PDX Real

Community journalism rooted in Portland, Oregon. Reporting for people who want the real story.
Connecting dots others overlook.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@2024NYYankees @Dano880 …or, he is biased because he’s raking in PERS money.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

PERS, Oregon’s public employee retirement program, is bankrupting the state, and it is a significant economic driver behind planned layoffs and school closures at Portland Public Schools.

PERS is now underfunded by $24 billion. PPS is facing a $65 million budget deficit, and over 60% ($40 million) of that shortfall is due its own PERS obligations.

Now, due to the budget deficit, PPS officials want to tap into yet another slush fund, the Oregon Education Stability Fund, for $500 million to fund their PERS program.

PPS officials say if the state and its taxpayers can’t cover the $65 million deficit, they will have to layoff 450 full time employees and shut down 14 schools in the district.

Using one-time reserves to cover ongoing pension obligations is a temporary fix, not a long-term solution. It’s simply kicking the can down the road for a worse problem in the future.

As PPS enrollment has declined by 25% in recent years, Oregon’s public schools are confronting the possibility of fewer teachers, fewer staff members, and fewer schools, while an increasing share of education dollars is consumed by retirement obligations, rather than its schools and students.

At some point, Oregon must confront the long-term cost of its public employee retirement system rather than repeatedly shifting money around from various slush funds to cover its pension bill, at an increasing cost to both students and taxpayers.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@Dano880 From a “retired teacher.” 😉

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@RickO36455929 @LarsLarsonShow So have we.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Best overheard line in Portland in recent memory:

“I’ve got a real job. I work for a non-profit and shit, man.”

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@TalvenTaurog She did get that slap on the wrist only.

More than 92% of PPP loans were forgiven. They were not loans as a rule. Some of us small business owners didn’t get money as it was gone - and fraud was a contributing factor!

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Well, that didn’t take long. The feds announced a new Fraud and Asset Recovery Division, and their second recovery already has an Oregon connection.

It involves a PPP loan to the New York bookstore owned by Senator Ron Wyden’s wife. Of course it does.

https://t.co/5hASnqgjAF

Here’s the story. 👇

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Only its second recovery—and already a Wyden connection.

His wife calls the PPP issue a mistake. DOJ says she falsely certified her bookstore’s eligibility. A $1.48M settlement—and $148,256 for the whistleblower.

https://t.co/rJ9ClSmCYy

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Government goes to those who participate. Make sure your voice is part of it. 🗳️

Get your ballot in! Find an official Oregon ballot drop box near you:
➡️ https://t.co/FOjSBCmbPV

Voting in Portland? We have two resources to help:

➡️ Ranked choice voting tips:
https://t.co/5JxWv7RuCh

➡️ PDX Real’s Portland slate recommendations—swipe through our lineup:
https://t.co/kYSQpzV1A1

Special thanks to everyone volunteering this weekend to help get out the vote. Every call, text and knock matters. Thank you for giving your time to Oregon’s future. ❤️

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

This is what happens under socialism:

In Brazil, Lula “wins” the election after the polls close, where before, Bolsonaro was shown to have a comfortable lead.

After the elections declared a Lula victory, Lula immediately uses a corrupt judge to pull Bolsonaro’s passport and asks the police to have him arrested.

Somehow, Bolsonaro slips undetected out of the country and supposedly, arrives in the US.

But he isn’t the only person who has fled Brazil. Journalists, activists, bloggers, and politicians have also fled the country to avoid certain prison for political opposition.

We aren’t far behind if we allow the toxic creep of social to continue in our nation.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@BrandiKruse Slow Horses

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Oregon’s internal election-testing website showed up on Google. The state shut down public access and said the numbers were test data.

That explains the numbers—not the exposure.

Here’s my full eight-minute report: the backstory, the assurances, and the questions @ORSecretaryRead still needs to answer.

We’ve heard “safe and secure.” Now show us the findings.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@oregon1697_in @Oregonian Attached. It looked like an election result page, but note the URL.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

BREAKING NEWS: In a potentially serious security breach, Oregon's Secretary of State's office reportedly exposed an internal election-testing website to the public internet just days before the November 3rd election.

According to reporting by YamCo News and @Oregonian, the website displayed simulated election results, including 59,331 ballots counted and 2.39% statewide turnout.

The Secretary of State's office says these were test results, not actual votes.

But here's the troubling part.

According to The Oregonian, a system update caused the website to become accessible outside its protective firewall, allowing public search engines to discover information that was apparently intended only for internal election testing - not the public.

Former state representative Julie Parrish (@hotcouponmama) reportedly discovered the exposure, and the state subsequently took the website offline.

Here's where things get interesting.

Oregon's Secretary of State explicitly assures voters that the state's ballot-counting equipment is NEVER connected to the internet, so that is a lie they have been telling the public for years. This particular website has been indexed by Google for 10 YEARS.

