Adams should have thought a little more before opening his mouth

Beth Slovic in her Sunday article "Why can't Portland repave its rutted roads?" apparently hit a raw nerve. Adams saw fit to respond by claiming he put safety over driver comfort in his non-street paving decisions. "In 2005, as a new transportation commissioner, I decided it was more important to keep drivers alive than totally comfortable on side streets." [Portland's potholes: City chooses to put safety ahead of smoothness].

What a crock! If you have the stomach for it - read Adam's response. Listen to the interview that Adams references in his response. It is embedded in the Willamette Week's story: "The interview is more than an hour long and gets quite contentious." [Mayor Adams Posts Oregonian Interview ]

WTF: Job ads that require current employment

Awaiting the Oregon governor is a bill to ban ads that post a requirement of current employment. In Chicago the city is considering a ban on ads that discriminate on credit history. The two go together - don't they? Talk about kicking you when you are down.

Aren't job ads for the unemployed? Having been in the position of hiring -I have placed newspaper ads as well as using employment agencies. The fact that a potential employee was unemployed was merely a factor to weigh, e.g., why was the person unemployed. Never heard of anyone considering credit history - except where it is directly related to the job. 

Now apparently in Oregon some, probably only a few, employers - the media never identifies - want only to hire employees currently with a job. From a Google search it appears that Oregon employers may be the only state where businesses place these current employment required ads.

Of course the ban will have little effect because it only applies to the ad not the action. The bill doesn't provide for legal recourse if not hired because of employment status. Thus a business can still refuse to hire those currently unemployed. And that has always been the practice - hasn't it? Unemployment, current or periods of unemployment, has always been a red flag, except that in these economic times unemployment it might be expected.

And that raises another issue for the job seeker. If unemployed - he or she can lie. And why not? Job seekers seem to lie about many other important job related items knowing that the employer may not check. If the employer checks - no hiring. But if employed - most don't want their current employer contacted for fear of losing that job. And that has always been a fear.

Hopefully this new discriminatory hiring practice is very limited. Even if the unemployment rate decreases there is a large workforce pool containing skilled workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Might the message that this bill sends to employers be - hire these workers first?

Menu of incentives: Property tax revenue offered to keep Portland "green"

Beth Slovic has more on the story about keeping Iberdrola in Portland. It demonstrates that the use of public revenue is not in the good hands of fiscally prudent politicians (Oxymoron). Iberdrola is one of those energy renewables companies - that reads wind mills.

As an earlier Oregonian article noted Iberdrola is a Spanish-owned company that is struggling. "The company laid off 25 Portland workers last week, leaving about 350 employees here out of a U.S. work force of about 850."

Going beyond the menu of incentives - PDC graciously offered Iberdrola $1,155,000 grant (not loan) to stay in the Pearl as opposed to moving out of Portland and the state. The PDC Report notes that the company was looking elsewhere, but it isn't clear that it was ever a real possibility - but I don't believe that makes much of a difference to PDC and city hall policy makers. 

Rather than negotiate - it appears that PDC was willing to let the company essentially determine for itself - via a menu of incentives - the best incentive for them to stay, but not necessarily for the taxpayers in the River District Urban Renewal Area. 

Of course - there is no way these tax increment funds can be linked to eradication of blight - but that statute prerequisite (see section 457.010) has long gone by the wayside. PDC spends that money as it sees fit knowing that the Pearlites will go along. 

PDC appears to find solace in the fact that they have a liquidated damages clause in their agreement with Iberdrola. It is in a side agreement - but liquidated damage clauses are difficult to enforce often seen as a penalty rather than an attempt to fix reasonable damages. See this case for some insight on Oregon's liquidated damages clause.

It will be more difficult because of the fact that the money is a grant to the owner of the premises that Iberdrola leases and not Iberdrola itself. Note that the owner gets the money irrespective of whether or not Iberdrola breaches an agreement to stay. That leaves the city with the only option of going after the foreign owned Iberdrola - not likely.

Foreign suits against multinational companies?

KGW has this story on how two prominent lawsuits are testing the limits of Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991. [Justices weigh foreigners' suits vs. companies]. But, a quick grasp of the the issue is found in the Los Angeles Times.

"At issue is whether corporations and political groups can be held liable in U.S. courts for their roles in torture and other abuses abroad." 

