Free Republic

Student negotiators and university officials reached an agreement to end the pro-Palestine encampment on the University of Oregon campus after 24 days. Five UO Coalition for Palestine representatives emerged from Johnson Hall, where the encampment was moved on May 16, after meeting with UO administrators including President John Karl Scholz. According to Michael Dreiling, a sociology professor and facilitator between the coalition and the university, encampment members have 24 hours to leave after signing the agreement. By the end of the night, some demonstrators were already packing up their tents, and cheers rang out from the site of the encampment...

A 13th county in Oregon passed a measure that would allow the county to move forward with efforts to secede from the state and join the Republican-governed state of Idaho. Voters in Crooks County passed Measure 7-86, also known as the “Greater Idaho” measure, 53 percent to 47 percent on Tuesday, according to the Central Oregon Daily News. Greater Idaho Executive Director Matt McCaw issued a statement that there was “no excuse left” for the Oregon Legislature or Gov. Tina Kotek (D) to “continue to ignore the people’s wishes.” “The voters of eastern Oregon have spoken loudly and clearly about...

Portland, Oregon, is considered one of the wokest cities in the nation, yet even residents there have apparently had enough of watching silently as their metropolis descends into chaos and ruin. On Tuesday, they got rid of their disastrous district attorney Mike Schmidt and handed the job to his tough-on-crime challenger Nathan Vasquez.Never thought I’d see such sanity from Portland folks:BREAKING: Portland voters fire Soros DA Mike Schmidt by a landslide 15% margin.He infamously declined to prosecute the BLM and Antifa riots & allowed crime to flourish in Multanomah County.Soros DA Chesa Boudin (San Fran): OutSoros DA Kim Gardner (St....

ADemocrat who recently won their primary in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, a swing district, previously supported a passed ballot measure that decriminalized drugs in the area. Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum voiced her support for Measure 110, which, after being passed in November 2020, decriminalized most possession of controlled substances. That ballot measure passed 58.5% to 41.5% in the state, with Portland’s Multnomah County offering the most votes in favor at a nearly 3-to-1 margin. However, Bynum’s previous support for the measure won’t likely appeal so much to voters anymore; a February poll saw 61% of voters call the policy...

Republican primary voters ousted incumbent state Rep. Charlie Conrad of Dexter on Tuesday night in a striking repudiation of the first-term Republican, who drew intense criticism from conservatives after he voted in favor of a bill that guaranteed access to abortion and gender-affirming care. Partial results as of 9 a.m. Wednesday showed business owner and former McKenzie School Board Member Darin Harbick with a whopping 82% of the vote to Conrad’s 18%. Conrad joined Democrats in supporting House Bill 2002 in 2023 after he said he gained a new perspective on gender-affirming care by speaking with health care providers and...

If the left is going to take control of the Democratic Party, the Pacific Northwest, with its oversupply of culturally progressive, college-educated white people, is where it would happen first. It is therefore notable that voters in Oregon struck a devastating blow against the left in three elections Tuesday. In one primary, mainstream Democrat Janelle Bynum defeated progressive favorite Jamie McLeod-Skinner to face off in a winnable purple district. In another, Representative Maxine Dexter prevailed over Susheela Jayapal in a primary in a heavily Democratic district. And most revealingly, Nathan Vasquez unseated progressive prosecutor Mike Schmidt in Portland, one of...

Thirteen fed-up counties in liberal Oregon have voted in support of measures to start negotiations to secede from the state and join conservative Idaho. Crook County became the latest to approve the 'Greater Idaho Measure' following a vote on Tuesday. The proposal seeks to move the Oregon border 200 miles to the west, meaning that 14 counties and several partial counties would fall under Idaho state lines. Organizers behind the Greater Idaho movement say east Oregonians are being alienated by the state's progressive policies which they blame for high crime rates. They claim a move to Idaho would allow residents...

Voters in Oregon were on the brink Wednesday of ousting progressive Portland DA Mike Schmidt and replacing him with one of his deputies who was once a Republican and has vowed to crack down on rampant crime and drug abuse. As of Wednesday morning, with about 63% of the vote counted, Schmidt was trailing Nathan Vasquez by 11.9 percentage points — a difference of more than 117,000 votes, according to the latest tally. “I am committed to fulfilling those campaign promises. I’m committed to ending the open-air drug use, to ending the open-air drug dealing that we have suffered from...

Mike Schmidt, the leftist prosecutor in Portland, Ore., is asking voters to give him the opportunity to serve four more years as head of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. In an interview with local media last October, he graded himself an “A” for his performance. But if the past four years of record homicides, decriminalized antifa rioting and surging street overdoses represent Schmidt as his best, Portland may not survive another four years with him at the helm. Schmidt’s re-election is being challenged by his subordinate, Nathan Vasquez, a senior deputy district attorney and moderate candidate who promises to...

