Free Republic

The Assistant Director for Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) at the University of Oregon has been placed on leave after telling Trump voters to kill themselves by jumping off a “f——— bridge” in reaction to President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 election. “I’m done crying. My sadness is over. My anger has set in. I am a very petty person, and I am very proud of that — love it about myself, actually,” Leonard Serrato said in a video posted to social media. “And so, I say this in the most disrespectful way possible: I don’t care if...

Voters across the country weighed in on ranked choice voting ballot initiatives Tuesday, with a vast majority rejecting the system amid an intensifying debate over its effects on elections. RCV, which allows voters to rank candidates by preference rather than selecting only one, has faced mounting opposition at both state and local levels. This year’s election results featured a mixed outcome, with state-level ballot measures predominantly failing but some cities voting to adopt or maintain RCV. Here are the major takeaways from RCV ballot initiatives from the 2024 election:Measures to implement RCV in Oregon and to introduce RCV and open...

Agroup of illegal immigrants from South America was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly using construction crew disguises, blowtorches and cellphone jammers, among other "sophisticated tactics," to rob banks across multiple states of more than $4 million in cash, according to federal prosecutors. The crew, made up mostly of Chilean nationals, targeted more than 29 banks and credit unions throughout California, Oregon and Washington between May and October, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced. According to court documents, the group mapped out ATMs in "vulnerable locations," then rented short-term vacation properties nearby and used cars they rented on...

As Election Day approaches, the prediction market Polymarket has drawn attention with its $2.7 billion betting pool on the 2024 presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Currently, Polymarket’s odds show Trump with a 66% chance of victory. However, a recent analysis from blockchain experts suggests nearly one-third of this activity may be due to wash trading, casting doubt on the platform’s reliability as a predictive tool. Possible evidence of artificial trading on Polymarket Blockchain research firms Chaos Labs and Inca Digital, known for digital market security and data analysis, recently reported findings that question Polymarket’s reported $2.7 billion...

Fraudsters may be able to cast ballots of Oregon voters who are overseas (and potentially those who are domestic) using an online loophole. regon’s voting portal lets anyone log into an Oregon resident’s voter account using only his name and birthday — and once logged into a voter’s account, it appears that a bad actor could use the online tool to cast the ballots of overseas voters by email. For that matter, the system doesn’t appear to protect against someone fraudulently casting ballots in the names of domestic voters by claiming to be overseas. Oregon’s online elections portal, “MyVote,” lets...

A fringe group of climate scientists have published an apocalyptic report warning that “much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled” by climate change, in the latest attack on low-cost fossil fuels. Led by Oregon-based climate activists William J. Ripple and Christopher Wolf, the writers assert that humanity is “on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster” because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem change.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are missing from Oregon’s online list of candidates, and voter pamphlets do not include their biographies.Oregon’s Democrat secretary of state does not list former President Donald Trump or his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, as candidates on the office’s website, and county voter pamphlets exclude them from the biographies of presidential candidates.Oregon voter pamphlets do not include Donald Trump. He also is not listed on the Oregon State Government website under presidential candidates.What's going on?H/T @gunclubprez pic.twitter.com/0J0L3PTKns— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 10, 2024Under candidates for president, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade’s website lists...

An employee at a cannabis dispensary in North Portland is accused of fatally shooting two people who attempted to rob the business last week. Jason Steiner, 34, turned himself in to Portland police Wednesday and was booked into Multnomah County’s downtown jail on allegations of two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. Last week’s shooting happened just after 9:30 p.m. on Thursday. The North Portland store had been targeted by at least four previous armed robberies since 2022, state records show. In June of this year, one employee was working when five people...

The state has unearthed hundreds more people than previously known who were improperly registered to vote under Oregon’s motor voter law. The latest tally includes 302 people identified on Monday, according to an “after-action” report ordered by Gov. Tina Kotek. The latest numbers add to the 1,259 people who officials with the state’s Driver and Motor Vehicle Services office and Secretary of State had earlier revealed were registered in error. [snip] Griffin-Valade said she was confident the recently identified errors would not alter the election. Tobias Read, the Democrat who is running to be the next secretary of state, said...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Vice President Kamala Harris's husband, Doug Emhoff, is set to speak at a campaign event on Portland Sunday. This comes as Democratic nominee Harris is running to beat former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, as well as Tuesday's planned debate between both parties' vice presidential nominees, Democrat rival, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

WASHINGTON — Ron Wyden, Oregon's senior U.S. senator, introduced legislation Thursday that would overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court and "restore public trust" in the institution, his office said in a statement. The "Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act" would make a number of significant changes to the highest court and the federal circuit courts beneath it, including an overall expansion of the court itself. "The Supreme Court is in crisis and bold solutions are necessary to restore the public trust," Wyden said.

