The Struggle Against Data Centers in Oregon | Part Five: “Elections”

Two people who were hired to gather signatures for a Portland ballot initiative that would use clean energy funds to hire police say they were trained to mislead the public about the proposal. At least one person has already detailed their concerns about the campaign in a state ethics complaint.

A friendly reminder that even if they were smuggling drugs, they are still civilians and it’s illegal to summarily execute them, no matter if the Trump administration tries to claim fentanyl is a WMD—which also generally isn’t coming from South America, but from US citizens crossing from Mexico.

NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill has justified sending in state police to quell protests outside of Delaney Hall, where hundreds of detainees are on hunger strike. These actions must be understood as forcing marginalized communities to bear the burden of fascism.

The doctor telling Pam Bondi she has thyroid cancer: “This is rough, but hey, the Dow is at 50,000.”

The Struggle Against Data Centers in Oregon | Part Four: “Buzzwords”

The Struggle Against Data Centers in Oregon | Part Three: “The Cost” A five-part series on the data center battle happening in Hillsboro, Oregon. To support my work, please subscribe to my Substack, Last Week in Hell. Everything is free to read/watch (for now at least).

I’m 20 subscribers away from 500 on Substack. I publish everything free to view (for now at least). It would mean a lot if you could share this post and help get my journalism in front of more eyes. Part four of my data center series in Hillsboro should be dropping today or tomorrow.

This case never should’ve happened in the first place. We fought back, refused to back down, and won.

Don’t forget indie journos also have to be a social media manager, a video producer (in my case), a fundraiser, essentially a mini news director and business manager and probably a life coach too because of how insane this is. And then cope with the fact that you’re lucky if you make enough to live.

Whelp, just sent the first email in the process and they have 21 days to respond. I think I’ve got them dead to rights on this one. They quoted the AG’s public meetings manual to me, but conveniently left out the section between their quotes where it nearly explicitly says I should have access.

Just spoke with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Genuinely Kafkaesque how this all works. A months-long process to determine whether the city violated public meeting laws on an extremely urgent issue. I’ll still go through the process, but damn this is depressing.

And shoutout to the city employee who called my data center news article an “op-ed” and got mad I didn’t say they pointed me to a Q&A, which I already had public access to. I’m not a stenographer homie, you gotta give me something.

The City of Hillsboro has denied my request for media access to the executive city council session tonight on the data centers issue. Of note: -I am a credentialed member of the National Writers Union and National Press Photographers Association. -I have bylines in Mother Jones…

The Struggle Against Data Centers in Oregon | Part Two: “Tax Heaven”

In addition to what I just posted, Evelyn Kocher, a DSA-greenlit candidate appears to be heading for a runoff election as no one received more than 50% of the vote in the Beaverton City Council, Position 1 race.

DSA-backed and anti-data center candidates in Oregon’s local elections are pulling further ahead of their opponents.

The Portland Police Association, the cop union that lobbied to take $10 million from the community police accountability budget, is crying foul that Councilor Kanal, the most knowledgeable councilor on police accountability, attended a police accountability meeting he was invited to.

The Oregonian publishing some funny headlines (that are still up?) about elections. DSA-supported candidates Myrna Muñoz and Tammy Carpenter have each pulled ahead in their races. Still too close to call, but a big overtake for progressives.

Have you ever wanted high speed rail, but slower, less comfortable, less efficient, with less capacity, more points of failure, a higher risk of accident, and a costly deteriorating freeway expansion on top of it? Yes?? Well Caltrans has a plan for you! Bullet buses! Where logic goes to die!

Thomas Massie just lost the Kentucky primary to a Trump-backed candidate. Massie wanted to release the Epstein files. Kinda wild Republicans still try to pretend they don’t support rapists and pedophiles. Imagine worrying about trans people in bathrooms, then voting for this. Straight brainrot.

The Struggle Against Data Centers in Oregon | Part One: “Surrounded” Here is the first part in a series on data centers in Hillsboro, Oregon and the community fighting back against data center tax breaks and expansion.

Sometimes I wonder what the Portland budget process would look like if the mayor, councilors, and city administrators were stuck on a 24/7 livestream the whole time. Yes this is sarcastic, but transparency is cool, especially when ppl be fkn with voter-approved police accountability measures.

