So. We now know the 20 citizens who will oversee Portland’s long-awaited police reform efforts, formally established in a settlement with the US Department of Justice. They come from a wide-variety of backgrounds, as you’d expect, but also are members of, or advocates for, marginalized communities. Meet them, won’t you?
How effective is the Portland Police Bureau at outing, and properly disciplining, cops who’ve been dishonest (and who might, as witnesses in trials, hold enormous sway over people’s lives with that dishonesty)? As Denis reported this morning, the city’s Independent Police Review is gonna figure that out.
The OLCC’s scheduled a bunch more listening sessions where you’ll be able to ask questions and voice opinions about how you think legal pot policy should take shape in Oregon. Well, at least you’ll be able to if the agency ever gets around to stopping here. So far, the closest event is in Beaverton/Tigard.
I can’t tell, given the amount of awful cows-being-annoying ads I’ve seen in recent months, if I should be irate Chik-fil-A doesn’t even have a store in Oregon yet, or upset that a homophobic chain is putting down roots in the ‘burbs, or just all around angry. A negative reaction, though. That much is certain.
In local stabbings: The person who stabbed a 13-year-old outside an East Portland Fred Meyer this weekend was apparently homeless, cops now say. He’d had some kind of argument or confrontation with the teen and the teen’s friends. AND: An Olympia woman who slashed her three children’s throats—not killing any of them, yet—just wanted them not to cry, she says.
The Wall Street Journal had a massive scoop yesterday, with its report that the Drug Enforcement Administration has cameras set up on highways around the country, and is probably tracking your movement.
Most of the attention, of course, went to a stretch of the northern East Coast, where leaders were busy shutting down roads and transit systems in preparation for a “top-five historic storm” predicted to drop feet of snow on New York, Boston, and points adjacent.
So were they right? Eh. NYC was mostly spared, but there are feet of snow falling in New England. Nothing cataclysmic just yet. It’s probably a good time to make up an appropriate limerick about snowbound Nantucket, though.
Glass-half-full view: Perhaps severe weather events in the monied Northeast will unleash a flood of cash to a credible political type willing to force actual progress against climate change. Because the Koch Brothers? They are coming to play in 2016, with as much as $1 billion in play to shape our country’s political future.
Then again, even President Obama is opening up new ocean to the oil companies (while closing off coveted areas of the arctic).
Read about the weird trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who yesterday was convicted of leaking details about the country’s secret war against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It involves people, hidden behind opaque screens set up in the courtoom, speaking about brief cases full of cash. Because CIA.
The Secret Service has always known the president is imperiled, potentially, by little drones—a fact driven home by the rinky-dink hobbyists’ quadcopter that crashed on White House grounds Monday. But what can they do about it?
Today’s sunset: 5:09 pm! And while the Northeast is miserable, we’re holding tight with some mid-50s loveliness.
RABUN COUNTY, GEORGIA STAND UP