A DEA agent accused of killing a cyclist in Salem while on duty had his case presented before a federal appeals court today in Seattle. At the center of today’s hearing was whether the agent could claim immunity from state prosecution because he was an on-duty federal agent. On March 28, 2023, Marganne Allen was riding her bike home from work in southeast Salem. Video from that day shows a black pickup truck running a stop sign moments before striking and killing the cyclist.

Paint splattered on floors. Spray-painted messages and screeds covering walls. Furniture moved and overturned. Security cameras disabled. Fire extinguishers missing and entrances blocked by stacks of chairs. “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” a facilities manager at Portland State University said Thursday as he examined the destruction left behind after a three-day occupation by pro-Palestinian protesters in Millar Library.

For the people who now live in Eastern Oregon, they could see some of their existing rights eliminated under Idaho law, writes guest columnist Rebecca Tallent. It is unique: Some parts of Oregon are seeking a divorce from the state because the residents do not feel represented in the state Legislature.In recent elections, 11 Oregon counties voted to change states, from Oregon to Idaho. Greater Idaho, the nonprofit group promoting the move, said four Washington Counties (Asotin, Columbia, Walla Walla and Garfield) also expressed interest in moving. But what would this mean for Idaho?On its website, Greater Idaho said the...

Nike will lay off about 740 employees at its world headquarters in Oregon, a letter showed on Friday, as the top sportswear maker looks to rein in costs after warning of a revenue dip in the first half of fiscal 2025. The "second phase of impacts" would begin by June 28 at its headquarters, Michele Adams, Nike's vice president for people solutions, said in a legally mandated notice to state authorities. The company's shares were up marginally in after-hours trading. They have declined nearly 13% this year. Nike had in December announced a cost savings plan for $2 billion over...

April 9 Letter from FERC to KRRC, ‘… Kiewit has aborted the Iron Gate Development drilling program in its entirety…’ .. This is part of a series about the Klamath Dam Removal project in Siskiyou County. The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.” The dams are part of the Klamath project, a series of seven dams built in the 1910’s and 1920’s in the Klamath Basin to bring electricity and agricultural water mitigation for Southern Oregon and Northern California,...

A lawsuit claims four students took turns forcibly penetrating a third-grade girl in a restroom stall, blocked her escape, and received one-day suspensions, OregonLive reported. The lawsuit claims employees of both Portland Public Schools and a Multnomah County-sponsored after-school program operated by nonprofit Latino Network failed to protect the girl — who was 9 at the time — from being sexually assaulted, the outlet noted. The girl's family filed the lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court last month; it seeks up to $9 million in damages on grounds including negligence, lack of oversight, and failure to protect a vulnerable person...

Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR) said she lectures the “conservative areas of my district” on the necessity of Biden’s open border because illegal immigrants must be imported to do menial labor. “Every one of my farmers knows that the people that are doing backbreaking work in heat, in brutal weather, to put food on our table, they want immigration reform,” Hoyle said in recently unearthed comments during a February press conference. “Our chambers of commerce, they want immigration reform.” The benign term “immigration reform” is commonly used by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and advocates of increased immigration, importation of cheap...

On Tuesday March 26th, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors declared a local State of Emergency in regard to the adverse impacts of the Klamath Dam removal project affecting the Klamath River.

<p>An avalanche forecaster died in a snowslide he triggered while skiing in eastern Oregon last week, officials said.</p><p>Nick Burks, 37, and a friend — both experienced skiers and carrying avalanche air bags and beacons — were backcountry skiing the chute on Gunsight Mountain on Wednesday, near Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort.</p>

Arizona Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Nevada Rep. Susie Lee introduced legislation this week aimed at enabling $45 million in Bureau of Reclamation funds to be used for helping the Hoover Dam. Proponents of the "Help Hoover Dam Act" say it would cut regulations and allow the bureau to tap into the Colorado River Dam Fund to support efforts related to the dam's upkeep. Ed Gerak, Executive Director of Irrigation and Electrical Districts of Arizona, said in a statement that the funding could help mitigate possible price increases for electricity. This bill will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to use...

BEAVERTON, Ore. — A group of Beaverton homeowners, facing thousands of dollars in fines from their neighborhood's HOA board, tried to remove their board president from his position — only for the board to change the neighborhood's bylaws the very next day, making it "essentially impossible" to be removed from power. An attorney representing the HOA board told KGW that the homeowners' actions don't represent the entire community, as some people have been pleased with the 'clean-up' of the neighborhood, but the conflict highlights the delicate balance of power between neighborhoods and the associations that run them. Homeowners associations, or...