time made permanent, or favor sticking with the current twice-yearly time change, and there's no reason to think Oregonians feel differently.

But state Senator Kim Thatcher figures that she knows best, so she introduced SB 1548, which would make standard time permanent in our state. I think this is a terrible idea. Here's the reasons why that I included in messages to my state senator and representative where I urged a "no" vote on the bill.

(1) This bill affects every Oregonian. It deserves wide discussion and debate, not a rushed vote in a short session of the legislature.

 

(2) National polls show that most Americans favor daylight saving time, either in permanent or the current eight-month form. There’s no reason to think that Oregonians are any different.

 

(3) If SB 1548 passed, Oregon would only be the third state to have permanent standard time, joining Hawaii and Arizona. Those states are much farther south than Oregon with much more daylight year round.

 

(4) SB 1548 would put Oregon in a different time zone than Washington, California, and every other state other than Hawaii and Arizona. So every trip across the Columbia River would put an Oregonian in a different time zone, as would crossing into Idaho or California.

 

(5) Oregonians hugely value outdoor activities. This bill takes away an hour of daylight in the evening from March until November, which is when the weather is best for walking, hiking, biking, and other activities outdoors.

Today SB 1548 was voted on in the senate. At first it failed on a 15-15 tie. Then Thatcher changed her vote to "no" so she could make a motion to reconsider the bill. That had to be done today given rules for the short legislative session. 

One senator agreed to keep SB 1548 alive by requiring that the bill be sent back to the Rules Committee so language could be added that says Oregon would only move to permanent standard time after Washington and California pass legislation to do this. This passed on a 16-14 vote.

I'd prefer that SB 1548 be killed completely, but this was a positive move for us lovers of daylight saving time. This month Washington failed to pass a bill to make standard time permanent in our neighbor to the north for the second year in a row. Hopefully that trend will continue.

In California, a bill to make standard time permanent, AB 1776, was introduced in the state legislature this year. Because it modifies a voter-approved initiative, the bill needs a 2/3 vote in the legislature to be approved, which is a pretty high bar. Also good news.

So even if the Oregon legislature were to pass SB 1548, since the amended version will require Washington and California to make standard time permanent before SB 1548 takes effect, it sure seems like our neighboring states are unlikely to do this soon, though politics is full of surprises.

The Oregon Capital Chronicle has a good story by Julia Shumway about today's SB 1548 happenings. Like I said, the bill survived, but given the low probability of both Washington and California approving legislation to make standard time permanent in the near future, the agreement to amend the bill is the next best thing to killing it. Here's excerpts from Shumway's story. Sara Gelser Blouin is my state senator. Good to see that she voted "no" on the bill, offering some good reasons why.

An effort to switch Oregon to permanent standard time will live to see another day after hitting a temporary roadblock on Tuesday when the state Senate split evenly on the bill.

It takes 16 “yes” votes to pass a bill in the 30-member Senate, and Sen. Kim Thatcher’s Senate Bill 1548had just 15 senators on board when it first came up for a vote on Tuesday. That set the Keizer Republican and other supporters on a mission to change a colleague’s mind or find a compromise in the minutes before the Senate adjourned for the day and dashed all hopes for ending the twice-annual clock change.

Several hushed, intense conversations later, Thatcher and Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, D-Portland, had a solution: Instead of trying to have Oregon lead the way on switching to standard time and hoping other West Coast states would catch up, supporters agreed to amend the bill to add a trigger clause clarifying that Oregon would only ditch daylight saving time if and when Washington and California do the same. 

...Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, represents a vast section of eastern Oregon including Malheur County, which is on Mountain time and would have ended up two hours ahead of the rest of Oregon if the bill passed as drafted. Findley supported it.

But Sen. Bill Hansell, the Athena Republican who represents northeast Oregon, had the same concerns as Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Democrat who represents north Portland. Hansell said his constituents, many of whom do business in Washington and go to Walla Walla, Washington, for services that aren’t available in smaller eastern Oregon cities, want to make sure they stay in the same zone as Washington. 

Dembrow sees the same issue on a larger scale in Portland, where thousands of people commute between Portland and Vancouver or southwest Washington each day. 

“What that means is that for two-thirds of the year, Portland will be an hour different from Vancouver and southwest Washington,” he said. “All of those people – there are thousands of people who live in southwest Washington and commute to Oregon, or vice versa, are going to have to change their watches twice every day.” 

...Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, said switching to standard time might make more sense in southern states that don’t see the same swings in daylight hours. Portland is dark for nearly 16 hours a day in December, while the sun is out for more than 15 hours in peak summer. Her constituents and her brother have strong feelings about ending the annual switch, which Gelser Blouin said her brother calls “abuse of clocks.” 

Gelser Blouin said she understands arguments for keeping standard time for students who need to get to school safely. The sun has been rising earlier and earlier for the past few weeks, and by March 9, the last day before daylight saving time begins, it’ll rise around 6:30 a.m. The following Monday, the sun won’t rise until 7:30 a.m. But Gelser Blouin said the real problem to fix is early school start times. 

“With apologies to my brother, my no vote will once again support ‘abuse of clocks,’” she said. 

Owner of property where Liberty Fire began allowed use of ATVs that started fire

Thanks to an informative story by Capi Lynn in today's print edition of the Statesman Journal, we learned the cause of the August 23, 2023 brush fire in south Salem known as the Liberty Fire, because it was adjacent to Liberty Road.

The fire grabbed the attention of me and our neighbors out here in rural south Salem because we live off of Liberty Road about five miles from where the fire started. Yes, that's quite a ways, but brush fires can move very rapidly under windy conditions.

And of course the fire was of vastly more concern to the people living near the Liberty Fire. Fortunately, quick competent fire fighting work led to only 50 acres being burned, with no homes lost, though quite a few people had to evacuate their homes.

That's the good news. The bad news in the Statesman Journal story, which I found deeply disturbing, was that Terry Kelly, the owner of the property where the fire started, allowed his grandchildren to ride ATVs in tall grass, which caused the fire.

The [Salem Fire Department] report confirms what the newspaper reported the day after the fire. It originated in a field at 6331 Liberty Road S. and was caused by the hot exhaust of an ATV contacting dry vegetation.

The property owner is listed on the report as Terry Kelly, a local developer familiar to many in Salem. He is a former partner in Pence/Kelly Construction and Creekside Golf Club.

Kelly also is listed in the Liberty Fire report as a witness. He did not respond to an interview request.

It's too bad that Kelly wouldn't talk to the Statesman Journal, because he has a lot to answer for. Kelly talked with an investigator from the Fire Department on the day of the fire. He said that he'd given permission to his grandchildren to ride ATVs on the property. While they were taking a lunch break, the fire broke out.

There's essentially no doubt that the ATVs started the fire. A neighbor saw black spots behind the ATVs, with the fire becoming clearly evident soon after.

The Fire Department ruled out the other two possible causes: there was no evidence of a power line starting the fire, and no evidence that sunlight hitting glass in the grassy field started the fire, as Kelly hypothesized. The investigator searched for glass in the field and didn't find any.

Hopefully Terry Kelly will talk to a reporter before too long, because the public needs to understand what was going through his mind when he allowed his grandchildren to ride ATVs on his property. All the signs pointed to him needing to tell them a big loud NO!

-- the ATV's were operated in tall dry grass
-- four 100 degree days happened in Salem the week before
-- Marion County had said that ATVs could only be used on improved roads, except for farming
-- local officials had warned about increasing fire danger

Trump owes $454 million in civil case penalty. Don't vote for this fraudster.

Justice is finally catching up to Donald Trump. He's spent his whole adult life, and surely part of his childhood, feeling like he can get away with anything, thanks to the power of money he inherited from his father and subsequent business dealings that not only skirted the law, but sometimes broke the law.

He's been found legally liable for defrauding people who signed up for Trump University. He's been found legally liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll, who he sexually assaulted and then lied about her making the story up. His list of other lawsuits and indictments goes on and on in a Wikipedia page.

And today a judge ruled that Trump's company has to pay $355 million ($450 million including interest) for making fraudulent business statements. Apologists for Trump like to say that this was a "victimless" crime, but that's not how New York law works. Here's one person's summary of the fraudulent things that were done.

This is how the $355 million judgment turned into a $454 million judgment. 


The judge who tried the case and determined the penalty (Trump's legal team agreed to have the case decided by a judge instead of a jury) had some biting words about the Trump family. I liked the final paragraph below so much, I'll restate it:

The Court is not constituted to judge morality; it is constituted to find facts and apply the law. In this particular case, in applying the law to the facts, the Court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole. Defendant's refusal to admit error -- indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor -- constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.

Given all the fuss about President Biden apparently forgetting dates and mixing up the names of world leaders, this observation about how Trump and his children don't recall basic facts is a great counterpoint. Plus, Biden has never been found guilty by a court of fraud and defamation, while Trump has.

