BLOGTOWN

City Commissioner Dan Ryan, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler City of Portland

The "Total Recall PAC" hopes to unseat both recently elected politicians because of their perceived resistance to police reform efforts within City Hall. In a Tuesday press release, the PAC accused Ryan of misleading voters who supported him in the August special election for pledging to support police accountability—but then voting against a proposal to shrink the Portland Police Bureau's $230 million budget by $18 million.

The PAC was founded on November 5 by two Portland transparency advocates: Lawyer Alan Kessler, known for challenging the city on public records requests, and Seth Woolley, a former city council candidate and campaign finance reform proponent.

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How many people do you think Mitch McConnell will breathe on during his Thanksgiving vacation? Alex Wong /getty images

Good morning, Portland! Happy Weird Thanksgiving Week to you!

Here are the headlines.

• Still planning to travel or meet with a big group for Thanksgiving, and trying to do so responsibly? You might think getting a COVID-19 test before you leave will do the trick—but this handy story from OPB shows that you can't test your way into a safe holiday gathering.

• Oops:

Multnomah Co. Commissioner Sharon Meieran is drawing criticism for her decision to travel to Hawaii despite a spike in coronavirus cases in Oregon that resulted in travel warnings. https://t.co/l5HR48sC4f#KGWInvestigates pic.twitter.com/m7G2dAfD66

— Kyle Iboshi (@KyleIboshi) November 24, 2020

BIDEN WINS (the right to begin his presidential transition)!! David McNew / Stringer /Getty

Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider making a recurring contribution to the Mercury to keep it comin'!)

• Hello. Are you thinking about getting a COVID test so you can spend Thanksgiving with the fam? DO NOT DO THIS. Everybody else has this same, terrible idea, and it's straining our already taxed system and making people who actually do have symptoms wait for hours. THANKSGIVING IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT. STOP BEING SELFISH AND SNAP OUT OF IT.

• Very much related: Oregon is now averaging a record-breaking 1,241 COVID-19 cases PER DAY, and active hospitalizations are on the rise as well, with 456 people currently in the hospital.

Eight months into a global pandemic, the suffering and poverty laid bare on the streets of Portland's Old Town is a humanitarian crisis that screams for attention.

Photographer B Okabe captured this moment in the neighborhood’s history.

Photo story: https://t.co/wrGyZCnMzb pic.twitter.com/Q9hv54Eldd

— Street Roots (@StreetRoots) November 23, 2020

• It took eight months, but the state announced today that it will finally begin paying $176 million in "waiting week" benefits to 246,000 Oregonians starting in the next three days—but another 170,000 may be waiting until January to get their money.

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Getty Images / Tang Ming Tung

- President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate Antony Blinken to serve as his secretary of state. Blinken served as deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama, and was a close foreign policy advisor to Biden during his Senate years. Per the New York Times, Blinken's "extensive foreign policy credentials are expected to help calm American diplomats and global leaders alike after four years of the Trump administration’s ricocheting strategies and nationalist swaggering."

- This year's virtual international G20 summit wasn't much to write home about, especially because the Trump administration has pulled out of nearly every international partnership discussed. Leaders did leave the meeting in agreement that the TBD coronavirus vaccine will be dispersed equitably across the world. So, that's nice.

- Speaking of COVID-19 vaccines, a chief adviser for the United States' vaccine development program says that some Americans could receive an effective coronavirus vaccine as soon as December 12. On that timeframe, that means the US could achieve herd immunity by the end of May 2021.

- The New York Times created its own AI system to prove how easy it is to conjure up real looking photos of fake people. It is equally fascinating and horrifying.

Public Service Announcement: Assholes get coronavirus, too. Chip Somodevilla / Staff / Getty

Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider making a recurring contribution to the Mercury to keep it comin'!)

• The Oregon Health Authority reported another record breaking day of 1,306 new positive COVID cases in the state. They also say that Oregon has reached a "dire point" in the pandemic, adding this chilling warning: “If we don’t get COVID-19 under control, the virus will swamp our hospitals with severely ill patients putting more lives at risk.”

Another alarming record today: 1,306 COVID-19 cases.

Overwhelmed hospitals mean there's fewer beds for you if you get in a car accident, break your ankle, have a heart attack, or rupture your appendix.

