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At today's Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas about the alleged killer of Laken Riley. YouTube Video 7:44 seconds long

"Today I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week," Buck said in a statement...His departure will cut the House Republican margin to 218-213...Buck is a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, but he made a name for himself in Washington for frequently breaking with his party on major issues...Most recently, Buck broke with his party and was one of three Republicans who voted against the impeachment of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

GOP Rep. Ken Buck will retire from Congress next week leaving Republicans with a razor-thin majority. Following the resignation of Kevin McCarthy, Bill Johnson, Ken Buck and the ousting of George Santos, the Republicans will be left with a razor-thin majority of 218-213. ..... Snip..... House Speaker Mike Johnson was shocked by Ken Buck’s surprise announcement. “I was surprised by Ken’s announcement. I’m looking forward to talking with him about that,” Speaker Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Tuesday he will resign from Congress later this month rather than serve out the remainder of his term through 2024. Why it matters: The surprise announcement will cause House Republicans' already razor thin majority to dwindle even further

“It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado’s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years,” Buck said in a written statement. “I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week. I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado and with my family.”

March 3 (UPI) — This weekend’s edition of Saturday Night Live opened with a comedy sketch mocking defenders of U.S. President Joe Biden’s age, energy, and acuity. The 5-minute segment showed CNN anchor Dana Bash (played by Heidi Gardner) interviewing California Gov. Gavin Newsom (Michael Longfellow) about polls that suggest many Americans don’t think that Democrat Biden, 81, is sharp enough to lead the country for another four years if he wins re-election in November against presumptive Republican candidate and former president, Donald Trump, 77. The sketch also includes on-camera remarks from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (played by...

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning. Host Margaret Brennen had asked Secretary Mayorkas if the illegal alien who killed Laken Riley should have been deported. He never answered, but instead deflected the question. Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, was brutally murdered by one of Joe Biden’s illegal aliens. Biden won’t say Laken Riley’s name either. “Should this man have been deported?” Brennen asked Mayorkas. “One individual is responsible for the murder, and that is the murderer,” Mayorkas responded. “Are you saying there that the Federal Government had been informed about this...

Well, that escalated quickly. I guess we’re just going to cancel the utopia? How can you have a utopia that arrests people simply for living on the streets in tents and shooting up fentanyl in front of children? It’s fascism.

An Oregon man accused of spiking smoothies with sedatives and giving them to his daughter’s pre-teen friends has been charged with multiple felonies, according to court documents. Michael Meyden, 57, of Lake Oswego, allegedly drugged three of his daughter’s friends while they slept over on the night of Aug. 25, 2023, according to court documents and a probable cause affidavit filed this week in Clackamas County. The girls, all 12 years old, were hospitalized and tested positive for benzodiazepine, described in the affidavit as a drug typically prescribed for anxiety, with common prescriptions under the names Valium, Xanax and Klonopin....

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to recriminalize certain drugs The bill now heads to the desk of Democrat Gov. Tina Kote who declared a state of emergency weeks ago over the fentanyl crisis in Portland Oregon saw 1,268 fentanyl-related deaths from 2019 to 2023 Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to recriminalize possession of drugs weeks after Gov. Tina Kotek declared state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis in Portland. A bill recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs was passed by the Oregon Legislature on Friday. The bill reverses a key part of the state's drug decriminalization law, which...

SALEM, Ore. (KATU) — Oregon lawmakers on a joint committee on Tuesday voted to move a bill that would make possession of drugs a crime again to the House for a vote. The bill would effectively change voter-approved Measure 110. The bill has an emergency clause, which means if it makes it through both houses of the Legislature and the governor signs it, it becomes law immediately. But the new criminal charge for drug possession would take effect Sept. 1, giving the Department of Justice a chance to implement it. If it becomes law, people openly using illegal drugs on...

