The Wandering Eye

Andrew Breitbart sent two of his brownshirt “journalists” to Portland on Thursday, and they got what they were after: some video footage that could be used to embarrass Democratic governor candidate John Kitzhaber.
Breitbart is a right-wing agent provocateur who excels at, shall we say, creative video editing.

Oregon Republicans are furious with Democrats for accusing them of backing a 30% sales tax – and they've got reason to be mad, because they're not doing anything of the kind.
A mailer sent by Future PAC, the campaign arm of Oregon House Democrats, claims that three GOP House candidates – all in the Portland area – support a 30% sales tax.

Democrats on the Blue Oregon site are trying to stir up outrage over remarks by Chris Dudley that seem to indicate the affluent former pro basketball player thinks restaurant servers make too much money.
In a video clip, the Republican governor candidate says: “It takes time to explain so people understand why .

A favorite tactic of conservatives these days is to bash public employees – especially those who belong to unions – as overpaid and underworked, stoking resentment among workers in the private sector whose pay and benefits don’t measure up.
But a new study by the Economic Policy Institute blows a pretty big hole in the claim that public sector employees are overpaid.

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger has published a revised, on-line version of the state Public Records and Meetings Manual that he says will help make state government more transparent.
“Changes to the manual reflect new legislation, recent court decisions and a fresh look at previous interpretations of the law,” Kroger said in a news release issued today.

The Republican Party is dead. Anyway, that’s what some of the gang at the Oregon Catalyst site are saying – and they couldn’t be happier about it.

The humor writer Sholem Aleichem set many of his funny tales in Chelm, an Eastern European village whose inhabitants, according to folklore, were all complete idiots.
For instance, here’s a Chelm joke:
Two men from Chelm got jobs on a construction site.

Oregon is ahead of the nation in at least one category, but it isn’t anything to rejoice over: The state’s suicide rate is more than one-third higher than the national rate, according to a report released yesterday by Oregon Public Health.
The report, titled ”Suicides in Oregon: Trends and Risk Factors,” found that in the period from 2000 to 2006 the suicide rate in Oregon was 15.

It’s an American tradition for political candidates to show up at Labor Day picnics, and John Kitzhaber and Chris Dudley both upheld the tradition – but in different cities.
Republican Dudley put in an appearance at a picnic in Bend sponsored by the Central Oregon Labor Council.

If you don’t have to labor on Labor Day, you probably should thank labor unions.
Right-wingers in America today (which as a rule means Republicans) love to bash labor unions (or “union thugs,” to use their favorite term) and blame them for everything from the collapse of the housing market to the national debt to athlete’s foot.