What boggles my mind isn't so much that Trump has been found guilty of serious offenses, with more guilty verdicts likely to come, because this is what Trump so evidently is: a liar and fraudster. Rather, what I can't fathom is how so many Americans, roughly 45% or so, currently believe that Trump deserves a second term as president.

I've been closely following presidential races since 1968, about 55 years. There's never been a serious candidate for the presidency with anywhere near the moral, ethical, and legal shortcomings of Donald Trump. Even Richard Nixon comes across as a paragon of righteousness compared to Trump.

I can't decide whether Trump has cajoled the bulk of the Republican Party into believing that all of his legal woes are a nefarious plot by Trump-hating prosecutors, or if Republicans simply are no longer the party of law and order as they used to be.

Probably it's a bit of both.

I just know that Ronald Reagan would have been aghast at how so many of today's Republicans are opposed to giving more aid to Ukraine because they don't mind if Putin succeeds in his goal of reconstituting the old Soviet Union. After all, Reagan was strongly against the Soviet Union.

And Republicans traditionally stood for strong moral values. Even if I disagreed with their stand on certain issues, like same-sex marriage, I could respect their passion for doing what they viewed as the right thing.

But now Republicans are fine with Trump trashing morality by lying, cheating, and stealing his way through life and politics. Hopefully they'll come to their senses by election day and realize that a vote for Trump is a vote against what made America great: truth, justice, and high moral standards.

I love Oregon's land use system. But it will survive some legislative tweaking.

On this Valentines Day it seems appropriate to express my love for Oregon's land use system. It dates from 1973, shortly after when I moved to Oregon in 1971 to attend graduate school at Portland State University.

So yeah, I guess Senate Bill 100, which established the land use system, was intended in part to protect our state's farm and forest land from Californians like me. A Department of Land Conservation and Development web page summarizes the bill.

Oregonians in the 1960s and '70s became concerned as they watched rapid population growth begin to take place around the state. Lawmakers responded with Senate Bill 100, which Governor Tom McCall signed into law in 1973. At that time, farming and timber harvesting were the state’s largest industries and many Oregonians thought eventual development of land for new homes and industries would displace these economic engines. SB 100 tied local planning to a set of guiding statewide principles. The new law created the Land Conservation and Development Commission to craft the rules that guide the system. May 2023 marks the 50th Anniversary of Oregon's Land Use Planning Program.

Whenever you leave the city limits of an Oregon town and are instantly into a rural environment, rather than the sprawl that surrounds cities in most other states, you can thank our land use system's provision of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). And those who have worked tirelessly to protect the proper use of UGBs, notably 1000 Friends of Oregon and associated groups like Friends of Marion County.

Those supporters of the land use system, and the current approach to expanding UGBs, were pleased when the 2023 legislature adjourned without passing a controversial bill, HB 3414. It was aimed at expanding affordable housing and failed by one vote. I wrote about this in "Here's the dumbest thing Oregon Republicans did this legislative session."

Stupidity isn't limited to one political party, for sure. There's plenty of dumb moves made by both Democrats and Republicans. 

But I've got to give the award for the most egregious display of political cluelessness in the Oregon legislative session that concluded yesterday to four Republican senators and one independent, who I assume was Brian Boquist, as he used to be a Republican.

For even though the six-week walkout by Senate Republicans had ended after Democrats agreed to water down two bills dealing with abortion and gun control, those five senators didn't attend the last day of the session yesterday, Sunday, June 25.

As the Oregonian reports in "Oregon bill to accelerate housing development with change to urban growth boundaries fails by 1 vote," their absence doomed House Bill 3414, a Republican priority.

A contentious bill to increase Oregon’s supply of affordable housing failed Sunday by a single vote in the waning hours of the 2023 legislative session as five lawmakers who might have supported it remained out of the building.

House Bill 3414, introduced at the request of Gov. Tina Kotek, sought to accelerate housing development by streamlining planning and permitting, allowing variances to a variety of building requirements, and establishing a new state office to hold local jurisdictions accountable for meeting their communities’ housing needs.

The key, controversial provision added in recent days also would have allowed cities to expand their urban growth boundaries by up to 150 acres to accommodate more housing, provided some of it was highly affordable, without the usual process.

...The bill had unanimous support from Republicans present for the vote Sunday, but fell one vote short of the 16 it needed to pass the Senate on a day when four Republican lawmakers and one independent were absent following their walkout this session. Ten Democrats in the Senate also opposed the bill.

