Posted in2026 election Oregon politics

Poll shows Oregon governor’s race is basically tied. But Kotek is still heavily favored.

Being an avid Democrat, this wasn't what I wanted to see in my X/Twitter feed soon after I woke up today. Taniel is a respected election analyst who I follow. It would indeed be a major flip if Republican Christine Drazan were to unseat incumbent Governor Tina Kotek in Oregon, a decidedly blue state where Democrats hold every statewide office and all but one of the Congressional and Senate seats. But when I clicked on the OPB link, there it was: Searching the OPB story for some good news about Kotek's chances, I found this. OPB’s poll suggests the governor’s…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence

Oregon data centers fight back with web site and TV ad

Maybe it's because my wife and I don't watch much regular TV, aside from sports and news, but last night was the first time I'd seen the Oregon Connects pro-data center 30 second ad on the KGW (Portland) 11 pm news. I say this because the Oregon Capital Chronicle had a story about Oregon Connects on July 28, 2026, which admittedly was just two months ago. Here's an excerpt from "Pro-data center industry group behind ad campaign in Oregon, six other states." Just days before the Oregon Legislature in March passed a one-year pause on a popular tax incentive program…
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Posted in2026 election

Nate Silver’s midterm election model now looks even better for Democrats

I need some positive political news, being a Democrat anxious about the upcoming midterm election. And the polls have been providing it lately. Which is one reason why Nate Silvers' midterm election model looks even better for Democrats today, compared to September 2, when I first shared some forecasts that go out to Silver Bulletin subscribers (I'm one). On September 2, about three weeks ago, Silver gave Democrats a 52.4% chance of taking back both the House and Senate. Now the chance is 67.0%. Before there was a 31% chance of a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. Now the…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Trump wants snipers on top of his Triumphal Arch. Chef José Andrés shows how this would look.

Today Trump, who seems to be auditioning for a post-presidential career as a satirical writer for The Onion, said that he wants the Triumphal Arch he seeks to build in Washington D.C. to have some special features. The New York Times describes them. President Trump said on Sunday his planned 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington would be built to host “large numbers of drones,” snipers and ammunition, as the administration appeared prepared to justify another construction project by citing national security. Mr. Trump said the arch would be “a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the…
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Posted in2026 election Oregon politics

In the race for Oregon governor, remember that Trump wants Republicans to pretend he’s on the ballot

A vote for Republican Christine Drazan to become Governor of Oregon is a vote for Donald Trump to lead our state. This is certain, because high-ranking Republican politicians have to be loyal to Trump, and Drazan is a high-ranking Republican politician. So when Trump said recently to Republican voters, "Pretend I'm on the ballot," all Oregonians should take that seriously. A vote for Drazan is a vote for Trump. Drazan knows this, because she is a loyal Republican. But she can't admit it, because she wants to be Governor of a blue state where Trump isn't popular. That's why Republican…
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Posted in2026 election Donald Trump

Supreme Court decision means vote-by-mail is safe from Trump’s executive order

It's always a pleasure when some crazy Trump idea is struck down by the courts. Doubly pleasurable when it is the Supreme Court telling Trump no. Which made today's decision by the court that the postal service can't go ahead with requiring states to comply with vote-by-mail restrictions so satisfying. The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a Trump administration plan to dramatically change how Americans vote by mail in the lead-up to the midterm elections, a major loss for President Trump, who has long claimed without evidence that fraud is rampant in mail voting. The ruling was a resounding win…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence Data centers

Kotek and Drazan now agree on one thing: a statewide data center moratorium

Political ambition creates strange bedfellows. Today the two main candidates for Oregon governor in November's election, Democrat incumbent Tina Kotek and Republican state senator Kristine Drazan, both expressed their support for a statewide moratorium on data centers -- even though they'd previously expressed reservations about this. Well, that's what happens when polling shows that most Oregonians are on board with a moratorium. A story in today's Oregonian by Mike Rogoway says: Gov. Tina Kotek and her Republican opponent, Sen. Christine Drazan, both called for statewide moratoriums on data centers Tuesday, converging on the same position within hours of each other…
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Posted in2026 election National politics

Nate Silver’s midterm election model looks good for Dems both nationally and in Oregon

It's September. Time to start taking seriously projections for how the November 3 midterm election will turn out. My favorite prognosticator is Nate Silver, who runs the Silver Bulletin that I subscribe to, political junkie that I am. Silver is analyzing every race for the House, Senate, and Governor, along with the probability of each party controlling the House and Senate. Naturally Silver's model will be frequently updated between now and November 3, so what I've shared below is just a snapshot as of September 2. This is a description of the basic methodology used by Silver's FLIPR model: Forecast…
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Posted inDonald Trump Humor

Canadian Resistance Army releases super-funny videos mocking Trump’s attacks on Canada

I'm a proud member of the Canadian Resistance Army, foreign legion division, since I live in Oregon. At least I will be once my official hoodie arrives. Then I'll join the ranks of beavers, moose, bears, wolverines and other creatures who are defending Canada against Trump's stupid threats against our neighbor to the north. I learned about the Canadian Resistance Army yesterday, when my wife showed me their newest video about how Lake Ontario will never change its name despite Trump's pathetic attempt to call it Lake America. Loved it! I was thrilled to discover another recent video of the…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump’s legacy, such as it is, will be massively tarnished by his climate change denialism

It's virtually certain that Trump will go down in history as one of the worst American presidents. Probably the worst'est of them all. His first term was horrible. His second term is an even scarier horror show of incompetence, immorality, incoherence, and incessant lying. But other than that, he does seem fairly capable of remodeling White House bathrooms. There will be a lot of competition for Trump's greatest failure. Tariffs, Iran war, inflation, election interference, killing of innocent protesters, decimating science programs, attacking journalists -- to name but a few of Trump's least favorite hits. I suspect that one issue…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Why Trump’s vote by mail executive order is both unconstitutional and a horrible idea

Trump thinks he's a king. Thankfully, he's just a lousy president. Kings can issue edicts that their subjects must obey. Presidents can't. Especially when an edict is unconstitutional. Like Trump's newest fantasy -- that through an executive order he issued in March 2026, the postal service won't deliver a ballot unless the voter is on a list generated by the federal government of people who are eligible to vote in federal elections. The Supreme Court likely will decide whether this scheme is constitutional. That should take about ten seconds. All the justices need to do is remind themselves of what…
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Posted inInternational issues National politics

Democratic Socialists of America — bad. Social democracies like Sweden and Denmark — good.

