• July 15 is the COVID-19 delayed tax day, and now is an excellent time to think about what you do or don’t want your local, state and federal taxes going to. Police? The military? Health care? Check out our online guest viewpoint this week — in addition to our online coverage of the city and county in our EW Extra, which you can find by searching “EW Extra” — and think about where your money is going.
• In the middle of this pandemic there’s been some good news — a district court judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to be shut down within 30 days and the oil drained because the Army Corps of Engineers did not fully consider the environmental impacts of the crude oil pipeline, and there were too many safety concerns. While this order only shuts DAPL down for 13 months, here’s to hoping the oil never flows again! Many of Lane County’s Indigenous and activist communities traveled to Standing Rock to protest the DAPL.
• What we will be reading: Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. Both authors grew up in Eugene, are political science professors and have written a series of important books together. Reviewed July 5 in The New York Times, the book tells us what happens “when an elite begins to abandon democracy.”
• Our Congressman Peter DeFazio is proud, as he should be, that the Moving Forward Act passed the House on July 2. Calling it “transformative,” he says he “will do everything in my power to urge the Senate to do the same.” As chair of the House Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, Congressman Pete steered this bill, which he says will “revitalize our country’s infrastructure and create family-wage jobs, as well as promote our commitment to social and environmental justice.” Maybe President Donald Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell will approve the Moving Forward Act, spinning it like it was their idea to do the right thing. That certainly would help them both win votes they need.
• We’re not the only ones who love the popular vote. On Monday, July 6, The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states can punish electoral voters who go against the popular vote. That’s big since the Electoral College ruled in favor of two popular vote losers that resulted in huge presidential nightmares. In 2000, former vice president Al Gore lost to George W. Bush (who then led us into an illegal war in Iraq), and in 2016 Hillary Clinton lost to President Donald Trump (who is just leading us to hell).
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