"... with comedy!"

Yes, that was the headline of the press release we received from Earl's office hyping his upcoming stand up comedy night.

Apparently Oregon's Congressional representative hosts an annual comedy night, sharing the stage with other local politicians. But this year's event this Monday November 9th at the Tiffany Center downtown will have an extra bitter tinge to it, what with all the death panel hysteria around Earl's end-of-life care policy.

If you're one of those two or three people with 100 extra dollars lying around, it might be worth throwing them toward a ticket for three reasons:

1. David Bragdon will be doing stand up comedy.
2. Lynn Peterson will be doing stand up comedy.
3. None of the "jokes" are vetted.

"It will either be really really funny or it will be disastrously unfunny," says Blumenauer's spokesman Willie Smith.

• Matt Davis
• This is supposed to be Earl with killer lasers coming out of his eyes.

Remember when this whole tea-bagging thing started and it just seemed too silly to gain momentum? Well who's silly now, comrade Liberal Doubtevski? All indicators say that this snowball of unfocused populist rage is just going to keep rolling until someone's getting ice down the back of their coat.

Peep this article by Christopher Beam over on Slate about Michelle Bachmann's anti-reform freedom SuperBowl. While the real heart of the article is the fact that top-tier Republicans are stoking a fire they don't really control, there's plenty of other details to get your hands wringing. Like this paragraph:

Some of [the attendees] dressed for the occasion. Before the speeches started, a man in a death costume grabbed a bullhorn and introduced two protesters dressed up as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Each was bound in chains and their clothes were spattered in blood. Baby dolls hung upside down from their chains. Around each wrist they wore bracelets made of what looked like small plastic fetuses. "Whyyyy?" moaned the Pelosi character. "Why did I kill the babies?" Nearby, Nancy Murphy of Annapolis, Md., complained that they were making the rally look bad. "We want you to write about this," she said, indicating the rest of the protest. "Not about that." Indeed, many protesters were still livid over media coverage of the 9/12 protest, particularly the phrase teabagger. "Do you see anyone here with nutsacks on their face?" said one man to me.

Or this excerpt from actor, Jon Voight's, speech:

"President Obama has his own obsession with trying to ram this health bill through and create a socialist America," he said. "We as freedom-loving Americans must not be scared into Obama's radical Chicago tactics. His agenda is not for the poor. It's solely for his political gain. His lies and propaganda are all very blatant, shown to us by those who exposed ACORN, which is as corrupt as all the president's czars."

Nice little cluster of fear-mongering buzzwords there. Which legacy will Jon Voight's family have a harder time living down: his career as a conservative talking head or his co-starring role in David Zucker's An American Carol?

Psychotherapist Ed Garren has decided to run for election early next year against City Commissioner Dan Saltzman. Garren, originally from Florida, moved to Portland in October 2005. He ran in the primary for Nick Fish's seat in January 2008, after Erik Sten's resignation, but was knocked out. An openly gay candidate for the seat, Garren is also a wonderful cook.

"I've just decided I need to throw my name in the ring, and file papers to get the 1000 $5 contributions," he says. "As soon as I can nail down a place, we're going to have a kick-off event on my 60th birthday, November 21st," says Garren.

"There are issues that need to be addressed, and they're either being addressed or not at all," says Garren, asked why he's running. "We talk about sustainability and green and all of that, but we're not doing as best as we can do. There's still issues between the police and communities of color, and we're not doing enough to house the homeless."

"I don't know what's going on with Saltzman, but he has not yet declared intent," says Garren. "And he's specifically said he's not going to declare intent until the first of the year. But the cut-off for getting public campaign financing is not until the 31st of January. Now you remember what happened with Jim Middaugh and Erik Sten? Having a little bit of a suspicious mind, I think either he's got someone in the wings who may want to step up as the new grassroots candidate."

Middaugh was Sten's chief of staff, who stepped up to run for Sten's vacant seat when he resigned. Garren appears to be referring implicitly to Brendan Finn, Saltzman's chief of staff, who is known to have political ambitions, should Saltzman decide not to run again.

"I've had a number of people tell me they want me to run," Garren continues. "I've had people in the press tell me to run, a lot of community organizations, nonprofits, and even people in the press tell me they want me to run. So I don't want to wait to see what Dan is going to do. This isn't about me or about Dan, it's about the voters, and I think the voters need a viable choice."

