Free Republic

LEGGETT, Calif. -- Recovered vehicle debris and personal items confirm that an SUV seen plunging into a storm-swollen Northern California river belonged to a family that disappeared last week, authorities said Thursday. The vehicle itself and the four members of the Thottapilly family have not been recovered from the Eel River, which remains too dangerous for divers to enter, but searchers along the banks located numerous items consistent with a Honda vehicle and interior, and items consistent with a family traveling on vacation, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. "Several items have been positively identified, by family...

A diagram, handed out in college course, labeling the president’s slogan, “Make American Great Again” as hate speech is at the center of controversy. It’s a picture that has ignited a slew of comments about college education in the area and the topic of hate speech but according to Rogue Community College, the diagram was taken out of context.

A federal judge has dismissed a felony tax evasion charge against a man who describes himself as a Christian who refuses to give money to the government to support abortion. U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled that the government's indictment failed to provide any evidence that Michael Bowman tried to conceal or mislead government officials by simply cashing his checks and keeping a low bank balance so tax collectors couldn't garnish his account to pay taxes.

According to a USA Today analysis, members on this year’s House Energy and Commerce Committee have received roughly $381,000 in Facebook-related contributions since 2007 with the average Republican getting $6,800 and the average Democrat getting $6,750. The report was based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Committee Chair Greg Walden (R-OR) reportedly received $27,000 while Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NY) got $7,000 in Facebook-related contributions. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the Bay Area Democrat whose district is reportedly home to many Facebook executives and employees, got the most contributions, receiving $51,050 in the last decade. Walden and Pallone announced...

Liberal Democrat Governor Kate Brown accepted a large donation from George Soros only days before announcing that she will not send Oregon’s National Guard to the Southern border to help protect the country from illegal aliens. The Oregon RNC reported on Monday April 2nd, 2018, that the Oregon governor received a large donation from former Nazi collaborator and creepy Billionaire George Soros. ... Willamette Week is reporting(link is external) that Governor Kate Brown has accepted “an unprecedented” campaign check from George Soros, a billionaire left-wing hedge-fund manager and campaign donor who resides in New York. This is Soros’ “first direct...

Oregon's governor says that if President Donald Trump asks to dispatch members of her state's National Guard to the US southern border, she'll "say no." In a set of tweets Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said she was "deeply troubled" by Trump's plan to send members of the US military to the border and implied that the President is doing so as a political distraction. "If @realDonaldTrump asks me to deploy Oregon Guard troops to the Mexico border, I'll say no. As Commander of Oregon's Guard, I'm deeply troubled by Trump's plan to militarize our border," the tweet said. Brown...

Federal authorities on Wednesday began legal proceedings to strip U.S. citizenship from two Bosnians, including one living in Oregon, for war crimes including executing civilians during that country’s civil war in the 1990s. The move by the U.S. Justice Department comes years after Rasema Handanovic and Edin Dzeko were extradited and later convicted by courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011. After serving her sentence, Handanovic returned to Beaverton, Oregon, according to a statement from the Justice department, while Dzeko has not yet been released by Bosnian authorities. The department filed denaturalization lawsuits against the pair in federal courts in...

If @realDonaldTrump asks me to deploy Oregon Guard troops to the Mexico border, I’ll say no. As Commander of Oregon’s Guard, I’m deeply troubled by Trump’s plan to militarize our border. There’s been no outreach by the President or federal officials, and I have no intention of allowing Oregon’s guard troops to be used to distract from his troubles in Washington.

For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages. The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies – which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves – have been silent on the issue until now. In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that last year it identified suspected...

Poll at link.

SALEM, Ore. — The National Rifle Association and the gun control group Ceasefire Oregon don't agree on much, but KATU discovered they both believe a proposed ban on assault weapons in the state would effectively bar sales of nearly all semi-automatic guns. Robert Humelbaugh, a gun salesman in Salem, called the proposed ban "a phenomenally poorly-worded and poorly-thought-out measure." He took the time, however, to show a KATU reporter which guns would be affected in the store where he works, Tick Licker Firearms on Commercial Street Southeast. Ceasefire Oregon took issue with some of his claims. High school students like...

