Friends, my Internet is down at home, again, and I am not able to write much on my phone beyond the first draft of today’s report, which I’ll post below. There are significant news developments to bring you, foremost being a mass shooting at a nightclub in Thousand Oaks, CA, which killed nearly a dozen people of college age, and a deputy who tried to save them. The gunman, who was reportedly armed with a handgun, was also killed. This is a developing story, and we’ll bring you updates.
Here’s what I wrote earlier, before losing net access:
Greetings to you! It’s November 8, 2018, and Portland’s weather is as crisp as the leaves you shuffle through, and probably ought to rake: sunny, with highs in the mid 50’s, and overnight lows down to 35. Sunrise is at 7:00 AM, and sunset 4:48 PM PST. One aspect of a clear day in deep autumn is that you see how low in the sky the sun is riding: today at noon, it’ll hug the horizon at only 27 degrees…40 clicks lower in the sky than at the summer solstice. The low angle means that it’s coming right at you, sometimes, blindingly when you’re driving. (Things will change. Rain should begin by Tuesday night and continue for….let’s say “awhile”).
Thanksgiving is two weeks from today.
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Keep a heads up for protesters if you’re out and about tonight–the firing of AG Jeff Sessions has activated plans that have long been in place should Special Investigator Robert Mueller be fired. With Sessions out of the way, that means the new acting AG will be in charge of the Russia probe, and not Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who has defended and protected Mueller’s independence. The demonstrators belief, and that of many Trump critics on Capitol Hill, is that the Sessions firing was step one of a move to kill the Mueller probe. Anyway, there’s a national plan for protests at 5 PM local time, and in Portland, the meeting point is under the west end of the Burnside Bridge, where Saturday Market operates.
The White House has pulled the credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta, after yesterday’s incident at President Trump’s unbelievably contentious news conference, during which a female staff member tried to take the microphone away, and he held onto it. The White House says he “put his hands on her” and therefore his credentials were revoked. Other reporters say there was no such contact, or that it was incidental at best. The relationship between this president and the press covering him has never been worse.
At practically the very minute we received word that Jeff Sessions had “resigned,” Oregon’s US Attorney, Billy J. Williams, announced that he’d been appointed to head up the “Attorney General’s Marijuana Working Group,” and that he was “looking forward to working with Attorney General Sessions.” That’s important work, as the number of states to legalize the weed continues to grow, in direct defiance of federal law.
A scary unsolved case is now closed, with the arrest of a 20-year old man in the knife attack on a 10-year old girl as she slept in her bedroom in Beaverton last summer. She survived; he was hiding out with relatives in the Seattle area.
There won’t be a baseball stadium at the Portland Schools headquarters site after all. The Portland Diamond Project has pulled its offer after learning that another community coalition has a plan for an affordable housing project there, and they didn’t want to get in the way.
Looks like the never-used Wapato “Jail” is on its way to being torn down. Owner Jordan Schnitzer has filed for a demolition permit, since plans are fizzling so far to use it as a homeless shelter. He says he’s paying 50K a month just to maintain it; it’s a lot cheaper to maintain an empty lot.
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John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States on this day in 1960. George H.W. Bush was elected president thirty years ago today, and Donald Trump was elected to the office this day in 2016.
Happy birthday to Bonnie Raitt, born this day in 1949.
HBO was launched this date in 1972. Its first movie? “Sometimes a Great Notion,” a Paul Newman and Henry Fonda classic that was set and filmed on the Oregon Coast, and based on Oregon author Ken Kesey’s greatest novel.
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Now our regular rosy spotlight on headlines that are guaranteed not to make you see red!
—“Becoming a US citizen was this 106-year-old’s dream. She took the oath on Election Day”
—“Dog travels 3,000 miles to reunite with soldier who saved her life”
—“Salem BBQ restaurant rebuilds from the ashes as strangers donate $28K to military family”
—“Son wakes from coma after his mom nursed him day and night for more than a decade”
—“Nepal festival celebrates ‘day of the dogs’”
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With that, the DD signs off for the week, as tomorrow is another vacation day. I’ll be back to update the Thousand Oaks nightclub shooting and other stories. Have a good day everyone!
Portland's Daily Drip 