News U.S. Rep. David Wu’s behavior grew so erratic in the final weeks before his re-election last November that the Oregon Democrat’s closest political advisers staged two of what some of them termed “interventions” to urge him to seek psychiatric help, WW has learned.Wu played down their concerns. Several staffers and consultants left his employ after the confrontations. Wu responded to written ...   More

News  President Barack Obama was the lone politician to take the stage at Hillsboro's Intel campus today to advance his education and economic initiatives, while Oregon pols were left to watch on from the crowd."Basically, if we want to win the future, America has got to outbuild, out-innovate, out-educate and out-hustle the rest of the world," Obama told the crowd of about 400 people, plus dozens ...   More

News  Members of the Portland Police Association last week nominated three cops to run for two open positions in the powerful 900-member union's leadership. Sgt. Tom Perkins and Officer John Grable are running for secretary-treasurer, the union's No. 2 job. The position has been open since Officer Dave Dobler stepped down last month. Perkins, a longtime school-resource cop, has been filling in for ...   More

News  On Feb. 15, Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries Commissioner Brad Avakian filed an unusual and contentious legal brief [PDF]. Although Avakian is an experienced  lawyer, it's unusual that a bureau head would write the document himself rather than employing a lawyer from the Oregon Department of Justice, as state agencies normally do. The brief is contentious because Avakian minces no words ...   More

News A Democratic and a Republican state legislator have introduced a tuition equity bill that would give in-state college tuition to undocumented Oregon students.Rep. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland) and Sen. Frank Morse (R-Albany), along with the Oregon Student Association and CAUSA, were all present today at the state Capitol to announce the bill, which would apply to all public Oregon universities.Morse ...   More

News Citing concerns over the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church and its inflammatory funeral protests, two state representatives have introduced legislation in Oregon to limit picketing outside memorial services. Introduced by Reps. Jim Weidner (R-Yamhill) and Patrick Sheehan (R-Clackamas), HB 3241 would prohibit picketing within 300 feet of funeral, burial, or other memorial services and within an ...   More

News With the newly Republican-controlled Congress set to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal budget, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has joined with NPR and local PBS stations in warning those cuts could drastically affect public broadcasting.At a time when public broadcasting has come under attack from the right wing for alleged liberal bias, Blumenauer argues that rural Oregonians ...   More

News  There may be no person in Oregon who has followed Neil Goldschmidt's career more closely than than the former governor's speechwriter, Fred Leonhardt. If Goldschmidt or a member of his vast network ever said or did anything, there's a good chance Leonhardt can provide a citation or a couple of sources who can confirm what happened. In the wake of Elizabeth Dunham's January death, Leonhardt provided ...   More

News Several members of Oregon's congressional delegation today were quick to issue statements praising protesters in Egypt for finally ousting President Hosni Mubarak."February 11th will live long in the hearts of all Egyptians," U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in a statement. "Eighteen days of peaceful protest have accomplished a remarkable feat—the resignation of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak.""Today’s ...   More

News WW this afternoon caught up with Portland Police Sgt. Deb Steigleder. She was one of the cops on scene last night when staff at Portland Adventist Medical Center refused to leave the hospital to help a man who died in the parking lot.Steigleder, who works out of East Precinct, described how officers responded to the scene after the 61-year-old man crashed his car in the parking lot. Cops arrived shortly ...   More