Word is out this morning that President Obama has decided to send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan. If true, this could well rank as the worst decision so far in his Administration.
The fiasco of the Afghan elections, which underscored the Karzai government’s lack of any real [...]
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
The Oregon political world's radar blipped yesterday upon' [...]
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Sizemore has filed to run for Governor - setting up a possible Kitzhaber/Sizemore rematch, pending primary races in both parties. (Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)
What do his fellow Republicans think? At the O, [...]
I made it to the Left Bank Thursday to watch Al Gore endorse Bill Bradbury. "Endorse" barely covers it; if you were to write the speech you'd want to hear from a national bigshot to launch your campaign, you could pretty much transcribe what Gore' [...]
The Sunday Oregonian featured a story comparing two businesses and their different views of Measures 66 and 67. Paloma Clothing’s owner Mike Roach said he supports the measures. The other business owner, Bess Wills of Gresham Ford, said that the new minimum tax will [...]
As I sit here writing this post I know I'm about to dive into the equivalent of a boiling vat of hot lava. I'd like to be able to just let it go, walk away and move on with my life. But it just keeps coming back--like a toothache I've' [...]
"It might as well have cooties. Hardly anyone wants to touch the thing, or get close to it," wrote Steve Rubenstein in a special column to the San Fransico Chronicle. According to Rubenstein many nonchain bookstores won't sell it, with one bookseller telling him, "Our customers are thinking people, they're" [...]
A couple of days ago, Dave Frohnmayer made front-page news with a report he submitted to the State Board of Higher Education. In it, he suggested that Oregon's three largest public universities should adopt the OHSU model of autonomy. The state contributes a diminishing amount to universities--down 44% in' [...]
By Erik Fernandez of Portland, Oregon. Erik is the wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild.
Congressman Kurt Schrader showed he knows how to get the job done in Washington DC by moving legislation at warp speed through the US House of Representatives.
Yesterday, the [...]
(H/T to Daniel Powter)
Well, you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on
You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around' [...]
In what may become known as a key turning point for the Bill Bradbury's gubernatorial campaign, Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore announced his endorsement of Bradbury at this morning's sold out fundraiser at the Left Bank. While it was no secret Gore was supportive of Bradbury's' [...]
Despite my damn fine profile on him posted yesterday here at the big Blue O, Democratic candidate for Oregon Governor Steve Shields is dropping out.
I spoke briefly with Betsy Henning, Shields' campaign manager. Hennings said that they discovered during the process that Shields' skill set wasn't a good match' [...]
Ninety percent of Oregon's budget goes to schools, health care and public safety. But another critical piece -- and one of the reasons the Oregon League of Conservation Voters is strongly behind the campaign for Measures 66 and 67 -- is that the January ballot measures will directly impact Oregon's ability [...]
By Ivan Maluski of Portland, Oregon. Ivan is the Conservation Program Coordinator for the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club.
Last week, the Sierra Club, the Northwest Energy Coalition, and numerous other Oregon conservation and ratepayer organizations sent an open letter (pdf) to Governor Ted Kulongoski, asking him to work with [...]
Over at the Cook Political Report, they've done their baseline report on the U.S. Senate race in 2010. Key excerpts:
Oregon is very difficult terrain for Republicans. Democrats hold an 11-point advantage in voter registration, 43 percent to 32 percent, while another 26 percent are unaffiliated. Republicans lost a Senate' [...]In comments made on MSNBC's Ed Schultz Show, Congressman Peter DeFazio wants President Obama to fire his top two economic advisers. At Huffington Post, Sam Stein has the story:
"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent" [...]When met in a somewhat noisy SW Portland coffee shop, Oregon gubernatorial candidate Steve Shields fidgeted with his beverage before we sat down to chat. His campaign manager Betsy Henning had scored us three comfy chairs in the back where we hoped it will be a little quieter.
OK, with everything else going on, this one's not exactly on the front burner. But one thing I'd like to know from the Guv candidates is how many chips they're ready to spend to reverse the 1990s initiative measure that commits every dime of gas [...]
It's a fairly regular occurrence. A couple times a year, some friend of mine will ask me to help them think about running for office. Usually, it's some random local office - and they want me to help them figure out what it would take to win.
Inevitably, I table that [...]
