You guys ever get ants in your house, and then for absolutely no fathomable reason the ants decide to storm your bed? Me too. I’m on one hour of sleep. Bear with me.
This is a time of reflection and mild self-recrimination for Oregon politics, sure, but the best lead I saw amid the swirling, spitting, sad Tasmanian Devil of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s final full week in office was this wry gem from the Washington Post: “John Kitzhaber is resigning. But first, he wants to let all of us know precisely how disappointed he is in us.”
You know most of it by now, but just in case: Kitzhaber, after a damaging and embarrassing week, huddled his staff Friday morning to announce that, at last, his resignation wasn’t a drill. He’d toyed with the notion of pulling the plug on his gubernatorial career over the previous several days. Friday, he followed through. No word on the ant situation in the governor’s offices. Presumably the state keeps a tight lid on ants.
Denis has all the relevant background right here, but the future’s the most important thing at this point.
Willamette Week, which has dogged this story from the first, heaped further shade on Kitzhaber yesterday evening, reporting that the Feds have launched a massive investigation into Kitzhaber and his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes. The inquiry’s scope may be unprecedented for Oregon politics. Happily, you might be helping out with the couple’s legal bills.
The US House of Representatives also has a sudden renewed interest in the Cover Oregon debacle.
More important will be the political agenda of Secretary of State Kate Brown, who on Wednesday will ascend to the governor’s office. Brown’s leadership is historic because she’ll be the first openly bisexual governor in the nation’s history, but that’s not nearly as interesting as looking at all the half-finished jobs—many of them worthy—that Kitzhaber left behind, and trying to figure out how they’ll fare under Gov. Brown. She’s widely considered more partisan than Kitzhaber, and she’s also still smarting from revelations she’s cool to sign her name to documents her most generous donors put before her.
Oregon is big national news, for once. FINALLY. Bask in it. Unless it is covered in insatiable, maddening ants.
Moving on, the O asks the age-old question: Do homeless people come to Portland because they know they’ll get an easy ride? The paper doesn’t really offer up an answer, but it seems to be a solid ‘maybe.’
You know how Mayor Charlie Hales is going to run for re-election even though he hasn’t said as much? Denis has your latest proof: he’s accepting big checks from longtime supporters.
Portland’s long awaited bike share system’s being put off for a third year in a row, the director of Portland Bureau of Transportation told me yesterday. But she vowed we’d get it next year.
A former CIty of Portland employee has admitted kicking in $2,450 for a 2009 Pakistan suicide bombing that killed around 30 people. Reaz Qadir Khan faces up to 15 years in prison at a sentencing this June.
Meanwhile, it’s a slap on the wrist for an assistant Portland fire marshal who weirdly phoned the owner of Portland sex den Club Sesso to warn that his colleagues would be swooping in to write citations.
A controversial cartoonist and his acolytes gathered in Copenhagen today. Cue gunfire and murder.
Huh. A cop in New York City got indicted for killing an unarmed black man. Huh.
You’ve got until 5:36 pm to enjoy the lovely sunshine.
Dirk you need the Terro brand ant killer. I had little black sugar ants in my house when I moved in. Terro is borax based (same detergent often used on diapers) and not filled with nasty pesticides. The borax interrupts the ants digestion and it is in a syrup that they go crazy for. It was the only thing that worked for me they would ignore everything else. I now have no ants for 1 year.