In a city that has raised taxes by almost 25% over the past half-decade, the mayor has made the obvious suggestion: use your home's equity to hand over your wealth to keep the city's gravy train going. You will own nothing and be happy. ⚡South Portland Mayor Misha Pride tells seniors to take out a reverse mortgage to afford the city's sharp increase in property taxes. pic.twitter.com/auJK1pzAdt— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) September 23, 2024It's a brilliant solution if you think about it. You worked all your life to buy your house outright, happy that you can pass along the value...

The Oregon Department of Transportation and the secretary of state’s office today released new information about the number of non-citizen voters who were mistakenly placed on voter rolls, upping the total number of voters erroneously placed on the rolls from 306 to 1,259.In a Monday afternoon press conference, ODOT director Kris Strickler said the mistakes resulted from a “data processing” errors in ODOT’s Oregon Driver & Motor Vehicle Services division, which he said the agency deeply regrets. Strickler explained that DMV discovered the errors after an inquiry from a think-tank called the Institute for Responsive Government.

Lindsey O’Brien, Oregon Governor Kotek’s deputy chief of staff, who went on extended leave earlier this year, has officially resigned this week. Lindsey was among the three top staffers who stepped down all at once over Kotek’s push to expand a role for her wife within the Governor’s office. In the past few weeks, Kotek has closed the planned First Spouse office for her wife. Kotek’s wife’s personal aid ($11,000/month) also recently resigned last August. Also in August, it was reported that Oregon Governor Tina Kotek spent $200,000 of taxpayer dollars for a health-care event put on by her wife...

Delta Airlines passengers were left with burst eardrums and bleeding noses after their flight suddenly lost pressure. Passengers aboard a flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Portland, Oregon, felt the cabin lose pressure before the plane rapidly descended, according to KSL. 'I looked over at my husband, and he had both of his hands over his ears, you know, kind of leaning forward,' flier Caryn Allen told the outlet. Allyn added that she 'looked about a row behind me, over on the other side of the aisle, and there was a gentleman that clearly had a very bad bloody...

WW has learned Oregon Driver & Motor Vehicle Services, which licenses drivers in the state, has mistakenly placed more than 300 non-citizens on the voting rolls since 2021. Officials believe that 306 people without citizenship were registered to vote through a data entry error, but they believe just two of them actually cast ballots. Nearly a decade ago, Oregon passed a motor voter law, which automatically registered people to vote when they sought a new license (and were 18 or over) or renewed an existing one. Then, in 2019, the Legislature passed a law that allowed certain people without proof...

When will Portland learn? There’s a movement afoot in Portland to provide free food to the homeless from front yard refrigerators. Willamette Week thinks it’s a great way “to Be a Better Neighbor”. I don’t. It’s a misguided feel-good effort at charity by naïve social justice warriors that perpetuates their presence while not resolving the situation on the ground. And of course the homeless services complex never shrinks because the client base never diminishes. A while ago I went to a free lunch for the homeless in an underground Portland parking garage. Tables spread out across the center of the...

An Oregon judge has sentenced a violent Portland Antifa ringleader to jail time and probation following a trial last month. A jury of mostly women convicted Alissa Eleanor Azar, 33 (b. Feb. 12, 1991), of felony riot and disorderly conduct on Aug. 14 following a five-day criminal trial at the Clackamas County Courthouse in Oregon City. Azar, who became a self-styled chief propagandist for Antifa in the Portland area, was sentenced on Monday afternoon by Judge Todd L. Van Rysselberghe for the 5th Judicial District Circuit Court of Oregon. He sentenced her to 14 days in a local jail, followed...

The largest dam removal project in US history is finally complete, after crews last week demolished the last of the four dams on the Klamath River. It’s a significant win for tribal nations on the Oregon-California border who for decades have fought to restore the river back to its natural state. The removal of the four hydroelectric dams — Iron Gate Dam, Copco Dams 1 and 2, and JC Boyle Dam — allows the region’s iconic salmon population to swim freely along the Klamath River and its tributaries, which the species have not been able to do for over a...

The decades-long push led by tribal communities to remove four dams along the Klamath River reached another victory this week as crews began the project’s final stages, restoring historic water flows to the river for the first time in over a century. The fight to remove dams along the Klamath began over two decades ago, when poor water quality and river flows caused tens of thousands of the river’s fish, mostly Chinook salmon, to die in a massive fish kill in 2002. For thousands of years, Chinook salmon have been a fundamental source of physical, spiritual and economic sustenance to...