Free Republic

Full original title Bar runs 'Reparations Happy Hour' and asks white people to donate money before handing $10 bills to black, brown and indigenous patrons The inaugural 'Reparations Happy Hour' was thrown in Portland, Oregon White people were asked to donate money to the event, but told not to attend The event was meant to be a safe space for black, brown and indigenous people Attendees were given $10 of the donations as a symbolic gesture of reparations More than 100 people, white and non-white alike, were said to have donated

Initiative Petition #43 is slowly making its way through the ballot measure process in Oregon. After a massive response of challenges to the “draft ballot title” were submitted a couple of weeks ago, the state “attorney general” has now issued the “certified ballot title” that reads “Prohibits “assault weapons” (defined), “large capacity magazines” (defined), unless registered with state police. Criminal penalties.” As previously reported, this ballot measure, should it eventually pass, would outlaw 95% of the guns that are currently out there, and instantly turn thousands grampas into felons for having an old tube fed .22 Marlin in the attic...

An Oregon non-profit just did something the U.S. government refuses to do: it gave out reparations to people of color In the inaugural Reparations Happy Hour earlier this week, the hosts gave each person of color who attended $10 with no questions asked. With 40 people in attendance, Brown Hope, the non-profit gave out $400 that evening. “It’s exactly what it sounds like,” said Brown Hope founder Cameron Whitten. “What I want to do is end the cycle of exploitation. For Black, brown, indigenous people you face so many barriers, whether it’s tokenization or straight-up poverty.“ Portland is one of...

Oregon's attorney general on Wednesday released a certified ballot title for an initiative to ban the sale of high-capacity magazines and a broad range of semiautomatic pistols, rifles and shotguns. The initiative also would require most existing owners of these weapons to pass criminal background checks and register with the state in order to keep them. Failure to do so would be a Class B felony. The new ballot title for Initiative Petition 43 reads: "Prohibits 'Assault Weapons' (Defined), 'Large Capacity Magazines' (Defined), Unless Registered With State Police. Criminal Penalties." The measure's opponents could still appeal to the Oregon Supreme...

. A judge has ordered a teen who admitted to starting a fire that swept through the Columbia River Gorge last year to pay over $36 million but acknowledges the teen can't pay the sum in full. Hood River County Circuit Judge John A. Olson wrote in an opinion released Monday that the court awards restitution totaling about $36,618,330 on behalf of Eagle Creek fire victims including the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Department of Transportation. Olson also tapped the local juvenile department to come up with a payment schedule for the restitution.

Dan Love .. led Operation Cerberus ... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wants to rein in the law enforcement authority of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service and is crafting legislation he says will either restrict or abolish their authority. Lee said Monday he aims to hem in powers he says were never envisioned under the Federal Land Management Policy Act of 1976. "Our federal land management agencies have drifted far from their intended purposes.. The BLM has expanded its operations far from public lands." ... The senator added federal land agencies exercise police powers on private land...

On July 4, 1960, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard rang in Independence Day with a dire Associated Press report by one Norma Gauhn headlined “American Dialects Disappearing.” The problem, according to “speech experts,” was the homogenizing effect of “mass communications, compulsory education, [and] the mobility of restless Americans.” These conformist pressures have only intensified in the half-century since the AP warned “that within four generations virtually all regional U.S. speech differences will be gone.” And so as we enter the predicted twilight of regional American English, it’s no surprise that publications as venerable as the Economist now confirm what our collective...

It's not only a possibility in the Hawaiian Islands. A chain of about 40 volcanos runs along the West Coast between Canada and Mexico and all have the potential to become active. (The potential for each peak is outlined in the gallery above.) They've all erupted at least once in the past 10,000 years and they all have a supply of magma under them.

All Erika Zak wants to do is play with her daughter on the playground. Take her to the zoo. Walk her to school. She's never been able to be the mother she longs to be. At 38, Erika is dying. Her battle to live began almost as soon as her daughter, Loïe, was born four years ago, when Erika was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer that had spread to her liver. The cancer was removed from her colon and, her doctors say, she responded well to treatment. But a microwave ablation surgery last year to remove two tumors...

An Oregon school district reportedly forced an LGBTQ student to read passages from the Bible as a form of punishment The World in Coos Bay, Ore., reports that the student's allegations were detailed by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) in a March 6 letter to North Bend School District Superintendent Bill Yester. The ODE is investigating claims that an LGBTQ high school student was forced by a school administrator to read the Bible while they were being “disciplined,” according to The World. It reported that ODE officials are investigating whether the forced Bible reading violated the student's First Amendment...

