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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋

Weather-wise, get ready for a "rinse and repeat" (literally) sort of week, with showers and/or cloudy skies practically every damn day and highs staying in the low 50s. And now let's lather up with some NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• This just in: Loser Trump hates losing. (And yet keeps setting himself up for losses? I don't get it, either.) Anyway, following Judge Immergut's final ruling against the federal government on November 7—banning King Fool from sending National Guard troops to Oregon—last night the DOJ decided to file an emergency request to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking them to stop the judge's order. Probably correctly sensing their request is going to be shot down, they also asked that, if they refuse, to at least allow Oregon's National Guard to stay under federal control until the full appeal could be heard. The TL;DR version? The DOJ is hoping the decision will once again go before a three-person team of Trump judges in a desperate, hail Mary attempt to save face and allow the president to keep a smidgen of the power he so desperately craves. But even then, if the Trumpy judges agree to pause Immergut's ruling, it will most likely go back before the FULL Ninth Circuit Court who—just like last time—will issue a ruling of "BITCH, PLEASE." (The best result will be Trump finally discovering that Portland is the very least of his problems. Epstein's island, anyone?)

In an emergency motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Department of Justice attorneys said Judge Karin Immergut's order effectively second-guessed military judgements by the commander in chief, “something district courts lack the authority and competence to do.”

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— OPB (@opb.org) November 17, 2025 at 7:15 AM

• Meanwhile, the 200 National Guard troops from California—remember them?—are reportedly heading home after sitting around in Oregon twiddling their thumbs. It's been six looooong weeks since Judge Immergut refused to allow the Cali troops to patrol Portland's almost completely calm ICE facility, and according to Department of Defense officials, they're finally being allowed to go home to their families. (But at least they had plenty of time to brush up on their backgammon and crocheting skills!)

• But let's not get too distracted by the incessant legal wrangling of the Trump administration to forget their true crimes—the thousands of immigrant kidnappings made by ICE. According to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, ICE detainments shot up by a whopping 550 percent (!!) in October, compared to previous months. The group counted that 329 immigrants had been kidnapped, stripped of their rights, and taken from their families in the month of October—and that is most likely an undercount. Immigration officers are reportedly snatching up groups of people at a time—despite their legal status—and using increasingly violent methods, including smashing car windows, and physically attacking the victims while using tasers and pepper spray to subdue them.

• Ongoing collective bargaining between Portland State University (PSU) and its adjunct faculty union have been ongoing and contentious. However, the union recently won an important victory after a state board ruled that PSU had violated labor laws by denying adjuncts access to the benefit funds they relied on for paying groceries and rent. While that's certainly good news, union members are still paying the price for management's greed. Check out the entire story by Kevin Foster.

Our resident photo essayist @corbinsmith.bsky.social popped by Portland's Retro Gaming Festival—but rather than focusing on the past, he met and profiled the next generation of video game makers.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) November 14, 2025 at 9:55 AM

• In other labor news, roughly 700 workers at the New Seasons grocery chain have voted to authorize a strike before Christmas if management fails to meet their demands. The union has been negotiating with their bosses since January 2023, and if they cannot come to agreement by December 4, workers have agreed to walk off the job starting on December 17—eight days before the ho-ho-holiday.

• Historian and lifelong poster hound Jason Blumklotz has been building his massive collection of Portland concert posters since the 1980s—including such greats as Heatmiser, Hazel, Earth, Wind & Fire, B.B. King, and lots more—and now you can finally see them in all their glory in a new art show at Mint Gallery Records on N. Mississippi. Our Nolan Parker has the deets!

Calling all smarty pants! 🩳 It's time for another super fun POP QUIZ PDX. In this week's local trivia quiz: '80s-style aerobics, Trump's continuing humiliation at the hands of Portland, and everyone's fave subject... DRUGS! 🥳 See how well YOU score!

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) November 13, 2025 at 10:49 AM

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Undoubtedly realizing the tide is quickly turning against him, President Trump reversed course last night, telling members of the House to vote in favor of releasing all the Epstein files, saying "We have nothing to hide." (Uh-huh, if that's the case, why has he been hiding for weeks? Or—to put it more bluntly—why hasn't he just ordered the documents to be released, since he's the presumed boss of the DOJ?) In any case, even if the House passes the resolution, it still needs to go to the Senate, where it faces long odds, and even then he could veto it. And let's not forget that Trump's name is all over the 20,000 Epstein emails that were dumped last week, including one that says he spent "hours" with one of the sex criminal's trafficked victims, as well as another intriguing missive that lit TikTok on fire over the weekend, alleging a... shall we say, "oral dalliance" with someone named "Bubba." Which, if true, will absolutely vaporize the minds of every MAGAt in America.

White House staff were forced to intervene in an effort to stop President Donald Trump from an Oval Office decoration plan that was feared to literally bring the ceiling crashing in, according to a new book.

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— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) November 17, 2025 at 8:00 AM

• Meanwhile, the aggressive assholes of ICE have invaded yet another city, shifting their focus to Charlotte, North Carolina, where they reportedly kidnapped 81 people in violent fashion. The victims were snatched from their places of work, dragged out of stores, had their car windows smashed, and in one case attacked while helping a church during an area clean-up day. (And because they can't help but be anything but grotesque, the feds dubbed their operation "Charlotte’s Web”—from the children's book about a spider that tries to save the life of a farm's beloved pig. 😡)

NEW: Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of 'Charlotte's Web' — warned us about. 

DHS named its North Carolina anti-immigrant effort "Operation Charlotte's Web." In 1940, White wrote of the "smell" that "rises" from those who "adjust to fascism" over freedom.

Tonight, at Law Dork:

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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) November 16, 2025 at 4:26 PM

• The longtime love affair between Trump and screaming harpy Marjorie Taylor Greene has possibly come to an end, after Greene turned against the president for trying to hide his involvement with sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, followed by Trump banning her from his inner circle. Greene is now blaming the president for a recent pipe-bomb threat sent to her construction company, as well as several... checks notes... "hoax pizza deliveries." On Sunday, Greene tweeted that "President Trump’s unwarranted and vicious attacks against me were a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family." But wait, wait, wait... we want to know more about the "hoax pizza deliveries!"

• A blast from the past: The estate of O.J. Simpson has agreed to pay a whopping $58 million to the father of Ron Goldman, who O.J. was accused of murdering along with his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994. The former football star-turned-actor died in 2024.

• And finally... in this video, Jesus is like, "Mondays... amirite?"

@tethezqi6dr

 

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