This was a golden opportunity for Republicans to pass a bill that weakened Oregon's land use system, which is much beloved by Democrats and environmentalists who favor strong urban growth boundaries that protect farm and forest land from unnecessary development. 

But I guess the four Republican senators and one independent were so enamored with their previous walkout -- which was the longest in Oregon history and the second longest in the nation -- that they couldn't resist staying away from their legislative duties until the session ended.

In the short legislative session happening this month, Governor Kotek is making another try at passing affordable housing bills. Once again, the most controversial part of them is granting cities a one-time shot at expanding their Urban Growth Boundary. 

The good news is that the 150 acre maximum expansion has been reduced to 50 or 100 acres, according to a 1000 Friends of Oregon report on the status of HB 1537.

What it does: The base bill of Governor Kotek’s housing bill, SB 1537, includes two provisions we strongly support: creation of the Housing Production Accountability Office and revolving loan funds for housing. It also initially included good infrastructure investment tools, some of which have since been wrapped into SB 1530 and are no longer part of SB 1537 now that the dash-9 amendment is adopted. 

SB 1537 also has a flaw we can’t support: provisions that would override land use and environmental laws. SB 1537 would allow cities to expand their UGBs by at least 50 or 100 acres for residential and other uses, without following land use laws, to allow private developers to build homes primarily for people with higher incomes. (That UGB expansion acreage is down from 75 and 150 acres thanks to the dash-9 amendment, which reflects effective advocacy work by community organizations and individual Oregonians). 

The bad news is that it appears likely that some sort of exemption of UGB expansion from land use laws will pass the legislature. However, the way I see it, Oregon's land use system has undergone many changes during its 50 year history. Most have been good. Some have been bad.

So even if some tweaks are made this year, our pioneering land use system will survive and hopefully prosper. Nature is continually changing. Our approach to preserving farm and and forest land must change also, or it will become so rigid, it won't be able to adapt to changing political and societal conditions.

Oregon needs daylight saving time, not permanent standard time

One of the worst bills introduced in this year's short legislative session calls for Oregon to move to permanent standard time, thereby doing away with the much-beloved (by me and many others) daylight saving time.

This is a horrible idea.

State Senator Kim Thatcher of Keizer introduced Senate Bill 1548, which hopefully will have a well-deserved legislative death. Senator Deb Patterson, who represents part of the Salem area, is a co-sponsor of the bill. I hope she comes to her senses.

Oregon already has passed legislation calling on Congress to allow our state, along with Washington and California, to be on permanent daylight saving time. This would have several benefits: no more changing of clocks twice a year, more light in the late afternoon and early evening when most people want to be outside after work or school.

National polls show that most Americans prefer permanent daylight saving time. For example:


Two-thirds of those polled said they prefer daylight saving time in some form, permanent or part of the year, with just one-third preferring permanent standard time.

We'll be returning to daylight saving time on March 10. I can hardly wait. It's great to be able to walk our dog in the late afternoon when the sun is still shining brightly, instead of close to or after it sets. My mood perks up when daylight saving time returns. 

Sure, it's a bit of an inconvenience to switch clocks twice a year. I adjust to the change in sleep pattern quite easily, though I realize others have more of a problem with this. Well, the solution for them is to press Congress to approve the request of Oregon, Washington, and California to make daylight saving time permanent in the west coast states.

It sure isn't to pass unpopular legislation making standard time permanent. The only states that have done this are Hawaii and Arizona. Note their characteristics: they have lots of sun and are much farther south than Oregon!

There's no way Senate Bill 1548 should even have a hearing, much less be considered a serious legislative proposal.

This subject deserves a lot of consideration and public input. Given the popularity of daylight saving time, it's much better to do nothing and preserve the status quo where Oregon enjoys daylight saving time for part of the year, than to rush into permanent standard time.

You can read about the benefits of daylight saving time in "Daylight Saving Time Is Actually a Good Thing." Excerpt:

In reality, DST is an eight-month experiment designed to make life, well, more pleasurable for humans. The basic idea: In the Western world, we typically spend more awake time in the evenings than in the mornings. We also enjoy many benefits from being awake in the sunshine. This National Institutes of Health overview is a good place to read about vitamin D, increased exercise, increased socializing, and overall improvements to mental health that come with sunlight.

Absent DST, for eight months per year our days would not be structured to enjoy the most sunlight possible. Our mornings would be bright and cheerful, but the sun would tend to be set before we leave work each day. This stinks! This gives the average 9-5 adult very little time to enjoy sunlight.

