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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋

Aaaaand good morning once again to a day filled with mostly cloudy skies and a high of 58, before showers roll in this evening (and over the next few days). In the meantime, let's roll up on some NEWS!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Get ready for a hot, hot day at City Council, in which officials will hear public testimony on Councilor Angelita Morillo's very good idea to redirect funds from Mayor Wilson's homeless sweeps program toward housing, food assistance, and immigrant and refugee support, as well as public safety improvements for East Portland. As you can probably guess, Mayor Wilson (and by extension, the city's wealthy ruling class) is NOT at all pleased with this idea, and is encouraging Portlanders to come out swinging against it at today's meeting. The mayor's reasoning is both flawed and baffling, considering that taxpayers (hey, that's YOU) are saddled with the wildly expensive cost of moving houseless people from one neighborhood to the next like a cruel game of whack-a-mole. And of course, the mayor is ignoring the traumatic ramifications of sweeping away a person's belongings, in some cases knocking them off the path of acquiring permanent housing. So if you don't want the city's rich and greedy wasting your money on violence against the houseless... you know what to do, right?

Here's another piece about how Portland's methods, ie sweeps without bountiful supportive housing and services for people to be "swept" into, do not work, and kill people www.propublica.org/article/port...

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— Lydia Kiesling (@lydiakiesling.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 3:50 PM

• Officials and residents of Newport, Oregon, are growing increasingly concerned that the Trump administration is reportedly trying to sneak a new ICE facility—or some sort of immigration enforcement detainment center—into their town. A federal contractor that specializes in such things is trying to snag a 4.3-acre plot of land at the city's tiny airport to “support federal operations... on or around December 1, 2025.” Newport officials also reportedly received a letter from the feds that “the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is in the process of evaluating locations along the Oregon coast for a potential U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) immigration facility," and that the contractor in question helped build a Texas facility for the National Guard who were ordered to help with immigrant kidnapping enforcement. (Hmmm... well, if it walks and talks like an ICE facility, maybe it is an ICE facility?)

• And the creativity from protesters at Portland's ICE facility just will not stop! (And we don't want it to!) Our Corbin Smith showed up for the “Sweating out the Fascists” aerobics class held outside the facility this past weekend, as grumpy, probably constipated ICE agents looked on. Check out the great pictures, and—this was unexpected—heartwarming quotes from the participants who, along with fun and sexy dance moves, included kindness and thoughtfulness into their demonstration. Highly recommended!

• Happy Exploding Whale Day (to all who celebrate)! Today marks the 55th anniversary of one of the most controversial decisions in Oregon's history: the dynamite-ing of a giant whale carcass on the beach in the town of Florence. In order to dispose of the eight-ton whale which washed up on shore, authorities considered many methods before deciding to blow it the fuck up, sending carcass bits raining down on the terrified crowd and even crushing a car. The resulting and hilarious KATU news report also joined the exploded whale in the annals of the state's weird history. (As a side note, I'm linking to today's Oregonian story about the incident, which they admit was written by generative AI, but reviewed by human editors... a curious claim since the article was authored "by Exploding Whale Report." 🤔 But hey. Maybe their editors are AI generated as well?)

 • Say, did you go to the Chalk concert at Holocene Sunday night? Carl Sundberg, reporting for the Mercury, was there and was blown away by this electro post-punk duo from Belfast who filled the crowd with "joyous energy, full of enthusiasm and appreciation." Check out his concert review, which contains lots of juicy quotes from the band.

Mercury Music Picks took a breather for a couple weeks, but we back! Now with new and improved Scottish bagpipes, queer industrial tech, lush ambient, and the Canadian indie-folk of Julie Doiron. 

Link below for all of the above, act now for bonus Portland music news content!

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) November 11, 2025 at 11:42 AM

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Try as he might—and using increasingly wild distractions—Trump's association with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein keeps coming to the forefront. Congressional Democrats have received and released a bevy of emails written by Epstein claiming that the president “spent hours at my house” with one of the pedophile's underage victims and that Trump supposedly knew about the abuse she was undergoing. This directly contradicts Trump's claims that he barely knew Epstein and had zero knowledge of what the creep was up to. And in another email penned by Epstein, he asserted that Trump definitely “knew about the girls,” and wondered how this would affect the now-president's ascension in the political world. In what has got to be a first since Trump was elected, following this blockbuster revelation, the president has suddenly gone silent. (Or "SILENT!!!!" as he might scream on Truth Social.)

Epstein on Trump:

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— Tim Dickinson (@timdickinson.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 6:50 AM

• Meanwhile the House of Representatives are scheduled to meet and vote today on the Republican (along with eight traitorous Democrats) plan to end the record-breaking government shutdown. The Senate approved the plan which has widespread support from the GOP and Trump—and thanks to the aforementioned traitorous Dems, will not include protecting Americans from the president's plan to jack up health costs—but the vote could be very close, and who knows what wrench will be thrown into the works due to today's scandalous Epstein revelations. Start poppin', popcorn! 🍿

• If you were hoping to get your full SNAP benefits for November, you can just keep on waiting, because the Supreme Court has once again hit pause on the feds releasing the $4 billion in funds until at least Thursday at midnight. Apparently the Supremes think the subject will be moot if the government shutdown ends today, which would trigger the full release of funds... that the Trump administration could've released at any point and chose not to, because they are cruel, heartless dicks who care more about their billionaire pals (such as Epstein... yes, I mentioned him again) instead of hungry Americans. 

Cleto Escobedo III, the bandleader of Cleto and The Cletones, the house band for #JimmyKimmelLive has died. The musician and lifelong friend of Kimmel was 59.


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— Los Angeles Times (@latimes.com) November 11, 2025 at 4:08 PM

'• In a headline that's, like, not worrying at all: "Venezuela announces ‘massive mobilization’ of military forces as America’s largest warship sails into region."

• And finally... I've just discovered that I am EXACTLY like chocolate milk!

@finallylostmymarbles Jimmy is cooked 😂 #retro #classictv #cooked #funny #humor ♬ original sound - Shield💢