Now, to be clear, a publicly accessible election-results testing website is not the same thing as internet-connected ballot-counting equipment. There is currently no evidence that the actual vote-tabulation machines were compromised.

But the distinction raises an important question: If an election-related staging website could become publicly accessible because of a system update, what safeguards ensure that Oregon's actual ballot-counting equipment and production election systems remain completely isolated?

Is this just an example of embarrassing incompetence from @ORSecretaryRead's office or something far more sinister?

This raises several questions that Secretary of State Tobias Read should answer publicly:

How did a system update inadvertently expose an internal election website?

What security controls failed, and how long was the website publicly accessible?

Was the staging environment completely isolated from production election systems?

Was any unauthorized access detected?

Has an independent cybersecurity assessment been conducted to determine whether other election-related systems were exposed?

Tobias Read regularly repeats the mantra to voters that its elections are safe and secure. This proves this not the case. As the Trump Administration is ready to send election monitors ahead of the November 3rd election, Read will have some explaining to do. In many states, this might get the Secretary of State immediately fired.

Then Read could say goodbye to his future political aspirations, including the governorship.

Yet here we have an election-related website that reportedly became accessible to the public because of a configuration error, just days before an election.

Oregonians deserve more than Read's assurances that the exposed information was harmless. They deserve documentation establishing what happened, what systems were affected, and what corrective measures have been taken.

Secretary of State Tobias Read should address this incident publicly and provide the evidence supporting his office's conclusions.

Election integrity requires verifiable safeguards, transparency, and accountability, not empty platitudes.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

Oregon’s former Elections Director, Steve Trout, warned officials about serious election technology vulnerabilities SIX YEARS AGO. Days later, he was out of a job.

Now, just days before the November 3 election, those warnings deserve renewed attention.

In November 2020, Oregon Elections Director Steve Trout issued a blistering memorandum identifying serious problems within the Secretary of State’s office.

Among his findings:

• 12 requested technology improvements had gone unfunded.

• Some election systems were running on Windows Server 2008, which Microsoft no longer supported.

• Public-facing election websites depended on a single power supply and internet connection, without adequate redundancy.

• Security upgrades and repairs to dozens of software bugs remained unfunded.

Trout warned that the agency’s aging technology and lack of support made it nearly impossible to succeed.

Days later, he was gone.

Trout said then-Secretary of State Bev Clarno fired him by TEXT MESSAGE.

Fast-forward six years.

On October 23, 2026, an internal Oregon Secretary of State election-testing website was discovered accessible to the public internet, displaying simulated election results.

According to the @Oregonian a system update allowed the staging website to become accessible outside its protective firewall. Of course, Oregon’s largest newspaper reported the breach as an innocent opsie.

Here’s the question: Did Oregon ever fix the election technology problems Steve Trout warned them about in 2020?

We don’t yet know whether Trout’s warnings have any direct connection to this latest security incident.

But Secretary of State Tobias Read should be able to tell Oregonians exactly which of Trout’s 12 requested improvements were completed, which remain outstanding, and whether any unresolved vulnerabilities contributed to this exposure. Hey, @ORSecretaryRead, can you provide Oregonians this information, or not?

Six years. Multiple secretaries of state. One whom probably should be in jail. And now, yet another reason to examine Oregon’s election infrastructure.

Oregonians deserve documented answers, not simply assurances that their elections are secure.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

We’ve been hearing for years how the state runs their data is sloppy and incompetent.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@oregon1697_in @Oregonian There is a 7-minute screen shot video in existence, but not yet in our possession.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@Bertandbennetts Well, he’s basically Antifa.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

A word from Sam Harris about communists using progressive “useful idiots” to unwittingly promote their cause. This is why, by and large, the Democrats in Oregon are slowly conceding their party to the DSA.

[Making Sense Podcast @MakingSenseHQ]

When Progressives Become Useful Idiots

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@tmorello And yet, the rest of South and Central America has gone right over the last few years. You lose, and you’re a shitty guitar player. 😄

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

@OregonPapaBear I don’t know if it’s half, but I’ve heard of numbers close to 40% of being on some type of assistance.

[PDX Real @PDXReal1]

We’ve all heard that Oregon has one of the worst performances in the nation for treating mental illness and drug addiction, but what is also shocking is that it ranks as the state with highest percentage of adults with mental illness in the US.

In a federal study released in August, it found nearly 1/3 of all adults (31.6%) in the state suffer from some type of mental illness.

This is 47% higher than the national average (21.5%). It also means that over 1 million adults in Oregon are mentally ill.

And much like our homeless population, our rates of mental illness are increasing, rather than decreasing like the rest of the nation. In just one year, from 2024 to 2025, rates of mental illness increased in the state by nearly 5%. In that same period, mental illness decreased nationally by 4%.

It’s no wonder why many of us feel that the lunatics are running the asylum.

This may also explain why drug addiction in the state remains very high, at 26% above the national average. As many as 75% of drug addicts in the state aren’t receiving treatment of any kind.