High-tax states face a choice: reduce taxes or lose taxpayers. Stephen Moore and Art Laffer forecast in the Wall Street Journal the loss of 800,000 California and New York residents over the next three years. The exodus, the economics experts say, comes because of the tax bill, which limits the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to $10,000, passed in December. Previously, the feds forced no monetary limit on filers. California taxes individuals earning $1 million or more at a rate of 13.3 percent. New York levies an 8.8 percent rate upon individuals making a similar amount of money annually....

Portland, OREGON: No matter who gets sworn in next January, the dynamics of City Hall will change. This City Hall race features six contenders: former state Rep. Jo Ann Hardesty (D-Portland), two-term Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, architect Stuart Emmons, mayoral aide and David Douglas School Board member Andrea Valderrama, and Felicia Williams, the business manager at her partner's biotech firm, as well as perennial candidate Lew Humble. We've concluded that Hardesty, a Navy veteran, county aide and nonprofit leader, is the best person for the job. Hardesty is not without flaws. She doesn't always work well with others,...

Here is a link to the Oregon Firearms Federation's 2018 Ratings of Oregon Candidates based on their support of the 2nd Amendment. There is a very serious threat to gun ownership in Oregon in the form of ballot initiatives 43 and 44. Initiative 43 bans any future sale or purchase of 'assault weapons'. Existing assault weapons would have to be registered with the state police. The definition of an assault weapon is so broad even a .22 semi-auto can fall under the ban. Example: The wording states any full or partial shroud meant to protect the non-trigger hand from being...

It turns out Oregonians are good at growing cannabis—too good. In February, state officials announced that 1.1 million pounds of cannabis flower were logged in the state's database. If a million pounds sounds like a lot of pot, that's because it is: Last year, Oregonians smoked, vaped or otherwise consumed just under 340,000 pounds of legal bud. This month, WW spoke to two dozen people across Oregon's cannabis industry. They describe a bleak scene: Small businesses laying off employees and shrinking operations. Farms shuttering. People losing their life's savings are unable to declare bankruptcy because marijuana is still a federally...

A lawyer who led the fight against Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, eventually winning the Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court, won confirmation by the Senate Tuesday to a federal appeals court. Senators voted 50-47 to confirm Stuart Kyle Duncan to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Only one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, broke with his party to support Mr. Duncan. Other Democrats voiced opposition to Mr. Duncan as an “unfit ideologue” who fought women’s access to reproductive healthcare. They also said his defense of state laws requiring photo-ID to vote,...

Workers at a Burgerville restaurant in Portland, Ore., have voted to create the first formally recognized fast food union in the country. Willamette Week reported Monday that staff at one of the chain’s locations voted 18-4 to unionize, more than two years after workers began the push to be formally recognized as a union. Burgerville announced earlier this month that it would allow the staff to vote to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board-run election. "We started the BVWU to try to make things better for ourselves and our coworkers," Burgerville employee Mark Medina told Willamette Week. "The union...

About half of marijuana users in states where it's legal say they've gone to work while under the influence of the drug ... Instamotor polled 600 self-identified marijuana users in states where recreational marijuana is legal ... Almost half -- 48 percent -- of respondents said they have gone to work high, with 39 percent stating that they go to work under the influence at least once per week. ... 50 percent said they would likely be fired if their boss knew they were high at work.

A petition demanding the Beaverton School District fire "anti-undocumented/immigrant and xenophobe Deputy Superintendent Steve Phillips" gained steam Tuesday, the day after it was reported that Phillips retweeted an anti-undocumented immigrant tweet. The petition, which was created Monday night, had nearly reached its modest goal of 100 signers by Tuesday morning. One of Oregon's largest school districts issued an apology Monday after Phillips, the district's deputy superintendent, retweeted a claim that undocumented immigrants were "more dangerous than assault rifles." The message shared by Phillips called for undocumented immigrants to be banned from the U.S. His boss, Superintendent Dan Grotting, denounced the...

Accountability is sorely lacking in the administrative state. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats make decisions significantly affecting our daily lives with too little involvement from our elected officials. The Congressional Review Act was intended to restore at least some degree of democratic accountability to the administrative process. It requires agencies to submit to Congress every rule they wish to impose on you, giving the people you elected an opportunity to oversee what federal bureaucrats are up to. That’s the theory, at least. In practice, agencies have failed to comply with their obligations under the statute, withholding rules from Congress and thereby avoiding...

PORTLAND, ORE. A federal judge has dismissed a tax evasion charge against a man who describes himself as a Christian who refuses to give money to the government to support abortion. The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Thursday the judge ruled that the government failed to provide evidence that Michael Bowman tried to conceal or mislead government officials. Prosecutors accused Bowman of not filing an accurate tax return since at least 1997. Bowman said he's been up front with the Internal Revenue Service, refusing to file a return or pay taxes since 1999 without some accommodation afforded to him for religious beliefs. The...