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Good Morning, Portland: Ok, rain dogs. “Oh, how we danced away all of the lights. We've always been out of our minds.”

The sky is falling and it gets dark at 4 pm, but we can do this. Extra, extra! Here’s the news.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

  • As if it hadn’t seen enough already, the state transportation package could face yet another weird hurdle just days after Governor Tina Kotek signed the bill into law on Monday. House Bill 3991 is supposed to raise $4.3 billion (that’s a million dollars 4,300 times over) across the next decade, which is a critical amount of money if Oregonians want to keep roads clear and safe, not lay off a bunch of employees, and send funding to cities for their own public transit projects. But a few legislators and a tax-resistant advocacy group filed a petition hoping to send a referendum to Oregon voters. They think they have a chance because they believe Oregonians would rather sit still for 10 years than pay one more dollar in taxes for basic infrastructure. 🙄 Taylor Griggs has the story.

  • Portland State University’s adjunct faculty union recently won an unfair labor practice dispute, but the staff are still having a hard time trusting university leadership as contract negotiations continue. The Oregon Employee Relations Board said PSU engaged in bad faith bargaining when it refused to administer benefit funds in August—including financial assistance from a fund often used for rent and groceries—to adjunct faculty who requested it after their contract expired in June. PSU (and universities everywhere) could instead try paying their adjuncts better or offering them full benefits, but for President Ann Cudd, millions of dollars are better spent on law firms specializing in “union avoidance” than ensuring teachers (read: heroes) have food and shelter. Kevin Foster reports.

  • When it comes to Zenith Energy and the city’s ongoing battle with local enviros, the devil is in the details. On Thursday, attorneys for a group of environmental advocates announced a win as the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in their favor, and against the city of Portland. The court decided that the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA), the state’s land use board, will hear the case advocates brought against the city of Portland in February, rather than Multnomah County Circuit Court, which the city would prefer. That matters because the details are very technical and could go over the heads of the albeit very smart circuit court judges, but not the three-member panel of LUBA. That could mean the courts ultimately decide the city must release a whole bunch of information, reopen a more public process for Zenith’s land use credential, and around and around we go. Jeremiah Hayden with the details here.

"There is a school of thought that's prominent in city hall... that if everybody is angry, then you're probably doing good politics and I think that's absolutely bullshit."

bikeportland.org/2025/11/13/c...

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— BikePortland (@bikeportland.org) November 13, 2025 at 3:33 PM

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

  • President Donald Trump's "Department of War" Secretary Pete Hegseth says the US is going to invade Venezuela, vowing to purge (read: kill) what they call “narco-terrorists” (read: people) from the Americas in their latest military expansion. They call the invasion “Operation Southern Spear,” and the United States’ largest aircraft carrier arrived in the region on Tuesday, adding pressure to Venezuela’s president, NicolĂĄs Maduro. Maduro says the US would be wise not to engage in another “forever war” like Afghanistan but the US has never seen a war it didn’t like. The Trump administration has been striking alleged drug smugglers in boats in the Caribbean for the past two months, killing at least 76 people who the administration claims without evidence were drug traffickers. Venezuela is a petrostate—it has the world’s largest oil reserves, and 99 percent of its export economy is oil—but yes, of course, this is about cocaine and fentanyl (neither of which come from Venezuela) just as the Dear Leader claims.

  • The Trump administration is changing course on longstanding homelessness policy and plans to make deep cuts to permanent housing programs. Instead, the federal government wants to focus on transitional housing that requires work and addiction treatment. That’s bad news for the vast majority of homeless Americans who don’t do drugs and for formerly homeless people in recovery who now live indoors thanks to those programs. Critics say the move could put 170,000 people at risk of losing housing, which couldn’t come at a worse time, as existing program funding also may not be renewed. At least we live in Portland, where local supportive housing funds are dwindling and city leadership is laser-focused on sweeping people into nighttime shelters, while turning away from long-term housing. The federal stuff is probably totally unrelated.

  • While Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell sits in prison enjoying the luxury of unlimited toilet paper—funny until you realize how hard it is for anyone else to get a slice of toilet paper in prison—connoisseurs of the Epstein files are poring over thousands of documents the House Oversight Committee released on Wednesday. Of note: Prince Andrew is named (big surprise), Epstein said “of course [Trump] knew about the girls” (Associated Press isn’t totally sure what this means), and Epstein apparently talked to the press quite a bit off the record. The House of Representatives will bring a bill to a floor vote next week that could compel the Department of Justice to release all the files. Surely, this will be the thing that gets Trump, once and for all.

  • And, this waffle is probably the least disgusting Trump-related thing:

I accidentally made a Trump waffle

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— Prof Shadoko (@profshadoko.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 11:22 AM