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@ebjv59.bsky.social

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"New Yorkers are looking to us, to their leaders for courage and conviction and what they are finding instead is collaboration." - Zohran Mamdi

Oregon's largest data center tax breaks
Tech companies are saving more than $450 million in local property taxes on their Oregon data centers this year. Here are the biggest beneficiaries. (Some of Amazon, Google, and Meta's tax breaks are through a separate incentive program that isn't subject to a moratorium.)

Screenshot of a bluesky feed titled "Minnesota Shooting" but the feed is empty. Just a message reading Hmm, some kind of issue occurred when contacting the feed server. Please let the feed owner know about this issue.
Message from server: InvalidRequest

Map of voting in party's of new york city where more than 60% of the population is white

Headline: "Bill Gates calls for climate fight to shift focus from curbing emissions to reducing human suffering."

Robert DeNiro famous "are you talking to me" gif

Reddit post from r/Portland saying they were impressed with how the Portland police bureau conducted themselves and that they're grateful for their professionalism given the current rhetoric at the federal level

Post text: I think kotek would support it too, honestly (referring to health care for all). It's being developed in-house by her own works and the only industry that would lobby against it is insurance companies, not her precious Intel

Table from 2025 Oregon Public Finance Basic Facts report by Oregon's Legislative Revenue Office. Table is Exhibit A-5: Historical Ranking of Oregon taxes 1987-2022. Columns for total taxes, personal income tax, corporate income tax,and property tax

Bluesky post from jubilado0505:
I heard a retired general address this yesterday. The Pentagon unit in charge of National Guard deployments has depleted their budget to such an extent they will have to cancel training exercises this fall. It will also deter enlistment, he said, if people think they can be used for political stunts.

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
dehumanizing
/dēˈ(h)yo͞oməˌnīziNG/
adjective
depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.

Text:
An unspecified increase for the number of signatures that petitioners are required to collect in order to get a new tax on a ballot. (In Portland, petitioners need roughly 40,000 signatures.)

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Requiring that all new taxes end after 10 years if they are found to not “demonstrate progress.”

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That includes:

Requiring that all ballot measures that create new taxes be vetted by a five-person committee, which is responsible for writing a ballot measure summary for voters.

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The group also proposed ways to make it more challenging for local governments to adopt new taxes and change how proposed taxes are vetted before they land on a ballot.

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Lowering the income tax rate for the Supportive Housing Services tax, allowing it to pay for construction and creating a new oversight body. (These proposals came out of a Metro-led task force to reform the measure, but poor polling has kept Metro from advancing them to a ballot.)

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Reforming Preschool for All to follow the structure of the state-funded affordable preschool program, Preschool Promise.

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Halting the collection of Preschool for All revenue until the program goes through a “comprehensive review” of its funding mechanisms, governance and more. (This echoes Kotek’s call to reform this tax in June.)

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Turning PCEF into a sales tax, impacting consumers, instead of a tax that impacts major companies.

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Their recommendations for reform include:

Adjusting PCEF through a ballot measure that requires any revenue collected above the projected amount of revenue economists expect the tax to generate go toward Portland’s general fund.

Graph. "City of Portland Government: Customer Service" 2024 to 2025 comparison
Scale: very satisfied to very dissatisfied.
Questions: "welcoming community involvement" - 13% increase in satisfied, more satisfied than dissatisfied
"Providing opportunities for residents with different opinions to voice their concerns" - 7% increase in satisfied, more satisfied than dissatisfied
"Treating citizens with respect" - 12% increase, more satisfied than dissatisfied
"Being transparent about how decisions are made" - not asked in 2024, more dissatisfied than satisfied
"Treating all residents fairly" - 6% increase in satisfied, more dissatisfied than satisfied
"Ensuring long-term accountability for voter-approved initiatives" - not asked in 2024, more dissatisfied than satisfied

Seth from Superbad: "Fuck me, right?" Sarcastically.

Screenshot of article from The Times of Israel. Text: Leading agency shuts its Gaza soup kitchens amid continued Israeli aid ban
US-based World Central Kitchen, which was serving 133,000 meals a day and baking 80,000 loaves of bread, says Israel's blockade of Strip means there is no food left
By AP and ToI Staff
8 May 2025, 3:04 pm

Screenshot of Reuters article. Caption from a photo that is not visible: [1/2]Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 2, 2025....
Artcle text: BERLIN, May 30 (Reuters) - Israel is blocking all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, with almost no ready-to-eat food entering what its spokesperson described as "the hungriest place on earth".

Screenshot of BBC News. Headline: Israeli forces kill 51 Palestinians waiting for flour at Gaza aid site, witnesses and rescuers say

Screenshot of text from official United Nations website. Text: The UN human rights office (OHCHR) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on Wednesday called on the Israeli military to cease the use of lethal force near aid convoys and food distribution sites.

It cited “repeated incidents” of Palestinians being shot or shelled while seeking food, warning that such attacks could constitute war crimes under international law.

“We are horrified at the repeated incidents, continuously reported in recent days across Gaza, and we call for an immediate end to these senseless killings,” the office said in a statement.

Hundreds Killed

Text: Earlier this week, Portland police also facilitated the posting of anti-camping signs, with a deadline posted for Friday afternoon.

Picture of an officer, either LAPD or LASD, shining a flashlight into a car. Text overlay "Parked in an unmarked car, shined the light into the car as we passed by then immediately pulled us over"

National guard troops trying to sleep piled up on the floor of what looks like a garage or warehouse with the lights on. Barely any floor is visible in an approximately 30ft by 80ft space.

Councilor Novick is proposing expanding tax hike on companies that pay their chief execs vastly more than their rank-and-file workers as "a way to recall corporate America to its glorious roots."

Text: According to NOLC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Laurie Wimmer, board members believed the police union has taken strides to "be transformational" and stand in solidarity with other members of the group.

Happy economic blackout day

Tweet from Naomi Lim @naomitlim: "SCOOP: The White House confirms DOGE Administrator is Amy Gleason. Via @dcexaminer."

MSNBC fires 6 reporters who are people of color.

Screenshot of Bluesky search for #altgov. Message is "Oops! Something went wrong!"

Gif of Calcifer (a fire) from Howl's moving castle feeding himself a log

Whitehouse.gov page header: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies, executive order, February 18, 2025"

Screenshot from a newsweek article: The outlets were identified by their medium: TV, print, radio, and online news. OANN, which is a pro-Trump outlet that former Florida GOP Representative Matt Gaetz hosts a show on, will be taking the place of NBC in the television category.

The New York Post is set to take over The New York Times' position for print media, the HuffPost, who does not have a specific Pentagon correspondent, to take over Politico's online news slot, and Breitbart News, to take over NPR's radio seat.

Statement from NYC Comptrollwr Lander on the Trump Administration's Illegal Reversal of FEMA Funding
February 12, 2025
"This morning, my financial team shockingly uncovered that President Trump and his crony Elon Musk illegally executed a revocation of $80 million in congressionally appropriated FEMA funding from New York City's bank accounts late yesterday afternoon. This is money that the federal government previously disbursed for shelter and services and is now missing. This highway robbery of our funds directly out of our bank account is a betrayal of everyone who calls New York City home."