Love to see America taking up this free speech fight again. EU has gotten out of control.

I enjoy a lot of PBS and NPR programs, but it is weird AF to me that people want the government to subsidize the media.

1. The job of the media is to hold the government to account. They can’t do that if they’re funded by the government.
2. If people appreciate this media, they can pay for it, like they already do with their tax dollars. I see no reason why people need to be taxed so we can have NPR.

On the one hand, this is some nanny state bullshit. On the other, fuck gas leafblowers I will hate that sound.

I’ll go first. I’ve been registered D for years, considering switching to R this cycle. Look at my post history if you doubt, sort by top.

Top issues for me are civil liberties, civil liberties, and economic policy (though this matters more for federal than state).

Considerations for switching to R are:

• Dems have a history of abusing or ignoring their primary process (2016, 2024), makes participating in them feel pointless. Republicans actually let outsiders win their primary.
• Republican primaries recently have a wider variety of viewpoints IMO. Republicans seem able to actually accomplish things when elected. More focus on civil liberties and economic policy, though with some obvious areas where it’s the opposite (book bans, abortion, immigration).
• I would love for the democratic party in Oregon to have a legitimate challenger instead of the nuttiest person MAGA can come up with. Sane-ish candidates get crushed in Republican primaries. A lack of competition is bad. Years of single-party rule has created stagnant, broken policies.
• I am really mad that the dems reversed a ballot measure (M110).

The dem platform to me recently sounds a lot like:

• More taxes for more incompetently managed government programs
• Feel good policies that net neutral or make the situation worse (rent control etc)
• Competitive victimhood and deciding which in-group wins this time
• Complaining that they can’t get anything done even when they have majorities in the legislature
• Crime doesn’t exist, you’re being gaslit by republicans.
• We don’t really have a platform aside from being anti-trump
• We’ll give you healthcare (just kidding, vote harder next time so we can have a super-super-super majority and then we’ll finally pass it)
• We are afraid of technological progress and will hamper it with regulation whenever possible.
• Fascism is coming! And also let us take your guns to keep you safe (I don’t own guns but support people who do)

The republican platform to me sounds a lot like:

• We’ve got lots of crazy ideas, some of them are actually decent. Our internal process is a warzone
• When elected, we actually fight hard for those ideas
• We acknowledge the budget is a problem. We are about free speech. Will we do anything about it? Probably not, but we acknowledge it, which is more than I can say for the D camp who never talk about the depreciation of our currency, who passed the TikTok ban, and who would love to throw you in jail for an offensive meme if legal.
• Public spaces have been completely ceded to a crime and homelessness. We’ll make it so you can actually go in parks again without feeling unsafe.
• We will make it easy to build more housing.
• We are optimistic about the future and technological progress, we will make sure room exists for experimentation.
• We won’t take your guns

Well this is a straight up lie:

“Program had no funding and cost nothing other than ~4 hours of each program member’s time related to the program each month.”

Those hours aren’t free. They are hours that we as taxpayers pay for. That’s 4 hours that could have gone to something else.

I like this decision, DEI initiatives have gone too far imo. We should be promoting people, hiring people, and allocating resources based on merit, not based on race or other factors. The law and our government system should be neutral to race, gender, etc. We can’t make people’s biases cease to exist through legislation, but the least we can do it make sure our actual laws and rules don’t specifically privilege one group over another. It’s wild that this is a controversial statement in today’s age.

FIRE is one of the orgs that worked on this case, they are awesome and non-partisan defenders of free speech.

I don’t like Bentz but I’d rather have my rep actually going to work and voting on/drafting legislation than doing town halls. His rationale isn’t unreasonable, town halls are mostly a space for people to show up and vent, elections are the only time that venting actually counts for anything.

“What if instead of investigating actual crimes, which is what people are actually complaining about, we just arrest people for looking homeless?” - EPD and City Council, two of the laziest and most incompetent organizations you will ever interact with

Very interesting thank you for posting!!

NextStep recycling or local estate sales

“Eugene Pride will be without public parking for the first time in 15 years due to a time-conflict with a sold-out Ween concert”

AKA the city has a fair, transparent system for permitting these kinds of things and somebody else claimed the spot first and Eugene Pride organizers are throwing a tantrum that they aren’t getting special treatment. They planned an event without making sure there was parking available, that’s not anybody’s fault but the planners. If you run big events, you need to stay on top of your paperwork and do your diligence.

Glad to see EPD I mean SPD tackling our biggest and most important issues. A three month investigation.

I’m all for corporations and the rich paying their fair share. But unless this is being matched by other states, it will just cause capital flight to those states. That’s jobs and capability Oregon won’t get. It will be one of many factors companies consider when asking which state to incorporate and operate in. The Oregon market is an easy one to ignore, we’re not exactly a huge state, we have just over 1% of the national population. This is the kind of legislation that can only work in markets companies can’t afford to leave, huge markets like California or Texas. There’s a reason OR gets in bidding wars with other states over the siting of a new Intel fabrication facility etc: the state with the most favorable operating conditions gets the jobs.

A quick read of the bill text and I find “Less than $500,000, the minimum tax is $150”. That’s $150 for every small LLC, business with 1-3 employees, etc. It doesn’t matter if your LLC is profitable or not, you’re paying $150/year for the privilege of existing. Even if they lost money in the past tax year. This is in addition to existing costs you already incur like having to pay for payroll software to deal with the immensely complex state and local tax system, costs to file incorporation paperwork, and the costs for a ‘registered agent’. This will hurt small businesses and startups, no doubt. California had a similar incorporation tax, and it’s one of many reasons why companies try to incorporate out of state.

Why not include an exemption for small businesses or those with extremely thin profit margins? Or for those who lost money that year? You’d have to ask the petition authors that.

Who runs small LLCs?

• Small businesses, restaurants, food trucks
• Your local plumber, contractor, painter, tutor, or other independent contractor.
• Private landlords renting out a single unit. People who rent out rooms in their home and want the additional liability protection.
• Food co-ops, housing cooperatives, local sports clubs, and other forms of cooperative organizations
• People who use the anonymity provided by LLCs to escape domestic violence, stalking, etc.

“[Democracy] can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage”

For the un-initiated, how to build your own https://corsirosenthalfoundation.org/instructions/

Sad to see this measure lose. IMO the Star Voting people didn’t do nearly enough outreach or public education on this, and the people they did have doing it we’re not doing a great job. STAR is clearly superior to our current system regardless of your political leanings. I saw many common and easy to clear up misconceptions from people.

Principle. It’s not what recalls should be used for.

ACLU has a decent overview of it. The tldr is that it’s re-criminalizing posession. https://www.aclu-or.org/en/take-action-now-tell-lawmakers-we-need-real-solutions-not-more-jails

I would vote FOR 110 again in a heartbeat. Prohibition doesn’t work, is a waste of taxpayer money, and churns people through the criminal justice system. It should be no business of the government what you put into your body in your own private residence. If you are breaking the law because of your drug use, then they should enforce those laws which they currently don’t for various reasons.

The whole point of ballot initiatives is to go over the head of the state legislature. It is a check on their power and the two party system. They have no right to reverse a ballot initiative. If they think public opinion has changed, they can send it back to the ballot. Any oregon dem who votes to repeal 110 is losing my vote in the primary.

It’s linked on the sub sidebar, it’s been the top post a number of times. A lot of users just will never migrate until reddit is literally un-useable.

Ballot measures are laws themselves that voters can pass without needing the approval of the legislature, that’s the entire point. They can also be “straw polls” to give guidance to the legislature, but most are made to create or amend a specific law or provision of the constitution, as M110 did.