Immigration officials say an Oregon man charged with rape had twice been deported. The Daily Astorian reports Seaside police arrested 24-year-old Anastacio Eugenio Lopez-Fabian in February after investigators determined he had sex several times with a girl younger than 14. In addition to rape, he's charged with assault and harassment. Lopez-Fabian posted bail and was released. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later detained him in a courthouse parking lot as he arrived for a hearing.

A Seaside man accused of raping a girl younger than 14 was taken to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, after immigration officials determined he had twice been deported to Guatemala. Lopez-Fabian posted bail and was released. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later detained him in a courthouse parking lot as he arrived for a hearing. He is now at a detention center in Tacoma, Washington.

John Crump writes [via ammoland.com]: Ever since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida the anti-gun groups have been out in force to try to strip people of their god given right of self-defense. They have paraded many student pawns out on that national stage to promote their gun control agenda. They have been using emotions as their facts to try to persuade the public to give up their rights. Not only is this Astroturf campaign going on at a national level, but it is also going on at the state level. One of the places...

In Oregon, a new initiative from a religious group is taking it a step forward. They want to ban any semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine, and that can hold more than ten rounds. They also want current owners of these firearms, law-abiding Americans, to take them out of the state, register them, sell it to a FFL dealer, destroy it, or turn them over. That’s right, folks—full-blown gun confiscation. Right now, the anti-gun church group is collecting signatures. The hope is that they fall short (via KGW8):

NEWPORT, Ore. (AP) — The 700-pound sea lion blinked in the sun, sniffed the sea air and then lazily shifted to the edge of the truck bed and plopped onto the beach below. Freed from the cage that carried him to the ocean, the massive marine mammal shuffled into the surf, looked left, looked right and then started swimming north as a collective groan went up from wildlife officials who watched from the shore. After two days spent trapping and relocating the animal designated #U253, he was headed back to where he started — an Oregon river 130 miles (209...

SALEM, Ore. – A recently filed Oregon initiative would make manufacturing, importing, possessing, purchasing or selling an assault weapon or large capacity magazine a crime – with only a few exceptions. If passed, Oregon Initiative 42 would only allow owners to keep their assault weapons and large capacity magazines if they register them with Oregon State Police. If the initiative goes into effect, anyone who owns an assault weapon or large capacity magazine will be required to remove them from the state, sell the items, surrender the items to a law enforcement agency for destruction, render the assault weapon permanently...

Truth in Accounting .. based on fiscal year 2016 comprehensive annual financial reports .. found that 64 cities do not have enough money to pay all of their bills, and in total, the cities have racked up $335.4 billion in unfunded municipal debt. ... Government reports are lengthy, cumbersome, and sometimes misleading documents ... taxpayers and citizens deserve easy-to-understand, truthful, and transparent financial information from their governments. ... to balance the budget, elected officials have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers. ... TIA was unable to rank...

A transgender woman is suing Tinder on behalf of other transgender people living in the Portland area, claiming it rejects all transgender people from the dating service. Ariel Hawkins claims in a new lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, a few days ago she edited her profile to disclose that she was a pre-op trans woman. She says Tinder immediately deleted her account. She says the company sent her email saying she violated its terms of service ... but didn't point her to any term and refused to explain the basis for the rejection.

Ten days ago I wrote about a panel discussion that took place at Portland State University on the topic of intersectionality as a religion. That panel was actually a follow-up of sorts to another event at the school featuring ex-Google engineer James Damore. I knew about the earlier event but, until yesterday, I hadn’t seen this amazing moment that took place during that discussion. At the mention of a simple anatomical fact (men are on average taller than women) a group of SJW’s got up and stormed out, apparently damaging the sound system on the way to the lobby.