Good morning! Allow the reality to infuse your mind and heart that This Is May! Named for the Greek fertility goddess Maia. The month of “Yes You May!” The month we longed for in January, when darkness depressed our souls, and February, when it snowed every time they said it wouldn’t, and didn’t every time they said it would! Today is Wednesday, May 1, 2019, Portland’s weather is a wonderland of fair skies and comfortable temperatures peaking at 67. Sunrise 5:59 AM Sunset 8:17 PM.
The Blazers play at Denver tonight at 6 on TNT and Rip City Radio 620. We’re down 1-0, and NBA analysts think it’s because our guys just aren’t big enough to guard their guys. Do you know this is the first time Portland has played the Nuggets in a playoff series in over 30 years? The last time was 1986, and Denver won. But before that was 1977, when the Blazers beat them 4 games to 2 in the Western Conference semifinals, and then….cue the “Rocky” theme…went on to win it all!
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May Day is International Workers Day, a traditional day of protest all around the world, and it’s a custom that a segment of Portland heartily embraces. Portland police tell us they’re aware of “multiple demonstrations,” none of which have a permit or a plan on file with the city, at several locations: the South Waterfront, Downtown, and Holladay Park. We live here, we know the drill. Just avoid getting caught up in anything you don’t want to get caught up in, and the day will be fine.
Anonymous anarchists have claimed responsibility for vandalizing the office of the attorney representing the union for ICE agents in Portland. They snaked a garden hose into the mail slot, turned on the water, and it ran all weekend, doing thousands of dollars in damage. In an email to Willamette Week, the group wrote, “Our goal was to cause maximum economic damage, that should serve as a warning to all individuals and businesses that profit off the human misery perpetrated by ICE.”
Fire investigators say the massive blaze that did ten million dollars damage to Wilsonville’s Villebois development was “incendiary” in origin, but they stopped just short of calling it arson. Their ruling is that the fire “was ignited by a person under circumstances in which it should not have been ignited.” They don’t have a person of interest.
The Oregon House votes today on a business tax that could add a billion dollars a year to school funding. The half-percent tax would apply only to companies with over a million dollars in annual sales, and doesn’t apply to groceries or restaurants. The business lobby has given its tacit blessing, if not its endorsement.
We hear conflicting feedback about the pending Washington law that virtually eliminates the sales-tax-free shopping that Oregonians have long enjoyed in the Evergreen State. One Daily Drip reader who spent years in retail in Washington posted yesterday that he “had a large majority of people flash their Oregon ID and proceed to brazenly tell me they live here (in Washington) but love getting the tax taken off.” Just like the notorious license plate cheaters. But a couple of Vancouver lawmakers wrote in the local Business Journal that “we believe many Oregonians would simply stop coming to Washington to purchase products from our local businesses.” The proposed law, which now awaits the Governor’s signature, doesn’t fully eliminate the exemption. It just imposes hoops to leap through, requiring that Oregon shoppers save their receipts and then file for a rebate the next year. You’d get back the state portion of the sales tax, but not any local sales tax, such as that charged by Vancouver.
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The Washington Post reports that special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter complaining to Attorney General William Barr that his four-page memo to Congress describing the “principal conclusions” of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, particularly as it pertained to the obstruction issue. Barr appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee today starting at 7 AM Pacific.
A 22-year-old history major from Texas has been identified as the suspect in a shooting on a college campus in North Carolina, where two people were killed and four others wounded.
On this day in 1992, the third day of the Los Angeles riots, Rodney King appeared in public to plead for calm, asking “Can we all get along?”
This was the day in 2011 when President Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden.
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Headlines for a happier heart!
–“Hummingbird returns every year to see Grovetown man who nursed him back to health”
–“Farmers remain silent at auction so that young man can buy back family land”
–“Local Irishman man saves American tourists after car plunges into Kerry sea”
–“Seven-year-old Genius Draws World Map in Minutes”
–“12 Forgotten Desserts of Yesteryear”
Details in the Coffee Cup!
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May Day is also Lei Day throughout Hawaii! And it’s payday for many. So Happy May Day Pay Day Lei Day!
Portland's Daily Drip 