Free Republic

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge. Over 100 straight days of racial justice protests that turned downtown Portland into a battleground. A violent breach of the state Capitol. Clashes between gun-toting right-wingers and leftist militants. The state Legislature is considering a bill that, experts say, would create the nation’s most comprehensive law against paramilitary activity. It would provide citizens and the state attorney general with civil remedies in court if armed members of a private paramilitary group interfere with, or intimidate, another person who is engaging in an activity they have a legal right...

Oregon is typically known as a bastion of West Coast liberalism, where Democrats are easily elected and a Republican hasn’t served as governor since the early 1980s. But with an unusually competitive three-way contest for governor, the Democratic candidate’s success is hardly a guarantee this year. As mail-in ballots become available to voters next week, Oregon is becoming the unlikely site of one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country. The main reason for the race’s unpredictability is Betsy Johnson, a longtime former Democratic lawmaker with a fondness for salty language who is aiming to become the first...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — County clerks in Oregon are inundated with public records requests stemming from “the big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, even while they’re already busy preparing for the November election, the secretary of state said Monday. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has been visiting Oregon’s 36 counties to speak with county clerks and other elections officials, and said she’s seen the strain imposed by the avalanche of requests, from populous counties around Portland to Lake County, in southern Oregon near the California border, with only 5,590 registered voters. “In recent weeks, we’ve seen an influx...

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The death toll from COVID-19 in Oregon is climbing so rapidly in some counties that the state has organized delivery of one refrigerated truck to hold the bodies and is sending a second one, the state emergency management department said Saturday.So far, Tillamook County, on Oregon’s northwest coast, and Josephine County, in the southwest, requested the trucks, said Bobbi Doan, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.