While President Obama was in Everett, Washington last week touring a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plant I was in Josephine County. Back in 2008 voters in Josephine County voted for John McCain over Barack Obama 55% to 41%, a whopping 14% spread. Poor Jeff Merkl

Sixty-thousand jobs could be created in Oregon, and six million nationwide, with the money that...- 7:22 pm An advisory group provided the Public Employees' Benefit Board some advice Friday on ways to...- 11:24 pm GRESHAM Part of the challenge of swimmi

WASHINGTON - A majority of Oregon's congressional delegation voted Friday to renew a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and a grab-bag of other popular programs, with only Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader voting against the measure. The "no

You know that brilliant $1 million business idea you’ve been carrying around in your head for years? You know, the one that would surely start a revolution if only you were rich and had the capital resources to launch your own business. Could crowdfundin

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley says spending by the so-called super PACs is out of control this election season. Speaking on OPB's "Think Out Loud," the Democrat championed a proposed constitutional amendment that now has the backing of 22 Senators. It would g

Herman Cain won't appear on "Dancing With The Stars" -- probably because the producers aren't keen on a slow dance to "Imagine There's No Pizza." If a proposed law is enacted, discarded lotto tickets will replace discarded Slim Jim wrappers as the saddes

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden praised President Obama's 2013 budget Monday for listing special federal timber payments made to some Oregon counties as "essential" spending, saying the inclusion could help win another extension for the assistance. The speci

The National Park Service will have the power to ban helicopter flights over Crater Lake without having to go through so much red tape. Oregon Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley inserted a provision giving that power to the park service into

The National Park Service soon will have the authority to deny air tours over Crater Lake National Park, thanks to the Senate's passage of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill on Monday. U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both D-O

Charles Pope/The OregonianIn a re-enactment after she was sworn in on the House floor, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, surrounded by her family, takes the oath from House Speaker John Boehner. WASHINGTON -- Suzanne Bonamici was officially sworn in as a member of

WASHINGTON — On his second yearlong deployment to Afghanistan , Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis traveled 9,000 miles, patrolled with American troops in eight provinces and returned in October of last year with a fervent conviction that the war was going disastr

The Klamath Tribes' guest column, "Klamath tribes: Respect our rights and our expertise" (Jan. 15), paints a picture of "bipartisan regional economic development" stemming from innovative work. The 2010 Klamath Agreements, to be ratified by Sen. Jeff Mer

WASHINGTON -- Insider trading by members of Congress, their top staff and executive branch officials would be banned by legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday. Although insider trading is illegal for anyone, some had argued that the STOCK Act, wh

The Senate has added to the pressure on the Susan G. Komen foundation. Twenty-two Democratic senators today sent a letter to Nancy Brinker, the group’s founder and CEO, urging it to reconsider the decision to cut funding from Planned Parenthoo

Let’s get started with this excellent scoop from Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam: One of Mitt Romney’s strongest assets as the GOP presidential front-runner is also a potentially serious liability in the race: his heavy reliance on a small group of millionaire

Congress will soon take up legislation to stop so-called "congressional insider trading," but a pair of senators say that the bill does not go far enough. They say it should also prevent senators from owning individual stocks unless they are in a blind t

Lisa DeJong, Plain Dealer fileU.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown: Selling stocks and spreading the word. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Senate is preparing to vote this week on a bill that would expressly prohibit lawmakers and their staffs from using "nonpublic info

Over the last six weeks, three polls were released to the public in the OR-1 race. We now have election results data to compare them to. In mid-December, Public Policy Polling (PPP) conducted a poll on behalf of Daily Kos and SEIU. At the end of December

If there were any state where the presidential race might actually have brought a focus on the housing crisis, it was Florida -- where "underwater" now has nothing to do with hurricanes. In 2007 and 2008, Florida had half the nation's foreclosures, and i