It's a common sight on the streets of downtown Portland, Oregon: people in front of stores, trendy restaurants and hotels, on sidewalks, corners, and benches, crouched over torch lighters held up to sheets of tinfoil or meth pipes. Some drape blankets over their heads, or duck behind concrete barriers. Others don’t try to hide. "All summer long, we were right out in the open. You didn't have to be paranoid anymore, you didn't have to be worried about the cops," said John Hood, a 61-year-old drug addict living on the streets of Oregon’s most populous city. Hood spoke to Reuters...

An amendment introduced to the Oregon legislature Thursday would criminalize drug use on public transit. The Oregon Transit Association and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 are seeking to amend Senate Bill 1553 to create a misdemeanor charge for people who use illicit drugs while riding public transit. The charge of interfering with public transportation would apply to a person who “while in or on a public transit vehicle or public transit station, knowingly ingests, inhales, injects, or otherwise consumes a controlled substance that is not lawfully possessed by the person,” the amendment reads.

George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Leftist policies daily show his wisdom. The latest leftist policy to go down in flames is Oregon’s experiment with legalizing all drugs. It turns out that when you give people license to sin, and also delete all moral constraints, they’ll sin themselves to death. Now, Oregon’s very leftist governor, Tina Kotek, is walking back the policy, having declared a state of emergency over fentanyl drug overdoses. The Founding Fathers never forgot the past. Indeed, they were imbued with it. One example of that wisdom was...

Oregon, the pioneering state in drug decriminalization, faces a fentanyl crisis prompting a state of emergency in Portland. Despite hopes that a more compassionate approach would address addiction, the reality has been starkly different. Measure 110, passed in 2020, shifted focus to addiction and recovery, with police issuing citations for public drug use. However, the law’s effectiveness is under scrutiny, with overdose deaths rising since its implementation. Governor Tina Kotek has declared a 90-day emergency order for fentanyl use, establishing a command center for better coordination between emergency management and health services. The move comes after nearly a thousand accidental...

Lawmakers in Oregon are moving to recriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs after it faced rampant public drug use and saw overdose-related deaths more than triple. 'It's the compromise path, but also the best policy that we can come up with to make sure that we are continuing to keep communities safe and save lives,' said state Senator Kate Lieber, a Democrat and one of the bill's authors. The state became the first in the country to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine in 2020.

Oregon officials contacted a family to let them know that their relative had been found dead from a drug overdose, but months later, they admitted they had made a mistake. On Sept. 11 the family of Tyler Chase was told that he had died and the body was cremated on Oct. 1. The Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office issued a death certificate after identifying him. The family received the ashes of someone whom they believed was their relative. Three months later, on Dec. 19, officials told the family that they had made a mistake and that Chase was still alive....

As we discussed yesterday, state and local officials have come up with a new plan to revive the city of Portland. One of the top items on their agenda is to reign in open-air drug use, something the voters of Oregon decriminalized back in 2020. But we may have a ways to go before Portland can be rescued from the poor decision making of its own elected officials, at least we do if this story is any guide. Portland-area law enforcement officials made one of the biggest fentanyl busts in state history last Thursday. At the time it seemed like...

Three years after Oregon voted to de-criminalize drug offences - residents are now begging to reverse their decision after seeing an astonishing number of deaths from opioid overdoses. In 2020 - Oregon voters approved a measure to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine. The proposal, known as Oregon Ballot Measure 110, passed with 58.8 percent support. Now residents of the liberal state are crying out to their politicians to do something about the open-air drug markets that their cities have turned into. Opioid deaths in Oregon have gone up from 280, before the de-criminalization was voted...

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation law that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs in favor of an emphasis on addiction treatment is facing strong headwinds in the progressive state after an explosion of public drug use fueled by the proliferation of fentanyl and a surge in deaths from opioids, including those of children. “The inability for people to live their day-to-day life without encountering open-air drug use is so pressing on urban folks’ minds,” said John Horvick, vice president of polling firm DHM Research. “That has very much changed people’s perspective about what they think Measure...