Oregon: U.s.

By Karla Kay Edwards

In today’s economy everyone is looking for ways to create jobs and increase revenues. That includes Senator Ron Wyden, who has drafted the Oregon Forest Restoration and Old Growth Protection Act, which would manage Oregon’s federally owned forests tree by tree instead of as a sustainable landscape. Though his goals to improve forest health while providing jobs in our rural communities is well intentioned, it will only create more bureaucracy while jeopardizing forest health and our rural communities’ livelihoods.

As the leading lumber producer in the U.S., Oregon has the opportunity to stimulate the economies of rural communities which depend on forestlands for jobs and revenue generation.

Without any apparent sense of irony, the Oregonian this morning offers us up the following in vouching for the deal reached between city negotiators and Merritt Paulson: Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioner Randy Leonard, who negotiated the agreement, said [the] city is getting solid assurances from a wealthy family. Paulson's father is Henry Paulson, the former U.S. treasury secretary and Wall Street mogul. The timing of those "solid assurances" is, well, unfortunate, to put it mildly. On Friday the Congressional panel charged with overseeing the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) released its latest report, and this week the panel's chairwoman...

Portland bows to no other city in the U.S. when it comes to bicycling, so it was no surprise that cyclists quickly erupted in anger Friday when they heard about a bill in the Oregon Legislature that would levy a...

It's been awhile since we checked in on the yet unresolved U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Democrat Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. I suspect that if the situation between the two were reversed, the Republican political theatre machine would have long since beaten Franken to a bloody pulp. As it is, this thing seems to fly under the radar most of the time. The court wrangling seems to me like its reached the point of epically stupid. Here's Senate Guru: From the thousands of properly rejected absentee ballots that Republican Norm Coleman wanted re-reviewed for inclusion in...