The Roundup Podcast

Nishad Singh pleads guilty to federal charges including conspiracy to defraud federal regulatory agencies by pretending to be the source of campaign donations that were actually from other people.*

*That’s a crime under Oregon law too.

In this episode we tackle this serious stuff:

* The Biden Administration’s ominous pattern of pretending a national security problem is not a national security problem until it’s so obvious it’s a national security problem and then they react haphazardly to bad effect.

* Multnomah County, Oregon reported homeless people continue to die there in ever-increasing numbers, and decriminalized drugs like meth and fentanyl are playing a big role. Actually, this one isn’t ominous: it’s a mature, full-blown crisis.

* An update on the twin ominous scandals plaguing Oregon’s state government: OLCC booze-swindling and Democratic Party of Oregon donation.

* Finally, a shockingly accurate and hilarious portrayal of a young man (first name “Bear,” middle name “Carabiner”) who has recently moved to Bend, Oregon.

Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast or your podcast app of choice. And become a paid subscriber so we can keep bringing you, at turns, ominous and funny content!

So, I inadvertently sent out the unedited version of today’s podcast early this morning. Listen to this one instead!

Sorry for the duplicate emails and for my technological ineptitude!

Jeff

Fagan Files III: Since Fagan Files II (our series into the law-bending and partisan behavior of Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan with regard to activities in her agency’s Elections Division) there have been, as they say, developments.

Fagan, having forced the resignation of her former Elections Division director Deborah Scoggin after Scoggin refused to violate agency rules to allow the publication of a voter pamphlet statement submitted by a Democratic candidate for Congress after the applicable deadline, appointed Molly Woon as Elections Division Director. As readers will recall, the Elections Division is supposedly investigating a $500,000 donation to the Democratic Party of Oregon from an associate of alleged crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried just prior to the November 2022 election.

New Elections Division Director Molly Woon will now be in charge of that investigation. Guess where Woon worked up until two years ago when she first went to work for Fagan? The Democratic Party of Oregon, as deputy director! You can’t make this up.

The Oregonian, to its credit, has started covering this mess we’ve been on for a while. Reporter Hillary Borrud wrote an article this week describing Woon’s conflict of interest and setting forth Fagan’s position that, actually, Woon will conduct the investigation in a completely impartial way. LOL.

Portland Population Decline: Multnomah County, which contains 99% of Portland, has now lost population for three years in a row. Willamette Week interviewed some of the people who left and discovered that they left because of crime, homelessness and taxes. Imagine that.

Wendy update: A couple weeks ago, we had homeless outreach worker Kevin Dahlgren on the podcast. Kevin gained some fame for posting an interview of a Portland homeless person named Wendy, who said being homeless in Portland is a “piece of cake.”

Well, Wendy’s family in Utah saw Kevin’s clip and they’ve come out to Portland to try to help Wendy. Here’s KATU’s story on the reunion.

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Jeff

There’s no guest this week, so it’s just Jeff left to his own devices. The results are predictably unpredictable.

First, Jeff responds to some reader comments about yesterday’s piece on our coming crisis of population decline.

Then there’s Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read pushing back on progressive legislators who want the state to divest its retiree pension program from fossil fuel companies, teeing up a intra-Democratic Party fight.

Finally, Jeff made an artificial intelligence writing program called ChatGPT answer questions like “Is Kamala Harris Smart?” “Why does Joe Biden slur?” and “Who killed Mary Jo Kopechne?” The results were, at least to Jeff, hilarious.

Kevin Dahlgren, a veteran in homeless policy, homeless outreach and addiction and mental health counseling, took a video with his phone of a Portland homeless woman named Wendy saying, among other things, “it’s a piece of cake” to be homeless in Portland. The video went viral on Twitter (over 2 million views worldwide and counting), and in today’s episode I interview Kevin about Oregon’s homeless crisis, what he thinks needs to be done about it, why what Tina Kotek is doing is unlikely to help, and more.