This is not a drill. https://t.co/U3mHeQmZt6

— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) November 20, 2020

• A number of local activists and journalists have been included on an anonymous "kill list" sent by far right chuds to apparently scare them into silence. (Won't work, Bozos!) (Oh, and special thanks to the Portland Police and mayor's office for spreading a false narrative that inspired these drip-dicks.)

In 2017, 59% of drivers pulled over by the Portland police's gang violence team were Black. Black people make up 6% of Portland's pop. New data shows that in 2019, after PPB made sweeping promises to improve (including renaming the department), that number dropped to... 52%.

— Alex Zielinski (@alex_zee) November 20, 2020

LAURENT HRYBYK

TriMet staff unveiled the crisis response program plan to the TriMet Board of Directors Thursday, during the board's annual retreat, introduced as one of 25 different steps the agency can take to increase public transit safety in the Portland metro region while relying less on armed transit officers. The plans ranged from simple structural improvements, such as improving lighting at transit stops, to more complicated investments, like increasing TriMet's customer service presence and creating new emergency reporting systems.

These steps are the result of a “reimagining public safety” planning process TriMet began this summer, inspired by racial justice protests sparked when Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. TriMet board member Kathy Wai said Thursday that the list of recommendations was “huge” for TriMet, adding that the commitment to exploring alternatives to policing was a chance to “learn—and unlearn—a lot of things society has taught us.”

“In the last five decades [that] TriMet has been around, we haven’t been able to push ourselves into having these really difficult conversations,” Wai said Thursday.

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Michael Loccisano / Getty images

Good morning, Portland! And here's your good news for the day: Just two more months until January 20th. If we can get through these next two months, we can do anything.

Here are the headlines.

• Oregon hit yet another unsavory record yesterday: 1,225 new COVID-19 cases were reported, the most in any single day since the pandemic started. We also saw the most reported coronavirus-related deaths in a single day yesterday.

• And across the country, over 250,000 people have died from COVID-19 so far—more than in any other country, even ones much more populous than here. These maps from the Washington Post can help you visualize just how many people that is.

• Meanwhile, in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a curfew on all businesses in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

During a lie-filled press conference, Rudy Giuliani was revealed to be a malfunctioning android. Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider making a recurring contribution to the Mercury to keep it comin'!)

• The long planned homeless sweeps in publicly-owned Laurelhurst Park (brought about by complaining wealthy NIMBYs) took place this morning... during the winter... in the middle of a pandemic... and with the end result of merely pushing these houseless residents to another part of the city. Our Alex Zielinski has more.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Dan Ryan appear to have sent out identical statements regarding the campsite sweep at Laurelhurst Park today.

The emails came about an hour a part.

Not described as a joint statement. Just the same sentences pic.twitter.com/dWgcHejG84

— Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) November 19, 2020

• Oregon's COVID updates continue to be alarming: Today marked the largest number of COVID infections (1,225) and deaths (20) since the beginning of the pandemic in the state. Hospitalizations from the virus have risen 137 percent since November 1, and state lawmakers are considering labeling the situation "catastrophic" in order to convene a special remote session, and make quick changes without the red tape.

This is how bad the coronavirus death situation is in Oregon right now:

Nineteen days into November, more Oregonians have died than in any of March, April, May or June (and, soon, September).

November is on pace to be Oregon's deadliest month to date.

By @davidcansler pic.twitter.com/hpiNoXUoAD

— Brad Schmidt (@_Brad_Schmidt) November 19, 2020

Rapid Response staff remove trash and belongings from the SE Oak encampment. Alex Zielinski

By 9:30, some campers had begun taking down their tents and other structures—many of them soaked after a night of heavy rain. Several people were crying as they stuffed their belongings into garbage bags provided by Rapid Response workers.

"I can't believe it's happening," said one woman, who asked not to be identified. She said she was living at the encampment after escaping an abusive relationship, and called the group her "family."

"I don't know where I'm going to go," she said.

The encampment currently stretches along the sidewalk of SE Oak between Cesar Chavez Blvd. and SE 35th, a street that cuts through the Southeast corner of Laurelhurst Park. Homeless Portlanders have occupied the short strip of publicly-owned land for the past six months, many of them relying on the camp as stable place to remain during the COVID-19 pandemic. The occupied property sits in the middle of one of Portland's wealthiest neighborhoods.