Good morning neighbors and friends! It’s Wednesday, November 7, 2018, and our local weather in the Portland area begins foggy with an isolated shower and turns partly sunny with highs in the mid 50’s. Aside from some light rain early Saturday, It could be dry for the next week or more. Sunrise comes at 6:58 AM, sunset goes at 4:49 PM PST.
My plan here is to run down election headlines, then turn it over to the group for comments and questions. We’ll continue the insistence on civility that carried us so well through the midterm election, and thank you for that! Let’s keep it up!
So as we wake up, the top story nationally is that Democrats retake control of the House, picking up at least 26 seats, while Republicans build on their majority in the Senate by at least two. Democrats are back in power on the House side, for the first time in 8 years, imbued with the ability to investigate, to subpoena…even to impeach. But that would likely go nowhere, as pro-Trump Republicans were elected in Missouri and North Dakota, while keeping Ted Cruz in the hotly-contested seat in Texas, even as the charismatic young Beto O’Rourke emerges as a national force.
In Oregon, it was pretty much all blue, as Kate Brown was re-elected Governor to her first full four-year term, decisively defeating Knute Buehler by six points, and she’ll have a Democratic supermajority in both the state House and Senate. Oregon voters passed an affordable housing measure, upheld the sanctuary state law by 12 points, killed a measure prohibiting grocery taxes, and rejected a ban on state funding for abortions.
Other races…and we’ll be adding to this… Jo Ann Hardesty elected to Portland City Council in a runaway win over Loretta Smith. Jamie Herrera-Beutler has a 10,000 vote lead in the Washington 3rd over Carolyn Long, but there are over 80,000 votes still to be counted. The Keizer Fire levy passes (Congratulations, Chief Jeff Cowan!). The Oregon City School Bond passed….Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress….there will be a record number of women in the House… Florida passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to 1.4 million people with a past felony conviction. Stay tuned for more!
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Stray sweepings from the Daily Drip floor:
This is the day in 1972 Richard Nixon was reelected president in a 49-state landslide over antiwar candidate George McGovern. Massachusetts, not his home of South Dakota, is the one state McGovern won.
Happy birthday to KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer, the pride of Beaverton’s Sunset High School, son of a revered military man, born this day in 1960.
Aretha Franklin gave her final performance one year ago today. It was at Elton John’s AIDS benefit at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Billy Graham was born 100 years ago today.
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Every day, all around the world, good things are happening, and we catch some examples, like butterflies in a net, and let them fly free here. I invited you to go to the links page, below, because some of the stories have visuals that are unbearably cute or, in the case of this first one, spectacular to see!
–“10,000 torches light up Tower of London to commemorate 100 years since end of WW1.”
–“Chicago TV calls Bills fans the laughingstock of NFL. Bills fans responded by donating to a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides support for children with cancer.”
–“The Ozone Hole Could Heal in Our Lifetimes, UN Reports”
–“A cure for cancer for some, more on the horizon.”
–“Opposing Candidates End Debate With A Duet” This is a rerun…but I just felt the need!
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Late night for everyone last night, and an early morning for us all. Coffee and kindness, that’s the recipe!
Portland's Daily Drip 