Following up on yesterday's post about the state of the media in Oregon, the good folks at OPB and Portland City Club are way ahead of me.
This Saturday (November 21) in Portland, OPB and the City Club of Portland are holding a day-long conference called "We Make" [...]
It ends where it began.
Back in June, when I first wrote about the sad saga of Sid Leiken, I wrote: "It's a pretty simple rule, actually. If you're a candidate for office, your campaign committee can't pay a business that you own to do work for them."
Yesterday, the state [...]
Iowa pioneered a common sense approach to reducing minority overrepresentation in the criminal-justice system. Major papers say Oregon should follow.
For the past 48 hours, I have been working with Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines, Iowa) to build momentum for passage of Racial Impact Legislation here like that which Rep. Ford [...]
Dear Blue Oregonians,
When I was working for the Justice Department, I helped start a tradition of celebrating Robert Kennedy’s birthday. When I left, I promised to go back every year to continue the tradition. So I spend every November 20 in Washington, D.C. Which usually means that I miss my good friend [...]
I've seen a number of discussions floating about the internet tubes on how the print media (at least in the Portland area) appears to be on life-support. Television journalism in Oregon essentially AWOL, as far as I can tell.
I missed the Portland City Club discussion on' [...]
The O's David Sarasohn pinned down Congressman Peter DeFazio on whether he's still considering a run for Governor in 2010. The answer? You bet.
Last spring, DeFazio talked about making a decision on the governor's race by Labor Day, and now Kitzhaber and Bradbury have been running for months. When will [...]During the past couple of weeks there's been a lotta bold talk about how we need to get out there and attack certain of our elected representatives as they are just too wobbly and clueless to Do the Right Thing without the input of our own Serious Thinkers.
Well, OK, there's' [...]
I just sent an Open Letter to Harry Reid:
With the latest Pew Research Center Poll showing anti-incumbent anger raging as bad as the majority-changing elections of 1994 and 2006, I reflected on 1992--when I ran for the Senate in an anti-"Insider" year and observed the following:
With gargantuan budget deficits, [...]
There's an old joke that juries are generally made up of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty. It's entirely possible that I'm just a geek, but I consider that joke a complete insult to civic duty. I've never much appreciated the humor in that particular line. [...]
In Oregon, we can be proud that all four of our Democratic members of the U.S. House voted for the health care reform bill - and against the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad Stupak amendment. There are only eight other states with a similar 100% record among their [...]
We didn’t need the Pew Center on the States to tell us this, but they did it anyway: Oregon is facing a severe financial crisis. Based on several factors, the Pew Center has listed Oregon as one of the ten states in most “fiscal peril,” tied with Nevada for #5. California’s fiscal [...]
As I was following last week’s elections, I was reminded of a debate that took place here in Oregon earlier this year. Careful observers of the referendums that were on the ballot in Maine and Washington might have noticed that supporters of equality were rooting for two very different outcomes on each measure. In [...]
Today, Lee Beyer announced that he's running for State Senate district 6, in the Eugene area. He previously represented that area for ten years in the Legislature, before being appointed in 2001 to the Public Utility Commission by Governor John Kitzhaber.
His spouse, Rep. Terry Beyer, serves in the House. If' [...]
It is an odd and curious duality: the lobbyist who doubles as an anti-tax-fairness advocate. On one hand there's the individual whose day job is to cruise the halls of the various legislative offices with a hand out, looking to score some government cash for the pet project, idea, notion, [...]
By Paul Evans of Monmouth, Oregon. Paul is an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan. He is also a former mayor of Monmouth. Previously, he contributed "Re-assessing and re-thinking our military structure"
Today is Veterans' Day. A day each year that our country at least attempts to recognize the' [...]
Today is the day that was Armistice Day: the end of World War I, the Great War — the War to End All Wars. Except it wasn’t. And now, on the day when once the hope was we would never celebrate the end of any war, we celebrate warriors. Kind [...]
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Discuss. [...]At the O, Jeff Mapes reports that Governor Ted Kulongoski arrived in Iraq yesterday to visit with Oregon troops. Despite being in a combat zone, Kulongoski told reporters that the troops are concerned with how things will go when they arrive home:
Kulongoski said in a conference call with reporters [...]A couple of weeks ago I was walking through the farmers market and an Obama volunteer stopped me. I brake for Obama, so I waited for his pitch. Obama man handed me a flyer, asked me to "sign up for health care!" and call my elected officials. I read the [...]