So during the spring, summer, and early autumn, we tweak it, just a bit, so that there’s more sunlight in the evening. In the winter, we abandon DST, because there just isn’t enough sunlight to make a difference. Winter is pretty much a dark hellworld no matter how it’s scheduled. Winter DST would give us a very, very late sunrise and not enough light in the evening to provide the effects we want.

Well, I disagree with that last conclusion. And it doesn't fit with the preference of 46% of Americans for permanent daylight saving time. But like I said, eight months of daylight saving time is much better than no daylight saving time. I'm fine with leaving things as they are. What I'm strongly opposed to is the screwy idea of permanent standard time.

Biden's too old and forgetful to be president. So is Trump. We're screwed.

It didn't take long for my reading of a story about the special counsel's report on Biden's retention of classified documents after he was no longer vice-president to turn from yay, good news to oh no, bad news.

The good news was that Robert Hur, the special counsel who was a holdover Trump appointee, determined that Biden shouldn't be charged with a crime.

That's a big contrast with Trump, who is facing "40 felony charges related to the documents case, including charges of obstruction of justice and violation of the Espionage Act for willfully retaining national defense information."

But then I read one reason why Hur isn't charging Biden. This was gigantic bad news to my Democratic political sensibilities. 

That [special counsel] report concluded that no criminal charges were warranted but did so, in large part, by saying a jury would be sympathetic to Biden, who was described as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Ouch. That hurts.

Biden more than me, obviously. Yet since I want Biden to beat Trump this November, and Biden's age/mental acuity is a major issue for voters, the examples of Biden's poor memory in the special counsel report were really disturbing.

Investigators found insufficient evidence to charge Biden for mishandling classified documents during his time as vice president but wrote his memory “appeared to have significant limitations” and that “he did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” in 2015. Biden could not remember when he was vice president or the details of a debate about sending additional troops to Afghanistan, they said.

Wow. Biden talks about the death of Beau a lot. It's a hugely emotional issue for him, even after nine years. I can understand how Biden could forget the date of other important things -- we all do occasionally -- but when his son died seemingly would be etched in his memory.

The Trump campaign undoubtedly already is busily engaged in creating ads that make use of the damning language about Biden's memory in the special counsel report.

Yes, Hur shouldn't have taken cheap shots at Biden, instead limiting his report to a "just the facts" description of why charges aren't being brought against Biden. What Hur did basically is what Comey did to Hillary Clinton in 2016 just before the presidential election: editorialize in a negative way publicly about the person being investigated, even though they did nothing criminal.

Biden was entirely justified in getting angry at the reference to Beau in the report. His anger came through loud and clear in a press conference Biden held this evening, much of which I was able to hear on the radio as I was driving to my Tai Chi class.

I liked the anger. I didn't like the sarcasm and irritation Biden demonstrated when reporters asked about his memory and fitness to be president. He sounded like an angry old man, which he is (and which I can be also, but I'm not president of the United States). 

On the whole, I came away feeling that the press conference was a good idea, since Biden couldn't let Hur's statements go unchallenged. However, when I learned that in responding to a question about the Israel-Hamas war, Biden mixed up the leaders of Mexico and Egypt, the press conference seemed like a net negative for Biden.

Biden insisted “my memory is fine,” although he later mistakenly referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the leader of Mexico when he answered a reporter’s question about the Israel-Hamas war.

Since Biden was trying to convince Americans that his memory is fine, it wasn't a good look when, a few minutes after getting angry at Hur for saying that his memory was faulty, Biden said the Egyptian president was the leader of Mexico.

Trump also has serious memory problems. Recently he said that Nikki Haley was in charge of security in the House on January 6, 2021, while he should have said it was Nancy Pelosi. (Actually Pelosi wasn't in charge, either, but at least she was the House Speaker at the time.)

So like the majority of Americans, I deeply wish that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump weren't running for president again. It's utterly bizarre that in a nation of well over 300 million people, these old guys are competing for who will be in the White House for four more years.

And I say that as an old guy myself, albeit a bit younger than Biden and Trump. I'm unenthusiastic about both men, though obviously I consider Biden hugely more qualified and competent than Trump. I'll surely vote for Biden this November. 

But I'd be much happier voting for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who strikes me as an excellent replacement for Biden should he come to his senses and decide to withdraw as a Democratic presidential candidate.

Hey, I can dream.

Hey, I can dream. dd

That scathing description came just as Biden’s aides were trying to explain away the president’s most recent verbal gaffes — in which he mixed up the heads of state and recalled recent conversations with world leaders who died long ago.

ddddd