And there is another issue that may even be more important. This has to do with the Citizen's United decision essentially - many argue - giving personhood to corporations. See the Guardian UK for more on corporate liability.

The issue is "whether US-based and global corporations can be held liable for genocide and other violations of international law."

There are two cases to be decided by the US Supreme Court. "[T]he case of a dozen Nigerians who sued the Royal Dutch Shell oil company in the torture and execution of dissidents in Nigeria in the 1990s." And "a lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization" where a Palestinian American "was allegedly tortured and killed by Palestinian intelligence officials in the 1990s." [Los Angeles Times].

But go back to the KGW story for more details about what is at stake with these and similar cases. "Other cases pending in U.S. courts seek to hold accountable Chiquita Brands International for its relationship with paramilitary groups in Colombia; Exxon and Chevron for abuses in Indonesia and Nigeria, respectively; Britain-based mining concern Rio Tinto for allegedly aiding the Papua New Guinea government in a civil war; and several companies for their role in the old racial apartheid system in South Africa." [Justices weigh foreigners' suits vs. companies]

Resources:

See Harvard's International Human Rights Clinic on how this law has been used "to hold perpetrators to account for violations such as extrajudicial killing, torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity."  See Wikipedia for a brief description of the Torture Victims Protection Act and its use. And, see this law review article from Boalt Law School, Berkeley Journal of International Law, Vol, 28:2, that explains the connection between the two statutes plus providing their legislative histories and court interpretations.

Beth Slovic

Beth Slovic, an Oregonian reporter has done a nice job with this story on Portland's transportation bureau: Why can't Portland repave its rutted roads? And see this one too: Portland officials offered Iberdrola a 'menu' of incentives. I call her a reporter in the journalistic sense  - not a blogger like most of the others at the Oregonian.

The Oregonian has slipped far from the 'newspaper' status. Today it is merely a collection of blogs seemingly designed to promote web hits by trolls.  Beth Slovic is an exception.

There are only 1 or 2 others at the Oregonian that I might put in the reporter category. I like the work she does. She did well at Willamette Week, see some of her posts. And she does well at the Oregonian, see a listing of her posts.

This from a story in the Contra Costs Times (an interesting story on Occupy Oakland) mentioning a reporter's role:  Reporting (or journalism) on government actions is "a daily fight, one in which we need to be ever diligent against getting snowed by officials and falling into the role of stenographers rather than independent reporters."

That fits her.

Shoe riots in US while those in the Middle East riot for freedom

The story is about the riots occurring in Florida while awaiting the release of a new Nike shoe. It is suggested that the some blame can be laid on Nike for its marketing techniques - but doesn't it speak more to the culture or morality of the rioters? It there a rioting need in one's life to be an one of the first purchasers of a sport's shoe costing $220? What does one suppose is the income demographics of the rioters?

Secret services ramp up online surveillance

It is a German story - but it isn't too difficult to understand that it is applicable to the US. Apparently in defiance of their constitution, German secret services - of course in the name of terrorism - access email accounts in search of 'terrorists.' The German Constitutional Court has demanded a change in the law.

"The court ruled that existing law on the storage and access to user names, passwords and PIN codes by intelligence agencies was a breach of the basic right to privacy of personal information guaranteed in the German constitution."

Think that it doesn't happen in the US? In the 60s the National Security Agency listened in on all domestic phone conversations using keywords, much like in the German story, as a selection technique to ferret out enemies of the state. I can't imagine that they wouldn't be 'listening in' on our emails.

The 'terrorist' label is an all too convenient means to root out political terrorists. It is the terrorist fear that numbs the electorate's opposition to continued invasion of privacy. Sadly, it is not difficult to foresee that a 'terrorist' is merely anyone the government wants to so designate.

The US has already passed the National Defense Authorization Act that permits the indefinite detention of American citizens on American soil. The Act permits: "indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without charge, and the jailing of American citizens without trial. It also takes terrorism-related cases out of the hands of the FBI and the civilian court system and hands them over to the military."

And our congress is seeking to add the  Enemy Expatriation Act to its arsenal of anti-terrorism laws which will cause the loss of citizenship for naturalized citizens for engaging in hostilities against the US. What are "hostilities?"  "[A]ny conflict subject to the laws of war." See Senator Lieberman's take.

And Occupy [insert your favorite city] wants us to worry about corporations. Maybe they and us need to worry about too much power in the hands of government.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." Pogo.