On October 30, a fire broke out at 5 a.m. at the SEIU Local 49 office in Portland. At the time, a number of folks noted in the comments on BlueOregon that the Tea Party Express was making the Portland stop on their nationwide tour that day. A pure [...]
There’s been a lot of reminiscing this morning about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which has become a symbol of “people power” and liberation. I’ve got a chunk of the wall at home, which a colleague who was in Germany at the time brought [...]
For the first time in American history, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a universal health insurance program. (TPM has an excellent description of what's actually in the bill.)
The vote was 220 in favor and 215 against (roll call). One Republican, Anh Cao (R-LA), joined 219 [...]
As the US House of Representatives draws closer to a vote on HR3962, the House version of the health care reform bill, Representative Kurt Schrader has announced he will vote in favor of the bill. Schrader explained his decision in a statement on his website:
Today Congressman Kurt Schrader (D-OR) announced [...]
Update 1:00PM: David at HorsesAss has some interesting commentary on this as well.
Update: 11:15AM: It would appear that even though the main office line isn't being answered, the internal staff lines are. Rep. Schrader's Legislative Director is Chris Huckleberry. His office number is [redacted -editor. Main number is 202-225-5711.]. [...]
by Nancie Koerber of Central Point. Koerber started her career in sales more than 30 years ago. She has owned and operated a successful insurance agency, real estate brokerage and currently runs Champions Realtime Training in Central Point.
I've just returned from a three day trip to Washington DC with 134' [...]
We are like the skinny kid sitting on the end of the bench on a basketball team when it comes to playing the game against millions of dollars flowing into Oregon to defeat Oregon's tax measures on the January ballot. We are not like the other team all lined up [...]
While Charlie Burr at BlueOregon accused me of stooping "to take the luster off" the Al Gore endorsement of Bradbury by reporting here on the genuine history of bad blood between Gore and Kitzhaber, over at Willamette Week, reporter Hank Stern admits that, journalistically, I simply beat him to a [...]
It appears that the Oregon League of Conservation Voters is getting ready to take their political work to the next level.
First, the Oregonian has a Q&A with OLCV's new Executive Director, Jon Isaacs:
How are Oregon environmentalists doing politically?The environmental community does not get the respect it deserves from [...]
Oregonians with short memories may think Gore’s endorsement of Bradbury in Oregon’s Democratic gubernatorial primary is a singular act of political love for Oregon’s ex-secretary of state.
But that misses an intriguing subplot.
Gore’s move is the continuation of a decades long feud with Oregon ex-governor Kitzhaber, Bradbury’s leading primary opponent, dating back to Gore’s [...]
Former Trailblazer Chris Dudley is thinking about running for Oregon Governor on the GOP side. He's got himself a website on training wheels that includes some nice photos, but nothing so far that gives us a real sense of the guy and what he's about.
I'm not so in to' [...]
Vice-President Al Gore will be in Portland on November 19th and will hold a fundraising event for gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury. According to the Oregonian's Harry Esteve:
Bill Bradbury, Democratic candidate for governor, has scored the first big fund-raising coup of the race, booking former Vice President and Nobel prizewinner Al [...]
By Senator Jeff Merkley. Senator Merkley is the junior Senator for Oregon.
I know everyone is tuned in to the big political issues right now: the debate over health care, the battle to rein in the Wall Street banks, and the fight to invest in American energy independence.
These issues are ones [...]
What do the GOP triumphs in New Jersey and Virginia mean for Obama, mainstream Democrats and their agenda?
Ignore the palaver of the punditry; there’s no “megatrend” here. But the important micro question is: in the Democratic cloakroom, what will be the gut assessment of Obama’s power to punish or reward [...]
Which businesses are going to be paying more taxes under Measure 67, and which won’t? Which Oregonians will pay more and which Oregonians will get a tax cut on their personal income taxes under Measure 66?
Oregonians now have an easy way to answer those questions with two flowcharts by [...]
I am not sure why I expected people to resist the temptation to over-read the results of two gubernatorial races on Tuesday. Jon Corzine hasn't seen approval numbers north of 40% in over a year, and his loss in New Jersey seemed inevitable. And Creigh Deeds had been trailing Robert' [...]
