Free Republic

. . . . . Is it any wonder Kitzhaber now finds himself stranded in an ethical swamp? To understand the full extent of his predicament, consider his inability to answer one simple question during his press conference Friday: Is Hayes a member of your household? He answered this question in the affirmative on multiple occasions in ethics filings. But on Friday, following the discovery of apparently unreported fellowship income, he said, "I have no idea whether she is 'legally' a member of my household."

Christian owners of a bakery in Gresham, Oregon, who were forced to close their business in 2013 due to backlash over their refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding based on religious objections, were found guilty of discrimination Monday and now have to pay the couple up to $150,000 in fines. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries announced that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, will have to pay the sapphic couple. Whether or not they pay the maximum $150,000 fine will be determined at a hearing on March 10 BOLI...

Christian Bakers Face Government Wrath For Refusing To Make Cake For Gay Wedding By Todd Starnes February 03, 2015 Aaron and Melissa Klein refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, and now they must pay for their crime. An Oregon administrative law judge ruled on Jan. 29 that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa did, in fact, discriminate in 2013 when they declined to provide a wedding cake for a lesbian couple because it would have violated their Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage. The judge’s ruling paves the way for a March 10 hearing at which...

GRESHAM, Ore. – A Gresham bakery discriminated against a same-sex couple who wanted to purchase a wedding cake, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries announced Monday. The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery will have to pay the couple up to $150,000, BOLI spokesman Charlie Burr said. The exact amount will be determined at a hearing on March 10.

As Oregon’s senate prepares to convene February 2 for a “five-month legislative session,” returning senators who tried but failed at gun control in previous years hope having more Democrats in 2015 means gun control will finally succeed. According to the Associated Press, “proposed gun control measures have hit a roadblock in the senate during the past four years.” But this year, “with more Democrats in there…[things] could be different.”

At least 15,000 gun owners will get cheap shots at the upcoming Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show, opening Wednesday at the Portland Expo Center. That’s how many permits will be issued on a first-come basis to show attendees – exhibitors included – allowing them to buy inexpensive short “bricks” of .22 caliber long rifle ammunition. 22 rimfire ammo, the most popular recreational shooting caliber, has been in short supply for years. So short, in fact, it flies from the shelves of most sporting goods stores as fast as it is stocked, and usually for high prices. Few major sources in the...

For four years, hidden cameras recorded Madison Reed's most private moments, beginning when she was just 13 years old. The cameras, placed by a neighbor in the teenager's bedroom and in a beach house, are now gone, but the painful memories remain. "It's disgusting," Madison said. "I don't like to think about it, but I think about it all the time. Like all day." According to law enforcement investigators, Bradley McCollum, a family friend, set up a camera at his Clatsop County beach house in 2010 to secretly record Reed as she visited with McCollum's family. In 2014, he added...

MBank, an Oregon bank that last week said it would allow Colorado marijuana businesses to open accounts, now says it won't. The Denver Post reports the bank is saying it doesn't have the infrastructure to handle the volume of customers in the pot industry. But the newspaper cites unnamed sources as saying federal banking regulators told MBank the move was too risky. Because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, companies in the industry haven't been able to find a bank to handle their business. MBank doesn't have a Colorado location. Instead, MBank intended to have marijuana businesses deposit their cash...

The Register-Guard reports Daniel Rowlett is seeking $13 million. He says Walmart sold him a plastic can produced by Blitz USA that exploded as he poured fuel into a burn barrel in October 2013. He suffered burns over nearly half his body.

FULL TITLE: Elizabeth Hovde: Reaction to anti-abortion rally highlights Portland's intolerance for opposing views People in the Portland area tend to say minorities should be heard and valued. There's a lot of bragging about this tolerant, nonconformist land. And "Keep Portland Weird" has become an informal mantra of the city's residents, with a bumper sticker always married to a car, wall or backpack nearby. (Never mind that the saying was imported from an Austin, Texas, buy-local campaign started by the Austin Independent Business Alliance. Details, details.) But pride in feeling superior, another Portland tendency, trumps that whole valuing-minority-opinions thing, I...

Washington (CNN)Senators worked till midnight on Thursday moving through a series of amendments to a bill that would green-light construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, but Senate Democrats wanted to stay longer. At least, they were frustrated with what they said was a double standard from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who moved to end debate on the bill and set up a final vote next week after tabling a number of Democratic amendments. The Senate had already voted on 15 amendments, 10 of which were offered by Democrats and another five from Republicans. But Democrats cried foul at...

Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday. Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be. If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “You don't want to be the first person to do something like this,” he said. He said that he tells other governors to “wait...

Doctors’ house calls are considered a thing of the past, but not in the appointment book of Dr. Carrol Frazier Landrum, an 88-year-old physician from Edwards, Mississippi. The good doctor will see you no matter who you are, where you are, or how much money you have — as long his 2007 Toyota Camry can deliver him to your location. But now his state’s medical board wants to see him gone. Dr. Landrum, a WWII veteran, was forced to make a change after crime drove him from his Edwards, Mississippi, office two years ago, and he couldn’t find another space...

Former U.S. postal worker who says he got ‘lazy’ sentenced It’s long been said that mail carriers deliver through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. Maybe that’s because if they fail to do the job right, they could end up charged with a federal crime. A now-former U.S. Postal Service worker from ­Eugene learned that the hard way after police recovered nearly 1,000 pieces of undelivered mail from two bins on his front porch in July. The bins contained primarily merchant advertisements (or “junk” mail), but included 27 voter ballots from May’s primary election and more than 200 items...

About 1,000 opponents of abortion rallied under damp skies in downtown Portland Sunday and heard from a keynote speaker whose appearance reflected the city's hipster vibe. Bryan Kemper, who once lived in Portland, sported elaborate arm tattoos, ear piercings and a faded T-shirt as he addressed the crowd marking the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision establishing abortion rights. While he was soft-spoken in conversation, there was nothing laid back about Kemper's rhetoric at the Pioneer Courthouse Square rally organized by Oregon Right to Life. He criticized Christian churches that don't do enough to fight abortion...

Between 2011 and 2014, 46,655 permits to carry concealed firearms in the counties surrounding Portland were issued, according to data obtained by GoLocalPDX. In Washington, Clackamas, and Multnomah Counties, there are a combined 64,308 active Concealed Handgun Licenses (CHL), according to the most recent available data. n Multnomah County alone, the number of active permits grew from 16,090 in 2011 to 22,875 in 2014. The number of permits grew more slowly in Washington County, from 14,339 in 2011 to 19,965 in 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, 23,347 CHL’s were issued in Clackamas County.

Sometimes the picture says it all. For Kaleb Whitby, the picture says a little too much. He'd rather not think about it — the semi-trucks flattening his Chevy Silverado like a panini press. Amid the tangled steel after the predawn crash near Baker City sat Whitby: intact, trapped and full of questions. "Thank God that I'm still alive," Whitby said. "Now I've got to go figure out why."

A 19-year-old is accused of threatening workers repeatedly at a Northeast Portland deli when he wasn't able to buy a single cigarette, saying he would blow up the store "in the name of Allah," court records say. Abdalah Mohamed also is accused of making disparaging remarks about Jews and Israel in July, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Mohamed was arraigned Monday afternoon on two counts of second-degree intimidation. He entered not guilty pleas to each count. He was booked into the downtown Portland jail on the warrant Friday. Court records indicate he's lived in Northeast Portland for about six...

Just as an illustration of where too many among the intelligentsia and technocratic classes are concerning euthanasia: I would like to briefly review a book review by former New England Journal of Medicine executive editor–and assisted suicide booster–Marcia Angell.Angell reviews Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande. I have read the book and written a review, not yet published, so I can’t expound on that here. But I would like to focus on Angell’s increasing zeal for legalizing assisted suicide–and now, in this review, euthanasia.Angell spends about a quarter of her long review discussing just...

Washington, DC – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today issued a Secretarial Order calling for a comprehensive science-based strategy to address the more frequent and intense wildfires that are damaging vital sagebrush landscapes and productive rangelands, particularly in the Great Basin region of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. The strategy will begin to be implemented during the 2015 fire season. Goals include reducing the size, severity and cost of rangeland fires, addressing the spread of cheatgrass and other invasive species, and positioning wildland fire management resources for more effective rangeland fire response. “Targeted action is urgently needed to...