• More changes at The Register-Guard are worrisome. The paper announced April 26 that it was eliminating the position of Executive Editor Alison Bath as of May 1 — Gannett, which now owns the daily paper, eliminated Publisher Shanna Cannon’s position earlier this year. Managing Editor Michelle Maxwell will lead the newsroom itself, the paper said, but the paper as a whole, along with three other Northwest newsrooms, will be led by Statesman Journal Executive Editor Cherrill Crosby. The SJ has good content, so maybe this will be a good thing? But who is the RG editorial board now? And we worry folks will see the RG as even less local than they already do. Remember there are local reporters, photographers etc., who care about the community, even if the paper is not locally owned.

• We checked in with Congressman Peter DeFazio this week, and he had some choice words to say about the bleach-injector in chief. DeFazio, who has a degree in gerontology, pointed to President Donald Trump’s comments about injecting disinfectants and shining lights into the body, calling them “tragic” and “dangerous” and saying Trump has psychological issues and, with some small exceptions, is leading up a “full circus of clowns” in his administration. No argument from us there. 

• Rep. Peter DeFazio also brought up a terrifying question: Given President Donald Trump and the Republican’s weird hatred of vote by mail (something we love in Oregon), what happens if COVID-19 means there’s no November election? This is something that DeFazio says he’s been thinking about  — for one thing because, with no election, there’s no House of Representatives. The U.S. Constitution provides succession for “reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify,” but not no election at all. So, DeFazio says, with no House, the next in line can’t be the speaker, and with no election, the Senate has a Democratic majority, so leadership would fall to Democratic senator Patrick Leahy. DeFaz’s analysis is backed up by an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz on the website TheHill.com. Dershowitz is professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and served on the legal team representing Trump during the Senate impeachment trial. He says not only could leadership fall to Leahy, but a Democratic majority could also choose senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. Interesting. 

• The primary election is heating up here locally, with more candidates for local positions than we’ve seen in a long time. Check out our endorsements here and, in more detail, in last week’s print issue, and go online for election letters and our coverage of District Attorney Patty Perlow’s peculiar challenger, James Cleavenger, of the University of Oregon “bowl of dicks” fame. A recent mailing from the Perlow campaign alleges that one of the complaints about Cleavenger’s police work is that he put a blanket over a chimney to “smoke out” an alleged perpetrator because he saw it in a movie. True Grit we assume?

• We’re looking for fun on our TV and social media to help through this “stay the fuck home” time. For instance, the latest Randy Rainbow, “A Spoonful of Chlorox,” is hilarious. More, please. The segment mocking Zoom calls on Saturday Night Live was so funny (though in our experience dudes are actually worse at video conferencing than the female-identified), as was Brad Pitt playing Dr. Anthony Fauci on SNL. Send us where you are finding your laughs, and we’ll pass them on.

• More seriously, folks: Come November, if we actually do have that election, remember when you vote that the Republican Party, with its lethal mismanagement of the federal response to COVID-19, has truly become the GOP: the Grand Old Pandemic party. Let’s vote them all out of office. Every single one.

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