Morse, a retired businessman and moderate Republican, has represented Senate District 8 in Linn and Benton counties since 2002. He said in early October that he' [...]
At the risk of repeating myself, despite having signed on to a letter pushing for the public option, Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader is apparently undecided on whether he will vote for a public option (with negotiated rates) if it goes to the floor. This is the compromise bill [...]
Update-10:15AM: The County Commission released TODAY the agenda for the meeting (very short notice) and are actually considering rewriting the Comprehensive Land Use plan themselves at their November 5 meeting. Jeez. So not only are they trying to scrap months of costly work, they're thinking of completely flouting what' [...]
Hmmm. I seem to have entirely blacked out the weekend. Not sure what sort of brain trauma could have caused that. Oh well! Here's some news you may have missed:
The OEA and AFT-Oregon are once again taking the fight with Bill Sizemore to the courts. They're alleging that he' [...]It's election day across America - but not in Oregon. [Update: As noted in the comments, there were some local measures in Oregon, but nothing that really rises to the level of state or national interest.] Let's preview a bit.
The national pundits are paying close attention to governor's' [...]
If you ask a corporation, “Did you make money last year?” its response may well be, “Who’s asking?”
It’s no secret that corporations keep two sets of books, one for shareholders and one for tax authorities. Those books employ different definitions of what it means to make money, which explains why [...]
Today's Oregonian had a great column by Rep. Chris Harker (D-Beaverton) explaining why he voted for the legislation that's now on the ballot in January as Measures 66 and 67, and why he's going to vote "yes on Measures 66 and 67" in January. Chris Harker's column was obviously [...]
Sometime soon, the would-be recallers need to rent a hotel room, alert the media and make the big names behind this second attempt to ax the mayor' [...]
This morning at 5 a.m., a fire broke out at the headquarters of SEIU Local 49. This afternoon, investigators with Portland Fire & Rescue ruled that the fire was deliberately set. Clarification: They've determined that there's enough evidence to move forward with a criminal investigation of arson. (That's something less' [...]
First it was the lobbying /PR group Conkling, Fiskum and McCormick changing their tune on ballot initiatives and taxes, now uber-lobbydude Mark Nelson making excuses for his own flip-flop:
Businesses have plenty of reasons to object to the current tax increases, Nelson said. For one thing, they’re subject [...]Hail greed! That’s the message that Rep. Sal Esquivel recently sent out to his constituents.
In an email (PDF), Esquivel forwarded a political speech purportedly from the owner of a chain of tire and automotive shops to his employees. Attendance was mandatory, so the 157 full-time and about 30 part-time [...]
OK, it's Friday afternoon - and tomorrow, the big story in Oregon is the football game between #5 USC and #10 Oregon. (And, if the computer ranking systems are to be believed, it's actually #6 Oregon and #9 USC.)
The winner will likely win the [...]
By Evan Wolfson of New York, NY. Evan is founder and director of Freedom to Marry, the national gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide, and author of "Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry".
Christopher and Patrick, an Oregon couple, registered [...]
Sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, bullets hit Congressman Peter DeFazio's office windows at the federal building in Eugene. It is unclear whether the Congressman's office was explicitly targeted. The FBI is investigating.
The FBI said that between 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, three shots broke [...]In an op-ed in the Eugene Register-Guard, middle-school teacher Joshua Welch argues that we should raise the age at which teens are allowed to drive:
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “The rate of crashes, fatal and nonfatal, per mile driven for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times [...]I had more or less given up on Steve Duin's ability to write a column that actually contains usable and worthwhile information. I hereby apologize to Duin. Today's column manages to be compelling, interesting and adds to the public discourse on the anti-tax-fairness measures.
The folks at Conkling [...]In Clatsop County, they've just finished counting the ballots in a recall campaign against two of their county commissioners. (They were under fire due to their support of the Bradwood Landing LNG facility.)
One commissioner, Jeff Hazen, handily defeated the recall. But the other, Ann Samuelson, lost her effort to stay' [...]
One of my good buddies decided to attend a Tea Party yesterday and here is his report.
"Went to Medford's Alba Park at 4:00 pm to hear what the Tea Party people with their bus had to say,. Only four people and a small dog showed up and no bus. The" [...]
