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Good morning, Portland! Alert: The Mercury’s shot and beer week is already halfway over!
Here are the headlines.
• The ACLU of Washington and the NAACP of Vancouver are calling on the US Department of Justice to investigate the Vancouver Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office for racial profiling and discriminatory policing. The agencies have killed eight people in the last two years, five of whom were people of color. The three white people were experiencing homelessness and mental health crises.
• Last night’s Portland City Council meeting was a doozy. After four long hours of impassioned public testimony, the council went ahead and adopted $60 million in budget amendments—including one that gives $10 million to the Portland Police Bureau. The amendments will be finalized in a vote next week.
Alex was faithfully watching the meeting:
Not live-tweeting this mtg, BUT: a man testifying just accused Cm. Hardesty of “sexual harassment” for saying city commissioners “mansplained” something to her earlier in the mtg.
“I have never had someone disrespect me as a male like that,” he says.
This day. Is too long.
— Alex Zielinski (@alex_zee) November 11, 2021
• Time to batten down the hatches: a major storm is hitting the Portland area, and could cause flooding. (By the way, does anyone know what “batten” or “hatches” means??)
• The residents of Flint, Michigan are finally getting some tiny measure of justice. A judge approved a $626 million settlement from the state of Michigan, with funds available for anyone who was impacted by the water lead crisis. Some believe that settlement is far too small a price to pay for a disaster that started seven years ago.
• Could labor organizing be the thing that finally smashes the urban-rural political divide?
So much for the party of workers.https://t.co/iU1ACGzFMp
— VICE News (@VICENews) November 11, 2021
• Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial for killing two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year. The baby-faced pig-faced 18-year-old who’s claiming self-defense testified in his own trial yesterday, spilling plenty of tears in the process. Some trial experts believe his testimony could prompt the jury to sympathize with him and let him off the hook.
• A new AP analysis shows that the world’s exposure to extreme heat has tripled in the last 40 years. Get ready for more heat domes, baby!
• And finally—take a peep to see which Portland spots made their way onto this coveted list:
The most thrilling places to eat, from an LA pop-up to a New York City hot spot: These are the best new restaurants in America https://t.co/pe79hedZvy pic.twitter.com/c7J2VNi5lE
— Eater (@Eater) November 9, 2021
Portland is never going to change until it gets rid of the cops. Still want a police force? Fine, get rid of every single existing cop and start over. Seriously. How many federal interventions and investigations is it going to take? The cops in Portland are white supremacist terrorists. Period. And they reveled in the violence brought by TFG’s federal goons this summer during the Black Lives Matter protests. Funding more cops is not the answer. More cops is not the answer. It’s always amazed me that places that are considered so progressive and where everyone blames everything on the liberals in charge embrace and perpetuate archaic, authooritarian, violent forces of oppression believing they make places safer.