Here’s the viral video of Wendy (WARNING - there is profanity in the clip below but it’s bleeped in the podcast):

And a piece Kevin wrote in the New York Post this week about how Oregon is “loving” the homeless to death.

I hope you enjoy this informative interview with Kevin. I’m really enjoying my recent series of interviews with people, and about issues, having a big impact on Oregon. If I do say so myself, no one other than the Oregon Roundup is telling these stories in this way. Doing that takes resources, and doing more of that will take even more.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you! If not, please consider taking a moment to sign up. Every penny we get goes into telling more stories like the one in today’s podcast: stories more Oregonians, and more Americans, need to hear and read.

If you’re like me, you didn’t know that a man named Mohammed Adan in June 2022 allegedly killed his girlfriend, Rachael Abraham in their children’s bedroom while their children were in the house.

That Adan allegedly continued to stabb and beat Abraham even after she had died.

That the children were, apparently, in the house with Adan and Abraham’s corpse for hours until the police arrived.

That the alleged murder occurred after Adan had been previously charged with strangling and other assaults on Abraham and had been let out with no bail for those charges multiple times. And that, just prior to the alleged murder, Adan was sprung from jail on his latest set of charges involving Abraham with a $2,000 bail payment from a Portland nonprofit that described itself as “a volunteer-run abolitionist organization currently dedicated to reducing harms perpetuated against our Black, Brown and Indigenous neighbors[.]” Adan is, and Abraham was, Black.

Nancy Rommelmann, writer for Reason magazine and other outlets (including her own Substack) and former Portland resident, wrote a story for the Washington Examiner titled “A Murder in Portland,” which details Adan and Abraham’s story in tear-jerking detail. In this episode, I talk to Nancy about that story, how it could be allowed to happen, and why the Oregon media has mostly ignored it.

Every person who lives and votes in Oregon should listen to this interview and read Nancy’s article.

Jeff

Josh Lehner is an economist in the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. In this episode, we discuss a wide range of topics about Oregon’s present and future, including the meaning of Oregon losing population between July 1, 2021 and July 1, 2022. Why are people leaving and what will be the economic effects of temporary or long-term population loss?

Also, Josh describes the process of developing economic and revenue forecasts that inform the state’s budget and also our unique income tax kicker law.

I learned a lot from this interview and I think you will too.

Jeff Eager

Merry Christmas Rounduppers!

The holiday season keeps churning out intriguing developments within the ever-changing bounds of the Oregon Roundup beat:

Oregon hemorrhages over 16,000 residents between July 1, 2021 and July 1, 2022, wiping out almost all population gains from previous two years.

The important thing is the state’s carbon footprint should decline.

Oregon’s Election Division head was forced out of her job by Democratic Secretary of State Shemia Fagan.

Meanwhile, Fagan’s agency is, no doubt diligently and thoroughly, investigating a suspicious $500,000 donation to the Democratic Party of Oregon by crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s former business associate. The DPO originally misreported the source of the donation, the party’s largest contribution on record.

Please remember to subscribe to the Roundup Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jeff

The first EVER guest on the Oregon Roundup podcast is none other than Congresswoman-Elect Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Lori, a Republican, was elected to represent the redrawn 5th Congressional District of Oregon last month. She breaks a 26-year stretch in which Democrats have held all but one of Oregon’s U.S. House districts.

Lori and I talked about her background as a small business owner and mom, her campaign against Jamie McLeod-Skinner, the committees she’s angling to serve on, and who she plans to vote for for Speaker. It was a fun chat, and I hope you like the interview format.

Drop me a line by responding to this email, or leave a comment with your thoughts.

And, as always, if you haven’t already please make sure to subscribe to the Oregon Roundup Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts.

If you’re a paid subscriber to the Oregon Roundup, you already have access to our private, unsearchable Facebook group. Just respond to this email to let me know you want access and I’ll give it to you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, you can become one by pushing on any of the buttons in this email urging you to do that.

Cheers,

Jeff

PS - here’s a map of what Oregon’s 5th Congressional District looks like now: