Free Republic

Hillary Clinton's Saturday campaign reboot isn't just her first public rally. Coming a day after President Obama suffered an embarrassing legislative defeat, it is a changing of the guard for the Democratic Party. Make no mistake: while House Republicans also voted overwhelmingly against the president on a key trade bill Friday, it was his fellow Democrats who handed him the most stinging rebuke. Just 40 Democrats out of 188 voted with Obama. Nearly 80 percent of House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, went against him. A mere two of the 10 Democrats representing Obama's home state of Illinois in...

A day after the parents of Rachel Dolezal, the President of the Spokane Chapter of the NAACP, said she has been misrepresenting herself as black for years, the NAACP says they are standing by Dolezal. In a statement released Friday, the organization said: "For 106 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has held a long and proud tradition of receiving support from people of all faiths, races, colors and creeds. NAACP Spokane Washington Branch President Rachel Dolezal is enduring a legal issue with her family, and we respect her privacy in this matter. One's racial identity...

Aaron and Melissa Klein, former owners of an Oregon bakery that refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple and as a result was fined over $130,000, declared in an exclusive interview with the Daily Signal that the case against them needs to be removed from the bureaucratic governmental agency that oversees discrimination complaints because of possible new evidence of bias. "I think the case should be pulled out of [the Bureau of Labor and Industries court and put into a civil court because I cannot get due process here," Aaron Klein told The Daily Signal. Last week...

It's a whale of a tale. An Oregon fishing community tried to use a life-size replica of an orca to scare off thousands of sea lions that clogged up the docks, but the effort came to a sudden halt when the whale capsized. Robert Evert, the Permit and Project Manager of the Port of Astoria, tells ABC News that at least 2,000 sea lions hang out on the boat docks and vessels, impacting the local and regional economy. Miami Man and Dog Find Giant Alligator on Front Doorstep “We’re losing probably $50,000 plus a year in revenue based on the...

A fossilized skull and teeth from a newly described species of beaver that lived 28 million years ago have been unearthed in eastern Oregon. The fossils worked their way out of the soil within a mile of the visitor center at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, said the monument's paleontologist, Joshua Samuels. The find is significant, he said, because unlike the other species of ancient beavers found at the monument, this one appears related to the modern beaver, a symbol of Oregon found on the state flag. The others all went extinct. The species is named Microtheriomys brevirhinus....

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - A porta-potty was tipped over. There was a man trapped inside. And police said witnesses did it on purpose because the man was touching himself while holding the door open. It was not your everyday call for assistance at the foot of the Hawthorne Bridge on Thursday morning. An officer was flagged down about a man trapped in a portable toilet near the Eastbank Esplanade at 8 a.m. The Honey Bucket's door was against the ground, so Portland Fire & Rescue personnel responded to lift it back up and free the man who was inside. The...

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said Wednesday on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that the tax revenue from legalized marijuana sales in his state will go in part towards treating drug addiction. When asked how much Oregon will tax legalized marijuana and how the tax revenue will be spent, Blumenauer said it will be allocated among a number of things, one of which will be to deal with addiction. “Voters decided that it’s available to deal with addiction, people who are addicted—whether it’s to a drug or alcohol, gambling—we need more resources,” he said, adding that some voters want it to go towards law...

The Oregon couple who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding says the case against them should be “pulled out” of the state’s administrative court system due to concerns that the government agency responsible for overseeing the trial is biased.The Daily Signal obtained communications between Basic Rights Oregon, a prominent gay rights group, and the Bureau of Labor and Industries, which is the state agency pursuing the case against Aaron and Melissa Klein.Based on that information, the couple’s lawyers suggested potential bias against the Kleins and requested the judge re-open the case for further investigation.Now the Kleins, who...

Allegations of collusion have surfaced in Oregon, where a husband and wife are being punished for their views on natural marriage and homosexuality. The Daily Signal broke the story June 1 that a state government agency that punished Melissa and Aaron Klein is working closely with a homosexual rights group. The Kleins refused a lesbian couple's cake order in 2013, based on their religious beliefs, and the lesbians filed a complaint against Sweet Cakes by Melissa with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. A judge with the Bureau recommended a $135,000 fine in April, and the Kleins are awaiting...

There may be evidence that the government agency in charge of enforcing Oregon anti-discrimination laws colluded against Aaron and Melissa Klein, former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, with the pro-LGBT group Basic Rights Oregon. The Daily Signal, the news arm of The Heritage Foundation, exposed the communications contact between officials at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and Basic Rights Oregon, obtained through a public records request, in their story titled, "Emails Raise Questions of Bias in Case Against Bakers Who Denied Service for Same-Sex Wedding." The communications between the two groups raises questions of the impartiality...

The Daily Signal has exclusively learned that the government agency responsible for enforcing Oregon’s anti-discrimination law appears to be working closely with a powerful gay rights advocacy group in its case against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. Communications between the agency, theOregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and the LGBT organization, Basic Rights Oregon, raise questions about potential bias in the state’s decision to charge the Kleins with discrimination for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. In April, a judge for the agency recommended the Kleins be fined $135,000. Communications obtained through a public...

In the past two days, malfunctions in the network of sensors that detect earthquakes in Northern California have issued three false alarms, forcing the U.S. Geological Survey to make a series of embarrassing retractions.. Just after midnight Friday morning, a magnitude 6.7 quake struck off the coast of Alaska. When its waves reached sensors operated by the Northern California Seismic Network, they were mistakenly interpreted as a 5.1 temblor near the Oregon border in Lewiston, officials say. ... The error occurred again Saturday morning after a magnitude 7.8 quake struck off the coast of Japan and the same Northern California...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

Turon Lamont Walker is accused of shooting three people after someone "eyed" him at the Last Thursday street fair on Thursday, May 28, 2015.Sgt. Don Livingston, a supervisor of the city's gang enforcement team, and his investigators were still busy gathering police reports and examining evidence from last week's shootings when bullets scattered the crowd and wounded three people at the jampacked Last Thursday street fair in Northeast Portland. "We're playing catch-up here," Livingston said in the aftermath of the latest violence. "They're coming in so fast." The shooting Thursday night pushed gang violence response calls to 64 this year...

On April 17, 2004 Dr. Kenneth Stevens, the President of Physicians for Compassionate Care (PCC) and a cancer specialist spoke to the provincial pro-life conference in Hamilton. Physicians for Compassionate Care is an organization which was founded in 1995 in response to the legalization of assisted suicide in the State of Oregon. Dr. Kenneth Stevens understands the issue of physician-assisted suicide both personally and professionally. In 1982 his terminally ill wife was told by her doctor that "Nothing more can be done." The doctor then said: "I can write an "extra-large" prescription." Dr. Stevens wife told him that: "he wants...

Jerry Brown, Democrat governor of drought-stricken California, appeared Sunday on ABC's This Week and defended his executive actions that placed mandatory water restrictions on citizens but not on the agriculture industry. "There are farmers who have senior water rights," Brown told guest-host Martha Raddatz. "Some people have a right to more water than others." Of his own actions, Brown stated: This executive order is done under emergency power and it has the force of law. Very unusual. And it's requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It affects lawns. It...

Oregon became the third state in the United States to ban gay conversion therapy, a practice that has attracted much debate. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed the bill into law earlier this week, though an ex-gay group has protested and called the bill "child abuse." CNN reported on Wednesday that the bill signed by Brown, the first openly bisexual governor in the U.S., will block therapist from offering conversion or reparative therapy on individuals who are younger than 18. Laws against the practice have also been made in California, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. While the American Psychological Association has...

Oregon is about to embark on a first-in-the-nation program that aims to charge car owners not for the fuel they use, but for the miles they drive. The program is meant to help the state raise more revenue to pay for road and bridge projects at a time when money generated from gasoline taxes are declining across the country, in part, because of greater fuel efficiency and the increasing popularity of fuel-efficient, hybrid and electric cars. Starting July 1, up to 5,000 volunteers in Oregon can sign up to drive with devices that collect data on how much they have...

Oregon is about to embark on a first-in-the-nation program that aims to charge car owners not for the fuel they use, but for the miles they drive. The program is meant to help the state raise more revenue to pay for road and bridge projects at a time when money generated from gasoline taxes are declining across the country, in part, because of greater fuel efficiency and the increasing popularity of fuel-efficient, hybrid and electric cars. Starting July 1, up to 5,000 volunteers in Oregon can sign up to drive with devices that collect data on how much they have...

Now that Oregon’s SB 941 has been signed by the Governor, gun rights activists have banded together and are organizing a facebook event page for a rally entitled “SB 941 I Will Not Comply Demonstration“. The rally is set for May 30th, at the Capitol building in Salem, and will feature a host of speakers. SB 941 is the “universal background check” bill, meaning that if you want to trade guns with your next door neighbor whom you’ve known for 10 years, you must both submit yourselves to background checks and get permission from the state police before the exchange...