Portland Mercury67%
Good Morning News: (Business Edition) Portland Is So Back. Public Moda Center Dollars. Fossil Fuel Deals. Smoke Clearing Out. 78%
By Jeremiah Hayden33%
8/7/2026, 9:07:34 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Unattributed Quote, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 39.7% saturation with 426 hits. Analysis detected 2,248 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,073 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 61.1% and a BS Rank of 78% (6,868 of 30,213 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 77.30% of the article peer group.
Good morning, Portland!
The smoke appears to be moving to a secret third location today, meaning Portland’s air quality is comparatively pretty good on the “human survival” to “Earth’s extinction” scale.
We’re looking at “moderate” air quality—the perfect air for far too many wonky political strategists.
It’ll be highs of 88 today.
Let’s get to the news.
📰
• After years of economic struggle, sitting at the bottom of places to invest private capital, Portland is officially back!
We’re in the New York Times again .
Alas, the smoke is wafting in a new direction, dear reader.
City Council voted Thursday evening to approve zero of 19 amendments to a term sheet that keeps the city on track to send hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to renovate the Moda Center on behalf of the Trail Blazers.
The deal the Blazers have called a “non-starter” is up for a final vote next week, which will begin the real negotiations if passed.
Of the amendments that failed?
One that would direct Mayor Keith Wilson “to negotiate final agreements that deliver a return on investment for the City’s financial contributions to the Moda Renovation, through a combination of terms and community benefits.”
Six public officials voted against an amendment that would attempt to get any return on investment for the city—at all.
Portland is so back.
Tell your entrepreneur friends.
Portland is one of the best places on the planet to invest public capital.
What are you waiting for?
• Meanwhile, for investors who like Portland but want to branch out from the city center sometimes, the Multnomah County Board approved a term sheet that will send $101 million in public funds to pay for the demands of private enterprise.
County residents will get the bill year over year moving forward, as the county cancels programs like rent assistance and shelter due to a lack of funding.
We’re so back.
County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson announced yesterday in a meeting that Chris Oxley—who worked with the Blazers and is the chair of the board of Sports Oregon, which is currently lobbying the county for money on behalf of the Blazers—will negotiate on behalf of the county.
Or the Blazers.
Wait.
Maybe both?
Commissioner Megan Moyer flipped in the public meeting, asking “how is that legal?”
Moyer was the sole vote against the final resolution , but a handful of amendments passed that appear to get the county at least some return on investment.
Tell your entrepreneur friends they may have to drop a few crumbs on the floor of the Multnomah building, but they’re welcome to the whole pie if they threaten the party long enough.
• Oh, Portland is so back.
The City Council on Thursday helped push through a transfer of an agreement that will expedite a deal between two fossil fuel terminal companies, part of an ongoing plan to turn the Willamette River into the preeminent “renewable fuels hub” on the West Coast.
The oil-by-rail and storage company Zenith Energy wants to transfer a franchise agreement to I Squared Capital ISQ), so the new, self-described “different” company can continue the operations (with the same management and staff that currently works for Zenith).
The public wants some assurances, like a third-party to enforce compliance since the city has some trust issues around this.
But public records obtained by the Mercury show the new company’s legal counsel believes the city will help get those pesky Portlanders off their back.
“I understand and sincerely appreciate the desire to manage potential public opposition,” ISQ’s attorney wrote in an email to the city earlier this year.
After multiple people in public testimony demanded full information about the deal on Thursday, the City Attorney’s Office released more records, some of which it had been holding back for months.
Dear entrepreneurs, Portland is fully open for business.
Just close the door behind you when we meet.
More on the Zenith Energy and ISQ deal here .
• Investigators are still investigating a fire that tore through the Centennial Mills building earlier this week, and anyone concerned about asbestos in the air need not worry, according to the public bodies that test air quality.
(Get on it, regional governments.
Why aren’t you sending taxpayer dollars to private air quality testing companies instead?)
The city is keeping tabs on the situation, and the building is expected to be demolished in the near future when it’s safe enough to do so.
More updates here .
IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two new executive orders targeting birthright citizenship—the Constitutional right to be granted citizenship for anyone born in the US.
The orders come just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s previous attempt to end birthright citizenship.
The new orders want to exclude babies born to foreign terrorist groups or employees of foreign governments, and remove citizenship for babies whose parents engaged in “birth tourism,” according to NPR .
The president’s advisor and hate-flavored sausage Stephen Miller announced the orders alongside Trump, saying the orders “end what has been one of the gravest and most egregious abuses of the American system, and keeps American citizenship sacred.”
Miller’s words are, of course, welcome codes for white supremacists—which history will one day show as sad, sad losers once again.
• Justin Pearson, the Black state representative from Tennessee who faced incessant racism within the legislature and was expelled from the state house for protesting in favor of gun control, won his primary for the state’s ninth district in the US House of Representatives.
Pearson, whose district was wildly gerrymandered by the state’s legislature last year, faced an uphill battle.
His win puts him up against Republican Brent Taylor, a Trump-endorsed, baptist funeral director and current Senator from Tennessee’s 31st district.
Read more on the story here .
• Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general was in peril after Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said Friday that she would not vote to confirm him .
But then Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy— previously a no vote due to Blanche previously serving as Trump’s personal lawyer—saved the day, saying he would vote to confirm Blanche for the role.
Congress is leaving for an August recess Friday, and it’s unclear if Blanche will get the confirmation vote before they go.
• Have a great weekend!
Speakers
1speaker1.2%attributed speech1,060writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageMegan Moyer
13 attributed words100% of attributed speech79% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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