John Lim, the former state legislator and GOP gubernatorial candidate, is once again taking up his lonely crusade to create a Lieutenant Governor for Oregon. From the La Grande Observer:
"The governor is too busy (to handle all of the responsibilities of the office)," Lim said.Sometimes too busy to do [...]
It came out in August, but Jeff Mapes is just now giving it some attention on his blog at oregonlive.com -- AOI's scorecard of the 2009 legislative session (PDF). When I read it I checked the math with J.L. Wilson, one of their lobbyists and he confirmed [...]
Writing over at the Huffington Post, Senator Ron Wyden weighs in on the upcoming vote to renew the Patriot Act. In particular, he's concerned about something called the "business records" provision:
While there are several controversial provisions in the USA Patriot Act, the coming debate is likely to center around the [...]Politics can be tough on your body. The days are long, with many hours often spent on your feet, talking to the public. Which makes running for Governor all that much more difficult if you've got multiple sclerosis.
Over the last year, many people have wondered aloud - here on BlueOregon,' [...]
House Speaker Dave Hunt was rocking at the Red Rock Cafe in Medford last night when he introduced the soon to be elected candidate Lynn Howe for State Representative in House District 5. Senator Bates complained about having to park three blocks away due to the high turn out at [...]
A friend of mine emailed this article to me about so-called "progressive" cities. The ones labeled most progressive had one consistent feature: race. From New Geography:
Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most [...]Why do I have to be in the business of administering health benefits plans?
I'm in the midst of starting a home energy efficiency company right now, so just writing this post is taking up time that I don't have to give, but I at least hope that my procrastinating and [...]
The Huffington Post has the backstory on how the opt-out became the "silver bullet" that saved the public option, despite being pitched to Senator Harry Reid just three weeks ago:
Around the time that the Senate Finance Committee was slated to vote on (and ultimately reject) two variations of a [...]CPA Brian Setzler in the Oregonian:
While citizens pay taxes on most of their income, corporations get deductions for nearly everything they buy. They get to deduct the cost of supplies (including groceries for the office party). They get to deduct depreciation. They get to deduct the cost of wages. [...]Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate majority leader, announced today that the health care bill he will put forward in the Senate will include a public option - with a state opt-out provision.
The opt-out is certainly more progressive than the opt-in idea that had been proposed by some. (Should [...]
By State Representative Jules Bailey (D-Portland).
I recently returned from almost two weeks in China to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Oregon's Sister State relationship with China's Fujian Province, and to promote economic ties between Oregon and China.
The trip, which cost no taxpayer dollars, was also a [...]
Are you in to encouraging Congressman Kurt Schrader to vote for the robust public option? Do you just want to find out exactly what he DOES support? Or maybe you already think he's the bomb on health care and want to give him a verbal high-five....
Congressman Schrader Tweets:
Saturday was a gorgeous day in the Portland metro area. It seemed to bring people (including me) out of the woodwork. Some of us even managed to land at some town hall meetings held by State Representatives.
Yes, I'm just that much of a political geek. I went to 2 town' [...]
It seems that a great deal of what I do these days, as a parent, is raise money for schools. Like many other parents, I’m on the PTSA board and a handful of other committees. I’m not alone. Depending on the school, parents write grants, send out letters, organize events, [...]
I'm going to take one more crack (I almost wrote "one last crack," but I doubt that would be true) at suggesting we have to get better at talking with people whose politics clash with ours. Whenever I write that on almost any forum (as' [...]
The campaign against Measure 66 and 67, the tax on the rich and the increase in corporate taxes, calls itself “Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes.” The name would lead you to believe the corporate lobbyists who are running the campaign are deeply concerned about the plight of the unemployed.
Think again.
In addition to raising [...]
One of the basic tenets of evolution is that organisms fill in niches: If there is food, or a place to live, or other factors that encourage and enable life, some critter or other lifeform will grab that niche. Find a niche that works and remains stable, you can exist [...]
Despite having signed on to a letter pushing for the public option, Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader is apparently undecided on whether he will vote for a robust public option (Medicare + 5%) if it goes to the floor.
This is where the rubber [...]
At the Oregon Summit over the past weekend, I was thrilled with the relatively positive tenor of the candidate forum. Unlike two years ago where the tension between the Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley was so thick you could cut it with a knife, the candidates for governor seemed to [...]
