News As first reported Tuesday by WW, President Barack Obama will visit Portland on July 24. Details of the campaign event are becoming clearer—and more expensive.The event will be a $1,000-a-head fundraising reception at the Oregon Convention Center. The time hasn't been announced, but some guests have been asked to RSVP to an unlikely host.It's Jesse Cornett, the Blue Oregon blog co-founder who, as ...   More

News U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) was an early critic of President Obama's decision to aid the international offensive against Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.Now the progressive congressman from Springfield has offered up an amendment to the War Powers Resolution aimed at restricting the president's ability to unilaterally command military action.House Joint Resolution 55, which DeFazio introduced ...   More

News   Here’s something to take your mind off the political infighting in Washington DC for a second. Something actually was achieved today in the nation’s capital. President Obama signed into law the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010 sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), along with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Richard Burr (R-NC). Merkley joined the ...   More

News   Below is one of the TV interviews Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has given after leading this week’s House Democratic revolt against President Obama’s tax deal with Republicans. In this interview with The Big Picture, DeFazio tells an empathetic Thom Hartmann (starting at about the 2:40 mark) that the backlash against Obama’s deal is “unprecedented” during his ...   More

News   We’ve written this week about Democratic opposition to President Obama’s tax deal with Republicans. And we’ve written about efforts by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) to reform the filibuster—including a proposed requirement that senators seeking to delay legislation by filibustering be required to stay on the Senate floor. Today, the news threads meet in the ...   More

News On October 24th, Destin Gerek, "The Erotic Rockstar ," invites you to attend his O's For Obama sex rally . The main event goes down in San Fransisco but will be simulcast online; Gerek hopes to inspire parallel happenings across the globe—"a large scale orgasmic breathing experience culminating in a simultaneous group energetic breath-gasm ." Breathgasm? "A rip-roaring, full-body, ...   More

News On April 13, President Obama lifted a U.S. ban that had made it illegal for Americans to visit family in Cuba or send them money. While a big step, it's not enough for Charles Grossman, a 94-year-old retired doc (and all around nice guy) who held a press conference today in advance of his law-challenging trip to Cuba. He wants the United States to allow tourism and trade that could set ...   More

News Your move, President Obama. As previously reported, retired 94-year-old Dr. Charles Grossman spent a week in Cuba as a tourist to challenge America's ban on trade and travel to Cuba. Grossman returned at 6 am on May 11, was immediately put in handcuffs and shackles, and thrown in jail with a million dollar bail. No, not really. He went through customs with very little to-do: “I handed ...   More

News Over a thousand people crammed into Terry Shrunk Plaza Saturday morning for the “Health Insurance Reform Now” event, part of a nationwide campaign to push Congress to adopt sweeping changes to the country's health care system. “How can we pay for two wars in the Middle East, but not be able to provide my cousin with health care?” asked Tom Chamberlain, president of the ...   More

News Local supporters of a public option as part of national health care reform are organizing a march downtown on Oct. 18. “There is citizen discontent with the current bill” working its way through the Senate Finance Committee, says Ian McCurdy, one of the event's supporters. According to the group's website, the demonstration aims to show insurance companies that Portland “has ...   More