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Mick Mulvaney: Yes there was a quid pro quo! Wait... shit... I was supposed to lie!
Mick Mulvaney: "Yes there was a 'quid pro quo'! Wait... shit... I was supposed to lie!" Win McNamee/Getty Images

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! I never had a dream come true 'til the day that I found you. Even though I pretend that I've moved on, you'll always be my baby. LET'S GO TO PRESS.

So you remember how Trump keeps insisting there was no "quid pro quo" in his famous impeachable call to Ukraine's leader? Unfortunately for him, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney flat-out admitted in a press briefing that $400 million in aid to the country was withheld in order to force Ukraine to investigate the Democrats. He later tried to take back his statements, but too late for that! Whoopsies!

At roughly the same time yesterday, Portland's own wealthy hotelier and Trump crony Gordon Sondland testified before congress saying that he disagreed with Trump putting Giuliani in charge of pressuring Ukraine leadership into investigating the president's opponents, but he didn't know how serious (read: illegal) it was until later. UH-HUH. Nobody believes you, dummy! Keep boycotting Sondland's hotels.

Meanwhile another one of the corrupt "Three Amigos" (fuck these guys), Rick Perry, who also happens to be Trump's energy secretary says he is resigning after being caught up in the president's mess.

Most people, when faced with impeachable crimes, would try their hardest not to commit more impeachable crimes. But not Trump, who announced he's holding next year's G7 summit of world leaders at his very own, profit-making golf resort in Florida.

After mysteriously betraying the Kurds and giving the green light for Turkey to move into Syria, Trump has been trying to backpedal on this colossal mistake... so how did he do it? By working out a deal with Turkey for a temporary cease fire in exchange for giving the Turkish leader EVERYTHING HE (and by extension, Russia) WANTS. (I guess Nancy Pelosi was right when she said that with Trump "all roads lead to Putin.")

Oh, and it's being reported that Turkey has already broken their cease fire promise. Nice dealmaking, Trump. (By the way, it's becoming clearer by the second that in their original chat, Turkey's leader Erdogan told Trump exactly what he was going to do, and the president caved in.)

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg made a speech yesterday in a sorry-ass attempt to defend the platform's decision to allow political ads that outright lie, saying that Facebook was originally intended to protect "free speech" and not "rate hot girls around campus." We're not stupid, Mark. (Oh, and he also made a comparison to Martin Luther King Jr.)


In good news: It was "One giant leap for WOMANkind" as NASA conducted its first all-female spacewalk this morning.

More good news (at least for us atheists): "Americans becoming less Christian as over a quarter follow no religion."

Please take a minute and check out the following video. Then find someone who helps others and thank them today.

IN LOCAL NEWS: Portland city council will be hiring an outside legal firm to represent the city in upcoming contract negotiations with the routinely problematic Portland Police Unionโ€”which according to Dan Handelman of Copwatch is a good idea: "It's good to have someone who is not in a position where they represent both the police and the city," Handelman says. Our Alex Zielinski has more on the story.

An appeals court has put a temporary halt on Governor Brown's vape ban, which was intended to help slow the national epidemic of teens vaping flavored tobacco products. Vape shops argued the ban would put them out of business. Check out the story from our Josh Jardine.

The Multnomah County Health Department is warning that a person with measles passed through the Portland Airport last Saturday, potentially exposing others who were there at the time.

By the way... ARE YOU HUNGRY? Dive headfirst into the Portland Mercury's Nacho Week! Happening right now! OH! AND YES, YOU DO LOOK SEXY! Tickets for HUMP! 2019 are right here. (Oh, and psst! Check out the new, very sexy, and decidedly NSFW HUMP! trailer here.)

Now let's get a load of this WEATHER: Expect more scattered showers and a high of 56 from now through the weekend.

And finally, this is also true of many Mercury readers. (Turn the sound up, it's a classic!)