Guilt By (Police) Association

November 29 2009: Police solidarity is a beautiful thing. The men and women in blue face danger together every day and they need to know that their fellow officers have their backs in any situation. So it's a good thing they stand up for one another.

Portland police marched in support of one of their own after Police Chief Rosie Sizer put Officer Chris Humphreys on administrative leave. Here's a photo of their march, right before Thanksgiving, where scads of police officers wore shirts reading, "I AM CHRIS HUMPHREYS."

Sweet. Fraternal. Scary as hell. If all these officers are Chris Humphreys, Portland is in serious trouble.

Because Chris Humphreys is the officer who was caught on camera recently, firing a beanbag gun at a 12-year-old girl from a couple of feet away. Here's the screen grab from a surveillance video camera that caught it all:

What on earth could a 12-year-old girl do that would win her a close-range beanbag bullet? Let's say she was 300 pounds and combative as hell. Humphreys was not alone. Was he completely unable to subdue her, even with the help of a fellow officer?

This is not the first time Chris Humphreys has been in the news.

James Chasse, 42, did something bad on September 17, 2006: He urinated in public. That is low-class and gross and, apparently, illegal. Portland police saw Chasse peeing on the side of a building and wanted to have a chat with him about it. But Chasse, who suffered from schizophrenia, was not in a chatty mood that evening so he took off running. The police officers chased and caught up with him. One officer took Chasse down hard, REAL hard, to the point where he had 16 broken ribs, a broken shoulder and sternum, and massive internal injuries. He was shot with a Taser multiple times.

The name of the officer who administered the beat-down? Chris Humphreys.

James Chasse died in police custody from the injuries he suffered that day.

The Portland Police Association is standing up for Chris Humphreys in a big way. After all, they are "all Chris Humphreys." Which scares the hell out of me, because I live in Portland and sometimes I have to pee, really bad.

It would appear that the Portland police are protecting and serving us Portlanders to death. The cops need to understand that we are all James Chasse.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR POST ABOUT THE PORTLAND POLICE IN 'THE DAILY CENSORED.'

Oregon Strikes Again!

December 4 2009: Meet Earl. Earl is my own personal lobbyist in Washington DC. You might say he's my Representative.

Earl and I don't always see to eye -- especially about that tie -- but at the moment he's just one more reason why I love Oregon. We Oregonians try to come up with new ideas to get things moving, and that's just what Earl Blumenauer is doing in Washington DC.

Earl was listening to the Republicans in Congress talking about how horrible government-run health is, and he started to think, "I wonder what they'd do if they themselves weren't being taken care of with a government health care plan?"

He decided it might be interesting to find out. So Earl has submitted legislation proposing that members of Congress be taken off the government plan for a bit. Under Blumenauer's bill, our representatives would be forced into the private insurance market -- until they enact health insurance reform legislation.

IS THAT A GREAT IDEA, OR WHAT?!?!? Think they'd get off the dime if they had to figure out their own insurance? He calls it the "Health Care Reality Check Act." And it costs the taxpayers nothing!

Here's an open letter Earl wrote to his colleagues in the House and Senate:

Until health reform is enacted, Members of Congress should get to experience the tender mercies of our fragmented, complex, and exploitative health care system.  My Health Care Reality Check Act terminates all government-administered health benefits for Members of Congress until comprehensive health reform is signed into law:  no more Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, no Medicare, no VA, no attending physician in the Capitol.

Instead, Senators and Representatives may self-insure or they can rely on a spouse’s company having employer-provided insurance, thus tying them -  like millions of Americans- to the employment of a family member. Some will need to buy health insurance on the private market, exposing them to legal discrimination based on age and gender. 

By personally dealing with rescissions, pre-existing condition exclusions, the fine-print of insurance contracts and the gaps in coverage from weak consumer protections maybe our colleagues can better grasp the urgency of our health care crisis.   

If our own health security were linked to the success of health reform for all Americans, we will have a bill enacted within weeks, guaranteed.  I urge you to cosponsor the Health Care Reality Check Act today.

To your health,
Earl Blumenauer, Member of Congress

Braggin' On My Home Town.

Sometimes I forget why I love Portland, Oregon, but it always does something to remind me.

September 9 2009: So, late Tuesday morning I walk outside the office. The sun has finally come out and there's lots of noise, plenty of people milling about. "Ah," I think to myself, as I so often do, "the circus is in town."

I cross the street into Pioneer Courthouse Square, ground zero of downtown Portland, and hear a boisterous crowd. Nothing unusual there either. Then I notice that some folks in the crowd are carrying signs: "SINGLE PAYER NOW" ... "EVERYBODY IN, NOBODY OUT" ... and I hear a guy with a microphone, apparently answering somebody's question by saying, "We intend to behave like adults."

Then I see the bus. It reads, "Mad As Hell Doctors." Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten: Sept. 8 was the day a group of doctors was kicking off a cross-country tour to fight for sanity -- and single-payer quality medical care for all -- in the current heated debate on national health care.

Of course it would originate in Portland -- where else? Portland is home to all kinds of agreeable sanity AND insanity. "Keep Portland Weird" is our motto. Portland: We're weird and we're coming to get YOU, America. And we're starting with some seriously pissed-off doctors who intend to behave like adults.

Click here to read more about the Mad As Hell Doctors and their cross-country tour ("where the rubber gloves meet the road").

Chopped Liver Productions' Exclusive Photo of Bigfoot!

July 20 2009: We have always suspected that Sasquatch is actually a hybrid between a human and a lesser primate. It's an intriguing theory, don't you think? And after reading about the bill sponsored by Sam Brownback (R-KS) outlawing the blight of human-animal hybrids, we knew we had to get a good, eye-to-eye look at Bigfoot. In order to better understand the issue, we wanted see if Bigfoot actually is such a creature. And being in the Pacific Northwest already, we knew where to look.

Here is the EXCLUSIVE photo we were able to obtain, deep in an old-growth forest near the McKenzie River on the morning of July 18. We were able to get a total of three photos of the creature, but this is the best one; the other two were pretty blurry.

Bigfoot, obviously a human-animal hybrid who justifies Senator Brownback's concern and terror, actually was not as scary in person as we expected. The specimen we encountered was surprisingly agreeable. He understood rudimentary mime and gesture, but he made a terrible first impression. He abruptly ripped the camera out of my hands quite rudely. But then, much to my amazement, he turned the camera around and -- I know this sounds crazy, and I could barely believe it myself -- he took a picture of ME, trying to scare him away. Here's what that looked like, apparently:

Well, it worked. He threw the camera down on the ground and ran away. But you can see the terror in my eyes as Bigfoot advanced menacingly with my camera.

Anyway, I'm glad that's all over, everyone is home safely, and we've proven that Sam Brownback has plenty of reason to be so terribly scared of human-animal hybrids. I mean, look at that photo -- they are clearly a threat to our lives and civilization.

While we were deep in the forest, Uncle Walter died. Being old enough to remember the credibility that Walter Cronkite brought to the evening news, it's obvious how much we've lost in terms of broadcast journalism in the intervening years. Walter Cronkite humbly held sway over public opinion. LBJ was smart enough to realize the depth of Cronkite's influence in the USA: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country."

These days there's absolutely nobody who holds the country's trust the way Walter Cronkite did. There is no one that everybody pretty much trusts to tell them the truth.

If Cronkite told you he had photos of Bigfoot, you'd believe him.

I'm just sayin'.