I have no idea why any reasonable citizen of our country would want to be a member of Democratic Socialists of America. Take a look at their program. It isn't a holdover from some bygone day. It was developed between April and June 2026, just a few months ago. It's full of crazy ideas. Like... end capitalism draft a new Constitution abolish the presidency and supreme court do away with the Defense Department create a democratic socialist republic Unfortunately, the most extreme positions of the Democratic Socialists of America give Trump and other Republicans a broad brush to paint DSA…
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Posted inData centers National politics

Data centers are uniting the country. In opposition to data centers.

The United States is so politically divided, it's wonderful that Democrats, Republicans, and independents have come together on one important national issue: dislike of data centers. This image illustrated a Comment by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker's "The Talk of the Town" feature in the August 17, 2026 issue: Reading the Data. The digital version is titled, A.I. is Now a Major Election Issue. With the sub-heading, As Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s newly elected Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, put it, “People really effing hate data centers.” I'll share a PDF file if that link doesn't work for non-subscribers. A.I.…
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Posted inArtificial intelligence Data centers

If you care about the future of AI, watch this astonishing video of a Yuval Noah Harari interview

Today a friend emailed me a link to a You Tube video where Yuval Noah Harari talks about AI in an amazing fashion that only a historian with his breadth of knowledge about how the past of humanity intersects with the future of artificial intelligence could pull off. This graphic provides an overview. I watched the video earlier this evening, forsaking tonight's usual television diet of recorded Sunday political talk shows, because I'm a huge fan of Harari -- having read three of his books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015),…
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Posted inData centers

There’s a middle way on AI and data centers between anything goes and everything stops

Though I'm not a Buddhist, I like the notion of a Middle Way -- which traditionally avoids the extremes of asceticism and sensual indulgence. After all, most things in life seem well suited to moderation, a Goldilocks approach to life. Goldilocks went inside. First she tasted the porridge of the great, huge bear, and that was far too hot for her. And then she tasted the porridge of the middle bear, and that was too cold for her. And then she went to the porridge of the little, small wee bear, and tasted that. And that was neither too hot…
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Posted inDonald Trump

More idiocy from Trump as he issues new childhood vaccine recommendations based on his feelings

Sometimes I see Trump saying something ridiculous and I get angry. Other times I'm amused. And frequently, like today, I'm embarrassed to be a citizen of a country that elected an incompetent idiot as president. Watching CNN on my iPhone as I was exercising on an elliptical machine at our fitness club, I saw clips of Trump announcing his executive order regarding childhood vaccines. A Politico story, "Trump redoubles effort to shrink recommended vaccines ahead of midterm elections," says: President Donald Trump on Monday reignited his effort to overhaul the government’s vaccine recommendations with an executive order directing federal agencies…
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Posted in2026 election City Council

Support Mai Vang’s write-in campaign for Ward 6 city councilor

Mai Vang was treated badly by city officials when they made a screwy decision that despite Betsy Vega failing to meet the residency requirement to be a Ward 6 city councilor, Vega's narrow victory in the May election over incumbent Mai Vang should stand. I described why this decision was so unfair to Vang in "City officials ignored Salem charter in wrongly qualifying Betsy Vega as Ward 6 city councilor." Basically, the city charter says "a councilor shall have resided in the ward the councilor represents during the 12 months immediately before being elected or appointed to the office." But…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Data centers

With public opinion mostly against a Salem data center, it’s time to shed more light and less heat on the project

My approach to politics, and to life itself, is reflected in a basic principle of Tai Chi -- which I've practiced for about twenty years. Yang follows yin; yin follows yang. So two yang moves in succession is a Tai Chi no-no. Expressed in plain English, the notion is that when strength meets strength, a battle ensues. Which doesn't mean that conflict should be avoided. It means that a forceful attack shouldn't be met with an equally forceful counterattack, but with a redirecting of the opponent's energy, a softness that deflects hardness, allowing for a more favorable outcome than, as…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Data centers

Who’s to blame for Salem data center debacle? Time to point fingers.

Last Thursday I spoke with a KATU reporter about the news that Governor Kotek had blocked the sale of property owned by the state that was going to be used by a data center proposed to be built in south Salem's Mill Creek Corporate Center. Referring to the massive turnout at last Monday's City Council meeting of people who were almost entirely opposed to the data center, I said: This is democracy in action. People came out. Loud, angry, sometimes impolite. It got the city’s attention. And it looks like it got Governor Kotek’s attention. When I heard that Kotek…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Data centers

Here’s some of what I told the KATU reporter about the Salem data center that didn’t make it into her story

Having done quite a few interviews with local television news reporters over the years, I've learned that I should feel fortunate if a few seconds of my much longer brilliant observations on some subject make it into the televised story. After all, they only have a few minutes to tell the entire story, and I'm just a small part of that much bigger picture. So one of the last things I said to Jennifer Singh, the KATU (Portland) reporter who interviewed me yesterday about a major new development in the Salem data center saga, was something like, I really enjoyed…
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