Posted inCurrent affairs

“The True Cost” film shows need for fair global trade

Some of the 2016 presidential candidates -- notably Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders -- make it sound like global trade is a bad thing. They talk about bringing jobs back to America and even forcing manufacturers like Apple to make their products in the United States.  In discussions with fellow liberals, I've questioned the wisdom of this negative attitude toward international trade.  I'll argue that while global trade agreements have caused some jobs to be lost in this country, overall international trade (a.k.a. "globalization") has been positive for the world as a whole. Many millions of people have been lifted…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem City Councilor Warren Bednarz accused of ethics violations

Over on my new Salem Political Snark blog I've put up a post about two complaints that have been filed with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission against Warren Bednarz, a city councilor.  Check out "City Councilor Warren Bednarz hit with ethics complaints."  Both relate to Bednarz' failure to declare a conflict of interest when he voted on motions before the City Council that would financially benefit members of his family. After a preliminary review of the first complaint, it was considered serious enough by Commission staff to warrant an investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. ...The second ethics complaint is…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Progressive Salem should endorse Carole Smith for Mayor

I'm a proud member of Progressive Salem, an organization out to get progressive candidates elected to local offices. But I disagree with the board of directors' decision to stay neutral in the upcoming Mayor's race. Of the two candidates, Carole Smith and Chuck Bennett, Smith clearly seems to be the most progressive. (I couldn't find a web site for Bennett.) I say this for some good reasons.  (1) Tom Andersen being on the short side of 8-1 votes. Chuck Bennett currently is a Salem City Council member who represents Ward 1, the downtown area. Tom Andersen was elected to the City…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Open letter to Oregon’s governor from a pissed-off wolf advocate

Dear Governor Kate Brown,  You made a big mistake when you signed anti-wolf House Bill 4040 not long ago. I'm a proud progressive who is deeply irritated by this, notwithstanding my agreement with you on many other issues. Oregon Wild says: I am sad to report that Monday night, Governor Kate Brown signed HB 4040. This bill shielded the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from public scrutiny and judicial review of their decision to strip endangered species protections from Oregon’s gray wolves. There was no signing ceremony. There were no smiling politicians or stakeholders standing behind the Governor as…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Why Gov. Brown should veto the horrible Oregon wolf bill, HB 4040

A lot of Democrats/progressives in Oregon consider the just-completed 2016 legislative session to have been a success. But in my view the passage of HB 4040, which aligns our state with science-denying, anti-environment right-wing extremism that I'd hoped would be confined to Congressional craziness, is a huge negative that takes away from the positive steps taken: increasing Oregon's minimum wage, eliminating coal as an energy source, promoting more affordable housing. Here's how the Center for Biological Diversity describes the bill, which awaits Governor Brown's signature. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill tonight ratifying the delisting of wolves in Oregon and…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem citizens: save lives by sending an email to the City Council

Look, I know it's a cliche: "It's about saving the children." But in this case it's true. And not only the children -- we're also talking about saving the lives of everybody who works at or visits the Salem City Hall and Library.  I feel strongly about this, earthquake-proofing the Civic Center buildings so they won't collapse in a major earthquake. We in the Pacific Northwest know this is a matter of when, not if, because hugely powerful Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes occur with semi-predictable regularity.  And Oregon is due. For The Really Big One. Unfortunately, City officials have lost…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Eye-opening, disturbing, inspiring: “Where to Invade Next” movie

My wife and I just got back from seeing Michael Moore's new movie, "Where to Invade Next," at Salem Cinema. We hugely enjoyed it.  It should be a political game-changer for the United States. Unfortunately, the people who should see it, those who really need to see it -- the right-wing flagwavers who wrongly consider America is #1; the tax-cutting fanatics who don't believe in the efficacy of government programs; the strong-military zealots who fail to understand the harm our giant defense budget is doing to this country -- they won't risk having their delusions challenged by seeing the movie.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

What’s most dangerous about the Malheur militants’ mentality

I'm glad the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff is over. I'm equally pleased that Cliven Bundy has been arrested and charged with crimes that could lead to him spending the rest of his life in prison.  I readily admit that, like lots of other people here in Oregon and elsewhere, I became quasi-obsessed with the twists and turns of this drama -- especially after the four militants remaining at the refuge started broadcasting a live audio feed featuring their wacko rants and bullhorn pleas from a FBI negotiator to surrender peacefully. So it's good to have the Malheur situation on…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

“You’re a dick” often means “You’re telling the truth”

I don't hear "You're a dick!" very often. Maybe never. But my citizen activism leads to me being called other derogatory names, like bombthrower.  I've made that into a term of endearment. Here's what I said in a 2014 post: I've been called a bomb-thrower by folks at City Hall. I guess this is supposed to be an insult. I consider it a compliment. I'm proud to speak out loud and powerfully when I see stuff going on in Salem that shouldn't be. My goal is to throw truth-bombs that open up minds and demolish barriers to seeing what is happening behind…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Rubio and Clinton are the odds-on favorites in presidential race

OK, let's get this straight right off the bat: I'm pretty much clueless about betting. So if I make some dumb-ass mistake about odds and what-not in this post, that's because I'm a betting dumb-ass.  (I'd say there's at least a 50-50 chance of that happening.) That said, I'm a believer in prediction markets. Which basically involves a bunch of people betting that something will, or won't, happen.  A Washington Post story, "Why Marco Rubio now has the best chance of winning the GOP nomination," caught my eye today.  Marco Rubio placed third in the Iowa caucuses Monday, but observers liked…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Is the presidential race over yet? It’s gone on too long already.

