Cascadia today: Portland awaits Guard + Idaho lets prison guards get away with abuse + who does Vancouver root for in ALCS?

Good morning! Hope to see some of you at the No Kings rally and march at Seattle Center on Saturday, October 18 from noon to 4 pm at Seattle Center. My plan is to be near the entrance to Pacific Science Center handing out info about Cascadia Journal and Cascadia Democratic Action.

For more info on a protest near you, check out the No Kings website. And check out this guide to staying safe at a protest I put together.

If you appreciate the work I do to reporting on Cascadia's pushback against authoritarianism, please consider becoming a paid member. I'm just eight paid members away from my goal of 70 by the first of November. Thanks! --Andrew

Portland awaits ruling on National Guard

OPB reports that federal judge Karin Immergut extended a restraining order against the Trump administration's plan to deploy 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland. This, as the city awaits the results of an appeal to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the deployment, which Trump says is necessary to respond to conditions in "war-torn" Portland. The only war-like conditions were during ICE and federal agents' heavy-handed response to peaceful protests at the Portland facility over the past week, including agents shoving and detaining peaceful protesters and firing tear gas at the crowd, many of them in costumes, the Portland Mercury reports. Right wing counter-protesters were there too, attempting to stir things up – Portland police arrested several. OPB reports on how right-wing media influencers have been embedded with ICE in Portland. And though Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem has been insisting for months that many ICE agents have been doxxed by the dreaded ANTIFA™, Oregon Capital Chronicle reports that no charges have been filed.

School board rejects cops in Seattle schools

The Urbanist has a great deep dive into the Seattle School Board's decision to reject a plan to station an armed cop inside Garfield high school. The most revealing detail in the article is that the district, SPD, and the Harrell administration are considering a broader plan to install 15 armed cops in schools across the city. Meanwhile, KUOW reports that the search for a new superintendent for Seattle schools has been narrowed to two candidates. In related news, PubliCola reports that Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell ignored requests to meet the families of youth victims of gun violence – that is, until his re-election campaign got underway.

Idaho prison guards get away with sexual abuse

Investigate West has a harrowing, well-documented investigation into widespread sexual abuse, rape, and assault against women prisoners in three prisons in Idaho, and authorities' effort to shield guards from discipline. Idaho has the highest rate of imprisonment of women in the US, and the article documents multiple cases where guards accused of sexual assault were simply fired rather than prosecuted under the standards of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.

“In one way or another, it was known in all three facilities, all the way up, what was going on,” she says. “And they chose to overlook it.” --Jamie Hamilton, who settled a lawsuit against the Idaho Dept of Corrections for incidents of alleged sexual assault while she was serving a sentence at Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center.

Blue Jays versus Mariners: who is Vancouver supporting?

The Toronto Blue Jays won a game over the Seattle Mariners yesterday in the American League Championship series, bringing the contest that will decide which team will play in the World Series to 2-1. The seven-game series raises an intriguing Cascadia question: why do Vancouver baseball fans overwhelmingly root for Toronto, a team thousands of miles to the east, rather than the team a few hours drive south? Steve Burgess at the Tyee notes it's mostly about Canadian nationalism (especially strong now in response to Trump and his 51st state nonsense) but Burgess acknowledges...

"Advocates for Cascadian independence may well ask why British Columbians should declare allegiance to a team located over 4,000 kilometres away, instead of a team based 230 kilometres south."

CBC reports that there actually are some folks in Vancouver who root for the Mariners: "It's been years and years of despair, much like a Vancouver Canucks fan. But there's at least hope with the Mariners right now," one of them said.

--Andrew Engelson