@kevinhfoster.bsky.social's footage from the night I was arrested while protesting is what my lawyer('s assistant) credited as the most likely reason my case didn't ultimately go to trial or require a "no protesting for 1yr" deal. Pls consider donating a bit to help fund their next big project.

In case anyone is wondering, I did confirm it was Sen. Janeen Sollman who reached out to KGW about the interview with anti-data center candidates. Her team requested a copy of the interview. Sollman says they did not discourage KGW from airing the interview and KGW did not offer her an interview.

I feel completely safe in Portland. Even in the Yamhill Pub.

I’m really excited to see how people try to spin this as crazed socialists destroying the city when most people seem to agree administrative bloat is a problem. Maybe they won’t tho! Who knows? Seems like Novick is on board.

Today is Nakba Day, 78 years after an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in the creation of the Israeli apartheid state. Despite readily available definitions and an established consensus among leading human rights groups, top media organizations continue to sanitize language.

wtf are we doing?

🚨 The NYT appears to have taken a great feature story written by my colleague at Bolts about a west Tennessee county & the VRA, & essentially rewritten it. (Same frame, similar hed, overlapping sources.) Without a single mention, credit, let alone the a hyperlink buried somewhere.

Louisiana's SCOTUS-enabled racial gerrymandering will bring the tyranny of toxicity without representation to the mostly Black folks of heavily polluted 'Cancer Alley,' who'll lose a seat in Congress Voting rights die, environmental racism thrives. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/raci...

So far we’ve raised about $152 for this series on data centers in Hillsboro. I’m hoping we can get this closer to $1000 to supplement whatever I’m able to get from an outlet. Probably a lofty goal, but here’s to hoping. I wish I could do this work for free, but alas, we need money to live.

A brief update on Portland Police and the ICE building: On May Day, Oregon State Police and Portland Police forcibly removed protesters from the driveway in front of the ICE building. Demonstrators had periodically banged on the fence and walls of the building, but federal agents did not come out.

The Oregonian is really boosting a columnist’s fear mongering about the Moda Center deal. He acts like city councilors are morons for not handing out hundreds of millions to a billionaire for no economic return. Sports teams do not drive an economy. The world doesn’t revolve around a bouncy ball.

The data center insanity in Hillsboro continues. I’ve outlined a 5-part video series I want to produce on it. Part of being an indie journalist is being a fundraiser. This is how I make money, and to justify this work, I need some support. Please share this and consider supporting on Substack.

ICE detained a longtime cook from the restaurant Güero in Portland. It’s the second time in recent weeks a popular restaurant worker has been taken. All of this is so crushingly pointless. Ripping communities and families apart for the sake of terror and an arbitrary line we drew on a map.

“We’re not voting our way out of this” has never felt more true. But I still think there is hope for the future. It should be noted that just two days before SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called for a general strike on May 1, 2028.

Is there a worse blunt rotation than Bill Maher and John Fetterman?

I spoke with a man who was detained and later deported by ICE. He described going to court rooms and being given no information and no real chance to defend himself. He was moved around the country, far from legal aid. He had a pending asylum application when he was taken from his family.

Fresh off losing to me in the Webby voting these guys are looking to stack another fat L.

For the sake of my sanity, I want to emphasize again: The Moda Center deal would effectively give hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to billionaires known for predatory lending, shadow banking, and selling warehouses to ICE.

Oregon officials are burning a billion public dollars on the Moda Center/Blazers deal. Amid a budget crisis, we’re giving handouts to Tom Dundon, a billionaire who made his money on subprime auto loans, and co-owner Marc Zahr, a billionaire whose shadow bank sold a warehouse to ICE this year.

Reading Trump’s posts is such a strange insight into narcissistic insanity.

A lot has happened, but not much has changed.

Here’s pretty much everything you need to know about the current data center situation in Hillsboro. Please feel free to comment if I missed anything.

Sometimes I email a source and they don’t answer the question I ask. I rephrase kindly and emphasize why people want to know. They get butthurt that I’m still asking a legit question. Then I have to resist the urge to tell them to answer the question like a normal fucking human.

As if The Atlantic and NYT didn’t suck enough ass already. Let’s fuck up a good thing while we’re at it too.

Well this doesn’t seem good.

Here’s a little May Day photo essay I put together. On a new camera so still dialing a lot of things.

Something I am thinking about today is that there is this weird, false history that presumes trans children and their transitions began only with the confines dutch protocol anyways, read this interview and the book "Histories of the Transgender Child"