Way back when, I thought I'd be more excited tonight, what with the Iowa caucuses finally kicking off voting that will culminate in November 2016 with a new president of the United States. Problem is, it feels to me like the campaigning has already gone on forever, plus or minus a few eons.  I just looked at the online New York Times front page. With most of the Iowa voting counted, Ted Cruz appears headed to a narrow victory, as does Hillary Clinton. Whoopee. That's my lack of enthusiasm talking. And I'm a political junkie.  There's something wrong about an…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Most irritating thing about the Malheur Wildlife Refuge takeover

Like so many other people in Oregon, I've been avidly following developments over in Harney County, where a bunch of wacko right-wing militants have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for bizarre reasons only their twisted minds have a chance of comprehending. (The Portland Oregonian has extensive coverage of the takeover, now in its 24th day.) Every morning I fire up my laptop and head to the Oregonian's "What you need to know today" page. There's always something newly irritating -- a fresh outrage by Ammon Bundy and his band of no-nothings. As we enter the third week of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Why the Malheur militants aren’t like the Occupy protesters

Being a proud progressive, I'm committed to rationality, fairness, sound arguments, and fealty to facts. (Which makes me much different from most right-wing conservatives these days.) So I've been pondering whether I'm justified in being outraged at what the militants who have taken over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge here in Oregon are doing, given that I was supportive of the Occupy Movement.  After all, both groups took over public property in an attempt to bring attention to their causes. Which basically are transferring federal land to private ownership in the case of the militants, and reducing social/economic inequality in the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Index investing lets me relax in a stock market crash

Nobody likes to peek at their investment portfolio after a day like today: a 390 point drop in the Dow (-2.4%), with the S&P 500 not much better at -2.2%. But even though I toyed with the idea of brewing up a Cheerful Cocktail before I logged in to our Schwab account -- recipe: equal measures of anti-depressants, whiskey, potent marijuana, and caffeine extract -- I realized that our index fund investing approach would leave me feeling fine after I inspected our holdings. Not happy. Not ecstatic. But fine. Why? Because since 2002 I've been a happy passive investor, having…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Congressional Republicans refuse to applaud a cure for cancer

Watching Obama's 2016 State of the Union address last night, my wife and I were struck by how rarely Republicans applauded anything Obama said.  The Daily Kos has a partial list of the subjects that left Republicans cold and apathetic in "What did Republican lawmakers hate about President Obama's State of the Union address?" For those keeping score at home, here are just some of the issues that President Obama raised during Tuesday’s State of the Union address that Republican Senators and Congressmen in attendance refused to clap for, let alone get off their asses and cheer: Nearly 15 million new jobs and the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

I’m fed up with news being replaced by guesses about what might be

News and political junkie that I am, the presets on my car's satellite radio prominently feature the POTUS (Politics of the United States), MSNBC, CNN, and NPR channels.  Usually I listen to them. But today I kept channel surfing -- listening for a short while, then mentally blurting out a profanity and clicking on either my Chill or Classic Rock music channels.  My willingness to hear blather about what might be, what could occur, what the future possibly could bring, it's sunk to a low level.  I've been gradually heading in this direction for quite a while. Today, though, I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Trans-Pacific Partnership not looking good to me after Salem City Club talk

I've been on the fence about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On the whole, free trade makes sense to me. But opponents of this proposed agreement between the United States and eleven other Pacific Rim countries have made some good arguments against it.  So I went into today's Salem City Club talk, "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Look at the TPP Through an Oregon Lens," with an open mind.  I'm good friends with Russ Beaton, who gave the talk. Russ is a retired economics professor at Willamette University. He's heavy into sustainability, progressive politics, organic gardening, and other Good Stuff.  I don't…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Malheur Refuge militants ignore reality of “welfare ranching”

Anti-government militants' takeover of buildings at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge here in Oregon has a lot of absurd aspects.  For example, the ranchers (convicted of federal crimes) they supposedly are supporting have disavowed the militants. Seemingly most of the people in Harney County, where the refuge is located, want the outsiders to leave. Also, the militants claim to be defending the Constitution. But the founders of this country set up a method to decide how the Constitution is to be defended. It's called the Supreme Court. Until that court rules federal ownership of land is unconstitutional, those who say otherwise have…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Anti-abortion zealots supporting domestic terrorism have blood on their hands

Today it became totally clear that the man who shot up the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, Robert Dear, was motivated by a hatred of abortion and those who provide abortions.  From the New York Times story, "Colorado Shooting Suspect Declares 'I'm Guilty' in Court." In a bizarre scene at what was expected to be a routine hearing, Robert L. Dear on Wednesday disrupted his first in-person court appearance since a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic here with angry outbursts, a declaration of his guilt and vehement expressions of his anti-abortion politics. “I’m guilty. There’s no trial. I’m a warrior…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Another mass shooting. No more “thoughts and prayers.” Gun control ACTION!

Another week, another mass shooting in America. At least 14 dead, another 14 wounded. And what are we going to do it about it? Mostly offer our "thoughts and prayers" to the victims. And their families And the first responders.  Which, obviously, does precisely zero, nada, zilch to stop the next mass shooting. And it will come soon. Because the next one always does. Only in America do we have this much gun violence. Why? Because we have way more guns per capita than any other nation. So we have way more gun deaths.  Responsible gun control is the answer.  Thoughts and…
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