One other publicly-funded candidate has filed for the seat, so far: Spencer Burton.

The early results of the tight Washington elections I blogged about this morning have rolled in. Looks like a win for domestic partnership rights (huzzah!) but only by a terrifyingly small margin (boo!)—51.1 to 48.8 percent. The Stranger's Slog has the victory party photos.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, anti-toll candidate Tim Leavitt has pulled ahead by nine percent (results here). Barring some last minute miracle, that means the Columbia River Crossing project is in for some crazy negotiations, as Leavitt hinged his entire campaign on nixing tolls from the bridge that has always viewed tolls as necessary. Leavitt and probably-soon-to-be-ex Mayor Royce Pollard poured the most money into a mayoral race in the history of Vancouver. According to The O they raised $124,500 and $174,000 respectively.

I just opened an envelope from Japan, and found this inside.

The big Teabaggers Express bus rolled into town today as one stop on a 37 city "Countdown to Judgment Day" Tour. The several hundred person rally in the SE 12th and Burnside parking lot of Michael's Italian Beef (talk about a sausage fest...) included the usual speeches and singing of "God Bless the USA" but hey! Special additions to this protest that weren't at the previous tea bag protests in town: tons of fresh new anti-Obama schwag! Here's a visual compendium:

• These tote bags only $5 with purchase of an anti-Obama t-shirt!!

Unfortunately, the protest is wrapping up right now, so you're going to have to book it down there to snag the t-shirt that will stop socialism dead in its tracks. On the other hand, they'll probably be easier to steal as the buses are loading out...

More pictures below the cut.

The Democrats unveiled their $894 billion healthcare overhaul today and surprise surprise, guess what's still included? Portland representative Earl Blumenauer's small section on providing end-of-life care that spiraled into the whole "death panels" hysteria.

The policy provides reimbursement for time doctors spend counseling patients about end-of-life options, but the funny thing is that Blumenauer's office says the misinformation-riddled attacks on the straight-forward idea actually helped keep it in the healthcare bill. "The outrageous and vindictive attacks over the last few months backfired and ironically helped to raise awareness about this problem, which is why it’s been kept in the bill," says Blumenauer. The obviously-false attacks on the legislation actually rallied support around the provision and raised its profile—Obama even wound up mentioning it in his big address of the healthcare joint session.

• BT Livermore

My world has been a bit of a progressive political echo chamber recently (I realized I haven't actually hung out with someone right-of-center since John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute and I rode the Green Line together in September) so I decided to take a field trip last night to the third installment of "U-Choose... Freedom or Serfdom?" The conservative discussion event is sort of like an Multnomah County Republican Party version of our Brewhaha, but without alcohol or fun. It was held under the unforgiving florescent lights in a conference room off NE MLK.

The topic was timely: "Illegal Immigration and Socialized Healthcare." "Is government funded healthcare a benefit illegal aliens don't deserve and can't afford?" asked the event's flier, which I stacked between pamphlets from the John Birch Society and Glenn Beck's 9/12 group.

• 9/12 project
• Democrats beware the giant snake invasion.

The MC told us that the Republican party were calling us to become a "boots on the ground army" ("figurative!" she added) for the right. "It is the destiny of the Republican party to come back to power!"

Jim Ludwick is a big anti-immigration activist in Oregon. His group does things like picket Portland's day labor hire site and advocate for English-only education in public schools. Like it or not, his group has some influence—last year, their law for stiffer ID checks at the DMV passed. Last night he took up the issue of whether Obama was lying, like Joe Wilson said, about illegal immigrants not receiving healthcare under proposed overhaul. After going off on a bit of a rant about how Americans are "second class people in their own country" and a lurid story about an illegal immigrant who committed a sex crime, Ludwick said that non-citizens would get healthcare under the reform because there was no piece of the new law that mandates doctors check to see if the patients are here legally.

In addition to the economic impact of illegal immigrants on hospital emergency rooms, Ludwick had "deeper philosophical objections" to non-citizens obtaining healthcare in the US: it will "debase and devalue" American citizenship. "To them, we're all citizens of the world and that citizenship is meaningless," said Ludwick, sourly.

With Obama in office and two Democratic Oregon Senators, it can be easy to overlook the serious Republicans who are rallying around their issues, if not their official representatives. But never forget: it is the destiny of the Republican party to come back to power.

Fresh from her valiant battle for the house and senate, Multnomah County staffer Karol Collymore has wasted no time in getting back to blogging over at Blue Oregon, with a post on Portland as a "white city."

She asks: "how do we as a progressive people make it appealing for people of color to want to stay here?"

Your input is encouraged.

NARAL points us to some disturbing news: Anti-abortion activists are are planning to hold an eBay auction of some memorabilia to raise money for the man who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller at church last spring.

According to the internet, a group of anti-abortion activists plan to launch the auction on eBay November 1st. Among the items to be sold are: a prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons, an autographed bullhorn that was used at abortion protests and an Army of God manual, a how-to book for anti-abortion militants that describes dozens of ways to shut down clinics, including bombing.

EBay's a little cagey about the idea of auctioning off a bombing manual on their site. “EBay does not allow listings that promote or glorify violence, hate, racial or religious intolerance, or items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” they said in a statement.

But can you imagine the uproar that would ensue if any other group were selling off material to raise money for domestic terrorism? It wouldn't just be a weak eBay statement criticizing the auction, it would be Homeland Security.

(oh, by the way, the Planned Parenthood donation button is here.)

So says George Will in what Raw Story is calling a "Walter Cronkite moment" in the war on drugs:

Appearing on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, the Pulitzer-winning journalist and longtime icon of America's political right declared that with President Barack Obama's new policy which respects the states right to allow medical marijuana, the United States is "probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana." He added that if there were to be a serious effort to fight the increasingly violent, powerful Mexican drug cartels, "you'd legalize marijuana," the sale of which provides the gangs the vast majority of their funding....

"We have legalized gambling in this country over two generations; it used to be considered a sin and a crime. We, with no national debate and no decision moment—we just did it—we legalized prostitution, as anyone who opens a telephone book and looks under 'escort' can tell you. And we may be doing... We're probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana."

Oregon legislators are finally asking questions about the single largest transportation project in our region's history, the Columbia River Crossing (CRC)—high time since Oregon has already allocated $39.6 million in state funds to the bridge. Sadly, the legislators' discussion over the bridge did not happen on the floor of the house or in a public forum, but in a private meeting Monday with the CRC staff.

North/NE Portland Representative Tina Kotek organized the meeting and described it as a briefing, where CRC project staff fielded questions from legislators for two hours. "Really, it was educational above all else," says Kotek. "There really hasn't been a specific role for the legislature up until now but somewhere down the line the project is going to be a legislative issue."

The legislature DID have a role this past session—it was their job to write up a transportation budget. The transportation committee decided to nix the CRC's $30 million planning dollars from their strapped budgets. But then the Governor-appointed 5-member Oregon Transportation Commission set aside the $30 million for the project anyway!

The overriding of the legislature's wishes was one of the big actions that led a group of legislators to pen an Oregonian editorial saying they'd been railroaded by the process.

"We need a new bridge and the process until now has actually been an impediment to building it. Someone has got to take leadership on the bridge process and the discussion should be in public," says East Portland Representative Nick Kahl, who was invited to Monday's meeting but could not attend. "I think everyone acknowledges that we're not talking about a $4.2 billion bridge anymore. So what sort of bridge are people being briefed about behind closed doors? If I, a vice chair of the transportation committee, don't know, then who does?"

State Representative Mike Schaufler, who was at the meeting, says the briefing was straightforward. "It was just a casual meeting among some legislators from across the river. These kinds of meetings happen all the time." There's nothing about the meeting not being publicly advertised that makes it "bad, illegal, immoral or unethical," he says. As a gesture of openness, Schaufler invited me and any other interested media to all future legislative meetings on the CRC. The House and Senate transportation committees are going to get another briefing from the CRC staff on November 19th.

Kotek promises the legislature's discussion will be different the next time the politicians looks at the CRC budget. "I don't think we've had a robust discussion in the legislature about the CRC. In 2011, we'll be having this discussion in a much more specific way," says Kotek. She also says does not expect the Democractic party as a whole to take a stance on the design or funding of the bridge, explaining, "It's not really a party issue."