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Good morning, Portland. It’s going to be balmy and sunny out today, with a forecasted high of about 70 degrees. This weekend is set to be positively HOT, which I dislike, but you may enjoy. Stay out of the rivers, they’re still cold. Anyway, let’s get to the news.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• It’s another tough budget year at the city of Portland, and leaders have to make “tough choices,” as they are wont to describe it. Looking specifically at the city’s Community and Economic Development service area, the mayor and city administrators have proposed cutting climate programs, tree permitting, and Prosper Portland, while graffiti abatement and Metro Chamber marketing for downtown foot traffic could get a funding boost. Check out Jeremiah Hayden’s latest story for the full scoop on this part of the mayor’s budget.
• The Mercury‘s Katherine Chew Hamilton has the latest on all the Portland food news you should know. This week’s roundup features the very sad news that Thavatsay Phimmoungkhoun, AKA “Nong,” was detained by ICE last week and had to close his well-loved Laotian food cart near PSU. Nong’s arrest and deportation comes as more immigrants from Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia are being targeted by ICE here in Portland. (You can help Nong establish himself back in Laos by donating to this GoFundMe.)
Also on our radar is a proposal to ban the selling or serving of force-fed foie gras within Portland city limits, which will go before City Council today. The proposal to ban foie gras was introduced by Councilor Mitch Green and has found co-sponsors in several other progressive councilors. The effort has been dismissed by some as a bad use of the City Council’s time, but I think complaining about wasting time usually just results in wasting more time. It’s illegal to serve foie gras (which consists of fatty duck/goose liver, and is produced by force-feeding the birds to enlarge their livers) in California and several European countries. Nobody is eating this stuff regularly. I find it extremely hard to believe banning this food item is going to do any noticeable damage to the city’s economy, but I’m sure that scare tactic will be used to oppose it, anyway. Remember, vegans vote.
• The Portland Trail Blazers’ time in the NBA playoffs has ended, following three consecutive losses to the San Antonio Spurs. During last night’s game, the Blazers started badly and got a little better in the fourth quarter, but didn’t make it over the finish line. That’s okay. They’ll do it next time.
• The driverless taxi company Waymo has officially announced it will be coming to Portland, despite many concerns (including from elected officials). The city still hasn’t given Waymo a permit to operate here driverless cars on the streets, but it looks like the company and its supporters may be able to strong-arm skeptics into it. At least, they’re going to try. Portlanders (and others) seem pretty split on Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies. While they may provide certain safety benefits (key word “may”), they would likely pose additional challenges to Portland’s transportation safety goals. Uber and Lyft drivers are also opposed to the company’s arrival in Portland, for obvious reasons. We’ll see what happens.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• The US Supreme Court has moved to gut one of the remaining tenets of the Voting Rights Act (after gutting many of the other parts of the program in recent years). The justices ruled 6-3 against Louisiana’s 2024 election map, which created a second majority-Black congressional district in a state where roughly 30 percent of residents are Black. (Louisiana has six congressional districts total.) The ramifications of this decision are not yet completely clear, especially with regard to how it will impact this year’s elections, but Elena Kagan’s dissent says “the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.” Not good.
• The US Justice Department has indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two counts for allegedly “threatening” the president in a photo he posted to social media. I’m using scare quotes there because the photo in question depicted seashells spelling out the numbers 86 47, which Comey likely meant to mean he wanted Donald Trump (the 47th president) kicked out, or 86’d. I understand Trump and his team are on edge at the moment, but I still strongly disagree with the DOJ’s assertion that a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret [Comey’s post] as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.” Bar staff often refer to banning a customer from the establishment as “86ing” them, and guess what? That doesn’t mean they’re planning to injure or kill the customer in question. This is obviously BS retribution against the Obama-era FBI director, who the Trump administration previously indicted last fall for another ridiculous reason. Look, we can all think of a certain FBI director who deserves to be prosecuted, and it’s not Comey. The time will come.
• If you need to renew your passport, maybe wait a bit. The State Department just announced that, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the US will do a limited release of commemorative passports featuring Trump’s face. These passports (there will be between 25,000 and 30,000 of them) are seemingly intended to be exclusive to applicants at the Washington, DC passport office, but I get the feeling they may try to force the extras on people outside the capital.
• On a positive note, talks at the “Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” conference in Colombia (where the US is not present) seem to be going well. Colombia has been an exemplar in recent years of how a country can quickly turn away from planet-warming fossil fuels and coal and embrace renewable energy at a large scale. The war in Iran has further underscored just how unstable oil is as an energy source. The conference in Colombia was designed to get stuff done following years of rather unsuccessful global climate talks, which have often been sabotaged by fossil fuel companies and their interests. It’s very late to be taking real action on this, but perhaps there is some room for optimism.
• Have a good day and week, everyone!! Happy Woimsday.
