Tag Archives: Oregon

The Consequences Have Arrived

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On Tuesday, The Conservative Review posted an article detailing what has happened in Oregon as a result of decriminalizing the possession of hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine in 2020.

The article reports:

Oregon became the first state in the union to decriminalize possession of hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine in 2020. This radical experiment in lawlessness has been an unmitigated disaster.

While initially deaf to the concerns raised by Republicans, recovery specialists, and Christian groups concerning Ballot Measure 110, state Democrats are now poised to re-criminalize drug possession and bring their four-year experiment to an end. After all, the majority of Oregonians want the measure repealed.

…The so-called “Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act” eliminated criminal penalties for possession of various quantities of hard drugs. As a result, junkies can now carry one gram of heroin; 2 grams of cocaine; 2 grams of meth; less than 40 user units of methadone; 1 gram or 5 pills of MDMA; less than 40 user units of LSD; and fewer than 40 pills of oxycodone.

Possession of such quantities amounts to a non-criminal Class E violation, which at most can result in a $100 fine or a recommendation for a health assessment with an addiction treatment professional.

Those caught with even more of these once-controlled substances have also seen penalties softened, such that they now face a misdemeanor charge with less than a year in jail, a fine, or both.

Extra to decriminalizing hard drugs, the measure mandated the establishment or funding of recovery centers throughout the state funded by taxes on marijuana.

The article lists the results of the law:

According to Oregon Health Authority data, fatal overdoses have skyrocketed in recent years. In 2020, there were 824 fatal overdoses. The year M110 went into effect, there were 1,189 fatal overdoses. Preliminary data indicates the number of deaths from overdoses in 2022 was north of 1,100.

Fentanyl is proving especially lethal. OregonLive.com noted that in the year ending September 2019, there were 77 known fentanyl deaths. In the year ending September 2023, there were reportedly 1,268 overdose deaths.

There appears to be a correlation between fatal overdoses and M110.

Please follow the link for further details and possible solutions. This really should not be a Republican/Democrat or Liberal/Conservative issue. I believe all of us want to protect our children and young adults from the dangers of hard drugs. Hopefully Oregon will pass a law that moves the state in that direction.

Stating The Obvious

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Posting this article is going to get me in trouble with some of my friends who believe that recreational drug use is no big deal, but it’s time to look at the bigger picture.

On Sunday, The Western Journal reported:

Not only did last week see the election of a libertarian fan of former President Donald Trump to the presidency of Argentina, another new South American leader much closer to the border just overturned a policy in his own country that U.S. leftists have been pushing for years.

Maybe progressives can learn something from the neighbors to the south.

On Friday, according to Agence France-Presse, Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa dumped a policy of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs, declaring that it  “encourages micro-trafficking in schools and creates a whole generation of addicted children.”

It applies to “up to 10 grams of marijuana, 2 grams of cocaine paste, 1 gram of cocaine, 0.10 grams of heroin, and 0.04 grams of amphetamine” for personal use, according to the Washington Examiner.

The policy was instituted a decade ago by the country’s then-president, socialist Rafael Correa, according to AFP.

The article notes what happened when Oregon decriminalized drugs:

The idea was, ostensibly, to”transform addiction by minimizing penalties for drug use and investing instead in recovery,” the Post reported.

But in a result that should have surprised literally no one with any sense, things haven’t worked out quite that way. Drug use has grown, gotten worse, and gotten more deadly.

As the Post (The Washington Post) reported, “even top Democratic lawmakers who backed the law, which will likely dominate the upcoming legislative session, say they’re now open to revisiting it after the biggest increase in synthetic opioid deaths among states that have reported their numbers.”

Even the leftist publication The Atlantic has been compelled to report the results of Oregon’s experiment as a failure.

A population that has clear mental facilities will always result in a better society.

But It Looked Really Good On Paper

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about Measure 110, passed in Oregon in 2020. The law decriminalized the possession and use of small quantities of virtually all hard drugs, including heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. The idea of the law was to change the focus from jailtime to rehabilitation.

The article reports:

The results of this move have been spectacular, provided you were hoping for it to be spectacularly bad. Particularly in cities like Portland, citizens are unable to walk the streets without tripping over addicts who are shooting up or passed out on the sidewalk. This reality has an increasing number of people rethinking the policy and talk of repealing Measure 110 is growing. (Associated Press)

…Decriminalization has now been attempted in multiple American cities and it has failed every single time. There isn’t one place you can point to where decriminalization has resulted in fewer overdose deaths and more people recovering in treatment programs. The opposite is what has happened.

Republicans in Oregon are reportedly pushing the Governor to call a special session to repeal the measure and criminalize both possession and public drug use. They are also asking for rehabilitation treatment to be mandatory instead of voluntary as it is now. The second part of that proposal is probably doomed to failure, however. It’s almost impossible to force someone into an addiction treatment program if they aren’t ready to seek help for themselves. If you do that, they’ll probably just be biding their time until they are released and can go search for their next fix.

Every parent knows that it is easier to ignore your child’s bad behavior than to deal with it. However, at some point you have to deal with it and the sooner you deal with it, the easier it will be. Somehow our ‘public servants’ have never grasped this concept.

The article concludes:

This was always predictable, or at least it should have been. When you remove the disincentive for a particular behavior and make it easier to engage in that behavior, you’re going to wind up with more of it. Given the addictive nature of the drugs in question, once the line has been crossed it’s very difficult to walk it back. The rise in homelessness was also a predictable result. If people with jobs become addicted to opioids, their performance at work will begin to go downhill. When they eventually lose their jobs, they have little else to occupy their time beyond looking to score drugs. Unable to pay the rent, they eventually wind up out in the street. This really shouldn’t be confusing to any of these politicians. The only question now is whether they can find the intestinal fortitude to admit their error and try to put the state back on an even keel.

Let’s learn from out mistakes!

 

 

The Pitfalls Of Legal Marijuana

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Recently, Our Patriot posted an article about some of the consequences California has faced as a result of legalizing marijuana. Unfortunately there is a lot of money being spent on legislators in a number of states to encourage them to legalize marijuana.

The article reports:

After a 2016 referendum, marijuana usage for recreational purposes was made legal in California. Legalization advocates said transitioning to a regulated, taxed market would be preferable to the chaotic, criminal trade that existed before. 

They assured us the legitimate marijuana industry would eventually drive out the black market. The current trend is in the other direction. 

In summary, the results of federal inaction and reduced state sanctions for marijuana infractions are unfavorable.

Instead of reducing crime, establishing a regulated marijuana sector has pushed criminality out into the state’s rural areas and sunk local politics to a new low in every corner of the Golden State. 

To obtain growing permits and legislative support for the industry’s expansion, local politicians now receive and demand enormous bribes. The Los Angeles Times cites an unnamed source who said bribe demands usually are in the low six figures. 

A degree of participation from federal law enforcement has been present in sting operations and the prosecution of corrupt officials. A number of stones must be missed for everyone that is turned over. 

The article concludes:

Officers in numerous departments confront or fear reprisal from drug traffickers and illegal marijuana farmers if they act on or even speak out against these groups. 

When authorities do undertake raids, the kingpins behind illegal grows are only somewhat inconvenienced, at best. Typically, only low-level personnel are targeted; cultivation can be back to work in a matter of days. 

The biggest irony is a record harvest and falling cannabis prices are threatening the legal trade, which has become so large, it is beyond the grasp of law enforcement. 

The Los Angeles Times puts it this way: the reduction in criminal punishments for significant marijuana infractions “lowered the cost of business” for black market farmers. 

The effects of the marijuana legalization trend in California need to be made known to the public.

Do not forget the suffering of a state already having problems under the hardships of energy shortages, rampant crime, and an escaping population trying to seek a better life elsewhere.

Other states have experienced similar problems with the legalization of marijuana. One county in Oregon has seen a dramatic increase in crime (article here).

In January 2021, CBS New in Colorado reported the following:

While alcohol is still the drug of choice, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation says 47% of drivers are testing positive for marijuana, followed by amphetamines and cocaine. The Colorado State Patrol says DUI arrests involving marijuana are up 48% in the last year.

Legalizing a mind-altering drug does not solve anything.

The Open Border Threatens Our Children

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The amount of fentanyl coming across our porous southern border is enough to kill millions of Americans. Now there is a new variant of fentanyl that could easily be used to kill our children.

NewsMax reported on Wednesday:

Sheriff’s deputies in Multnomah County, Oregon, recently executed a search warrant at an apartment in Northeast Portland and seized four grams of the “dangerous and more potent” multi-colored “rainbow” fentanyl powder, which could especially threaten children, the office said in a press release.

In addition to the powder, which deputies are concerned children could believe is candy or a toy, officers also recovered 800 pills of fentanyl, heroin, meth, body armor, guns, and $5,000 in cash, police said.

“We are partnering with Multnomah County health departments to sound the alarm,” Multnomah County Special Investigative Unit Sgt. Matt Ferguson said in a news release. “The public needs to be aware of the rising use of powdered fentanyl. We believe this is going to be the new trend seen on the streets of Portland.”

The article concludes:

The CDC reports that as many as 150 die from a fentanyl overdose in the country each day, and it is almost impossible to tell if other drugs are laced with it unless you have a test strip to see if it is present.

The powdered “rainbow” variety was also found by Monterey, California, police in July, and is believed to be coming up from Mexico.

In a post on social media, that police department advised parents to talk to their children about the potential dangers that even a small dose could mean.

“Sadly, we are now seeing Fentanyl in rainbow/candy coloring,” the post from July 9 said. “We encourage parents to speak with their children about the dangers of this deadly drug. Just one use can be fatal.”

An open southern border is a threat to every American.

School Mask Mandates Are Ending In Four States

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On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that governors in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon will be ending statewide mask requirements in schools by the end of February or March. The mask mandates are ending because the number of Omicron cases has drastically declined.

The article reports:

The changes also come amid a growing sense that the virus is never going to go away and Americans need to find a way to coexist with it. And it was noted by some observers that blue-state leaders were moving to act in favor of relaxing COVID restrictions ahead of a midterm election cycle in which several polls suggest Dems may incur heavy losses, perhaps losing control of one or both chambers of Congress. One reason Republicans are gaining traction: concern over overly restrictive and protracted pandemic mandates.

So is this politics or science?

The article notes:

In a statement, the union (New Jersey Education Association, the state’s biggest teachers union) noted that trends show COVID-19 heading in the right direction, and added: “It is appropriate for Gov. Murphy to allow local districts to continue to require masking in communities where that is prudent based on local conditions.”

Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases per day have plunged by more than a half-million since mid-January, when they hit a record-shattering peak of more than 800,000. Cases have been declining in 47 states over the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Also, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 28% since mid-January to about 111,000.

Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter, reflecting a lag between when victims become infected and when they die.

The article notes that the end of the mandates does not necessarily mean the end of masking:

In New Jersey, it is unclear how many and how soon the state’s 600-plus school districts might end the wearing of masks.

In Paterson, the state’s third-biggest city, the school system will take time to consult with administration officials, principals, parents and staff, said district spokesperson Paul Brubaker.

Melissa Alfieri-Collins, a mother of two who disagrees with mask mandates in schools, saying she prefers “choice,” called the governor’s decision good news. But she raised concern that districts might keep mask rules in place.

“For this reason, parents need an opt-out option for when and if districts do this,” she said.

Connecticut will also allow school districts to retain the mandate. It’s unclear if Delaware will follow suit, but the governor said he wanted to give school districts time to consider a local mandate.

I suspect we will see other states suspend their mask mandates as we get closer to the  mid-term election.

When You Want To Change The Political Climate But You Don’t Want To Move

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On Wednesday The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent vote in several counties in Oregon.

The article reports:

Several counties in Oregon on May 18 voted to consider joining the state of Idaho, which is part of a long-shot movement to break away from the state that has long been dominated by politicians in Portland.

Voters in Malheur, Sherman, Grant, Baker, and Lake counties approved various measures that require county officials to take steps to look into moving the Idaho border west to incorporate the counties.

The grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho is aiming to have the eastern counties—which are mostly rural—join Idaho because they believe they would be better off with Idaho’s more conservative political leadership.

“This election proves that rural Oregon wants out of Oregon,” lead petitioner Mike McCarter said in a statement to local media outlets on May 18. “If Oregon really believes in liberal values such as self-determination, the Legislature won’t hold our counties captive against our will. If we’re allowed to vote for which government officials we want, we should be allowed to vote for which government we want as well.”

McCarter told the Oregonian last year that the bid to join Idaho is more of a “lifestyle/values judgment” that separates rural and urban residents.

The timing of this is very interesting. On Wednesday, Townhall posted an article about some of the items contained in President Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Townhall reports:

If you saved your money and bought a house in the suburbs, your investment and lifestyle are under attack. President Joe Biden is pushing to end single-family zoning. The biggest item in Biden’s infrastructure bill, now being negotiated with Congress, is $213 billion he claims will to increase affordable housing. Biden wants to put the federal government in charge of zoning and distribute apartment buildings throughout single-family home neighborhoods.

That $213 billion is nearly twice the spending on roads and bridges. It will change towns everywhere and torpedo the American dream of a house with a patch of lawn.

Biden’s plan should be called “hypocrisy housing.” Its backers are hypocrites. Biden himself owns a four-acre lakefront home in upscale Greenville, Delaware, where there is absolutely no public housing, affordable housing or rentals that accept housing vouchers. And don’t expect any to be built next door to the Bidens.

Democrats realize that people who live in the suburbs do not vote for them, so they are planning to dilute the suburban vote by moving people from the city, with the mindset of city residents, there. This would dramatically change America.

The article at The Epoch Times concludes:

Throughout the history of the United States, changing state lines has been a rare occurrence—all taking place before the 20th century. In 1792, Kentucky was created from Virginia’s territory, Maine was created from Massachusetts in 1820, and West Virginia in 1863 was admitted into the United States when Union states and counties separated themselves from the Confederate ones during the Civil War.

Voters in Oregon’s Harney and Douglas counties will hold a vote on similar measures in upcoming elections.

McCarter told media outlets that Idaho state Reps. Barbara Ehardt and Judy Boyle, both Republicans, are planning to introduce a bill about a possible relocation of the Idaho–Oregon border in January 2022.

I wonder if we will see more of this in the future.

 

I Thought We Got Rid Of Discrimination

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Just the News is reporting today that Oregon Legislature Emergency Board has declared that $62 million of a $200 million government fund to help small businesses hit by COVID-19 could only go to black-owned businesses or black families.

The article reports:

Maria Garcia, owner of the Revolucion Coffee House in Portland, applied for some of that $62 million allotment, called the Oregon Cares Fund, but was denied because she doesn’t “identify as Black.” Under the program, black families are reportedly eligible for up to $3,000 and black-owned businesses for up to $100,000 in government funds.

She was reportedly denied relief because her business “does not meet the criteria because 0% of its owners identify as Black,” prompting Garcia to sue in federal court, arguing the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause has been violated.

James Huffman, professor and dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School, told Just the News he has communicated with Garcia’s attorney about the case, and Huffman wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed supporting Garcia titled “Oregon’s Segregated Covid Relief Fund Is Blatantly Unconstitutional.”

…“It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution that requires that people who are similarly situated be treated similarly,” Huffman said. “And she is clearly similarly-situated to a black-owned restaurant. She has her own coffee house, and she’s been denied denied funds explicitly because she does not qualify as black.”

Huffman said while Oregon has a compelling interest to end any state discrimination against black Americans, he said the Oregon Cares Fund has not proven that all blacks and black businesses have been discriminated against by the state, especially relative to businesses owned by people of other races.

We can never undo the damage done by racism and discrimination, but penalizing white business owners for things they had no part in does not help anyone. We need to go back to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., and make judgements on merit–not skin color. Discrimination against any race is wrong. Simply changing the race you discriminate against does not solve anything.

 

This Is Not Going To End Well

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CBS News is reporting today that Oregon is the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

The article reports:

The Oregon drug initiative will allow people arrested with small amounts of hard drugs to avoid going to trial, and possible jail time, by paying a $100 fine and attending an addiction recovery program. The treatment centers will be funded by revenues from legalized marijuana, which was approved in Oregon several years ago.

“Today’s victory is a landmark declaration that the time has come to stop criminalizing people for drug use,” said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which backed the measure.

…Voters in New Jersey and Arizona approved measures legalizing marijuana for adults age 21 and older. In New Jersey, the Legislature now will have to pass another measure setting up the new marijuana marketplace. The Arizona measure also allows people convicted of certain marijuana crimes to seek expungement of their records. The passage of the measure signaled a change of attitudes, after Arizona voters narrowly defeated a legal pot proposal in 2016.

South Dakota on Tuesday became the first state where voters authorized both recreational marijuana and medical marijuana via two separate initiatives in the same election. The legalization of recreational marijuana was approved by voters in Montana, and medical marijuana won approval in Mississippi.

I am not in favor of the legalization of marijuana. There are no guarantees that legal marijuana will be limited to those over 21–how many people under the age of 21 smoke cigarettes illegally? I am not convinced we understand the effect of marijuana on the brain of people under the age of 25. Legalizing marijuana does not improve our society–it simply reduces the productive impact of one sector of that society. Marijuana and other drugs have never been a positive force in any society.

Is Voter Fraud Real?

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One of the objections to voting by mail is the possibility of increased voter fraud. There are some politicians and media people that claim that voter fraud does not exist and that voting by mail would not be a problem. I would like to share a few articles that call that idea into question.

The first article was posted today at The Gateway Pundit.

The article reports:

In a Gateway Pundit exclusive a non-citizen in Oregon recently came forward and explained how the Oregon government automatically registered her to vote.

“I just want to highlight to American citizens this does happen. I don’t know why there’s this blind belief that it cannot happen. It does happen, it happened to me,” says a woman who has come forward to tell the story about how she, as a non citizen, ended up getting registered to vote without even knowing it, and had ballots sent to her.

Ever since the advent of vote-by-mail, elections integrity activists have pointed out all the different ways that such a system could be compromised.

While rumors have circulated for years that illegal aliens and non citizens were voting, most of the evidence pointing to such has been circumstantial, with few traces of actual hard evidence.

…Ballots started arriving in her mailbox in 2016, and continued through 2018, for a total of five elections. She says she likely would have received a sixth ballot had she not taken the steps to cancel her voter registration.

Thank God for her honesty.

The next article comes from WHSV Channel 3 in West Virginia.

The article reports:

West Virginia’s secretary of state says they’re investigating an absentee ballot fraud scheme in the state that was connected to the state’s mass effort for absentee voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the start of April, West Virginia county clerk’s offices began an effort to mail absentee ballots to every registered voter in the state.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner announced the plan at the end of March.

Essentially, every voter registered in the state was sent ab absentee ballot application to their registered address.

State leaders encouraged all voters to fill out the applications and submit them to their county clerk in order to receive an absentee ballot for the election, and then mark the ballot according to state instructions by election day. And voters responded, with about 18% of West Virginia’s registered voters requesting absentee ballots for the June 9 primary election.

Now, on May 21, Secretary of State Mac Warner announced that his office had investigated a ballot fraud scheme and referred their findings to the United States Attorney for prosecution.

According to Warner, allegations of the scheme were referred to and investigated by the WV Election Fraud Task Force, which is a multi-agency law enforcement effort that was formed in April as a way to deter potential voter and election fraud with upcoming elections. Investigators responded to a complaint quickly, and Warner said the absentee ballot fraud scheme was uncovered early and will have no impact on the outcomes of any elections.

However, West Virginia law prevents Warner from disclosing any facts or details of the investigation.

The third article was posted at Front Page Magazine on Friday.

The article reports:

A former Judge of Elections has been convicted for his role in accepting bribes to cast fraudulent ballots and certifying false voting results during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections in Philadelphia. 

“Demuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear. This is utterly reprehensible conduct. The charges announced today do not erase what he did, but they do ensure that he is held to account for those actions,” said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

…Domenick J. Demuro pled guilty in March to the charges in a filing that was unsealed Thursday, the DOJ said. He admitted to being directed by an unnamed political consultant to inflate votes for “clients and preferred candidates” in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primaries in exchange for “money and other things of value.” While he only cast 27 fraudulent ballots in the 2014 election, 40 votes in May 2015, and 46 in 2016, election results showed that the numbers accounted for over 22 percent of the total votes cast from Demuro’s voting location in 2014, over 15 percent in 2015, and over 17 percent in 2016.

You get the picture. Voter fraud does exist. If voting by mail is put in place, we will have voter fraud on steroids. If you value the republic and honest elections, you will not support voting by mail.

Just In Case You Are Currently Feeling Safe And Comfortable…

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Today’s New York Post posted an article with the following headline,”The next mega disasters that could happen at any moment (and kill us all).” Comforting, isn’t it?

Just in case you are still sitting comfortably in your chair, here are a few of the ‘pending disasters’ listed:

Yellowstone National Park quietly sits on top of a supervolcano that is 44 miles wide. Even scarier, it’s still active and could blow at any time. Its last big eruption was 630,000 years ago, but as “End Times” author Bryan Walsh wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times, an eruption of this supervolcano “would be like nothing humanity has ever seen“ and be an “ultra-catastrophe” that “could lead to global devastation, even human extinction. …

…The land of volcanos, Indonesia is no stranger to eruption — with Mount Merapi last exploding in 2018. But there’s a bigger threat to the countries of Southeast Asia: The Lake Toba Supervolcano — the “forgotten volcano.” Lake Toba is a volcanic lake that sits on top of a huge caldera (a volcanic crater) — which is still considered to be in a stage of “resurgence.” An eruption 75,000 years ago caused a “bottleneck” effect in human development — in which the world’s population dramatically shrank — according to scientists.

…On the south slope of Hawaii’s Big Island lies the infamous Hilina Slump — where every now and then there is a landslide that creates horrid tsunamis. According to The Independent, “there is evidence that a similar collapse at nearby Mauna Loa around 120,000 years ago generated a tsunami with a run-up height of over 400 meters. Even as recently as 1975, movement of the Hilina Slump generated a smaller, yet destructive tsunami that reached California.”

…The San Andreas Fault has caused havoc and devastation in the past — and it’s predicted to do so again. The United States Geological Survey has increased the probability of the likelihood of a magnitude 8.0 or larger earthquake hitting California within the next few decades — and let’s not forget the volatile Cascadia Subduction Zone that covers most of Oregon and Washington state.

…Another West Coast earthquake disaster waiting to happen is in Chile, on the west coast of South America. According to volcanologist website Temblor, “it is clear to many of us that the Coquimbo region [in central Chile] has an unusual, increasing seismicity that may be preparing the area for a very large earthquake near the end of the present century.”

You get the picture. Follow the link to the article to read the rest of the impending disasters awaiting mankind. Just for the record, it would do us all well to remember that we are here by the grace of God and will continue to be here because of that grace. It’s not as if we have any real control over any of these ‘pending’ events. However, give Congress time–they will find a way to convince us that higher taxes and higher government spending will prevent any natural catastrophe!

When People Claiming To Be Anti-Fascists Act Like Fascists

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Andy Ngo was beaten up at an Antifa protest in Portland, Oregon. The Washington Times reported the following:

Mr. Ngo, a right-leaning journalist who regularly films Portland’s protest activity, has written for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, RealClearPolitics and other publications.

Before the protest, Rose City Antifa had singled out Mr. Ngo in an online post promoting the “Community Self Defense Against Proud Boy Attack,” calling him a “[l]ocal far-right Islamophobic journalist.”

Video posts of Saturday’s clash showed a few dozen right-wing activists holding a rally while hundreds of counter-protesters marched in the street amid a heavy police presence.

Portland police, who urged protesters to clear the streets and stay on the sidewalks, tweeted that officers had been hit with eggs and milkshakes.

Police later declared the event a “civil disturbance and unlawful assembly,” warning that those who failed to disperse would be subject to arrest.

The Oregonian reported the following:

Police were lined up along the perimeter of the park before the attack, but no one intervened to break up the fight. Late Saturday, police reported that three people had been arrested, including one for assault, but it was unclear if that person had anything to do with the attack on Ngo.

Within hours, the footage of Ngo’s beating had spread far and wide on the internet, racking up more than a million views on Twitter alone. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas weighed in, calling for a federal investigation into the actions of both the mayor and the police.

…Assistant Police Chief Chris Davis said in a statement Saturday that the protests were difficult to handle due to their size and geographically-disparate nature, but did not comment on any of the violent incidents specifically.

“Demonstration events are very fluid in nature and the management of these events is complex,” Davis said. “There are hundreds of peaceful free speech events in the City in a given year that do not result in violence. Unfortunately, today some community members and officers were injured. We are actively investigating these incidents to hold those responsible accountable.”

I call shenanigans.

This is not the first time we have seen this. Police in other cities have been told to stand down as riots ensued. It seems that there are Americans who believe it is their right to destroy things and harm people they disagree with. Those Americans need to be in jail. The municipal authorities who are looking the other way when this sort of behavior occurs need to be voted out of office.

An Interesting Perspective On Homelessness

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Christopher F. Rufo posted an article in The City Journal about the homelessness that has become so prevalent on the west coast of America. The title of the article is, “An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis.” Please follow the link above to read the entire article; it is very insightful.

The article states:

By latest count, some 109,089 men and women are sleeping on the streets of major cities in California, Oregon, and Washington. The homelessness crisis in these cities has generated headlines and speculation about “root causes.” Progressive political activists allege that tech companies have inflated housing costs and forced middle-class people onto the streets. Declaring that “no two people living on Skid Row . . . ended up there for the same reasons,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, for his part, blames a housing shortage, stagnant wages, cuts to mental health services, domestic and sexual abuse, shortcomings in criminal justice, and a lack of resources for veterans. These factors may all have played a role, but the most pervasive cause of West Coast homelessness is clear: heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids.

Homelessness is an addiction crisis disguised as a housing crisis. In Seattle, prosecutors and law enforcement recently estimated that the majority of the region’s homeless population is hooked on opioids, including heroin and fentanyl. If this figure holds constant throughout the West Coast, then at least 11,000 homeless opioid addicts live in Washington, 7,000 live in Oregon, and 65,000 live in California (concentrated mostly in San Francisco and Los Angeles). For the unsheltered population inhabiting tents, cars, and RVs, the opioid-addiction percentages are even higher—the City of Seattle’s homeless-outreach team estimates that 80 percent of the unsheltered population has a substance-abuse disorder. Officers must clean up used needles in almost all the homeless encampments.

The article reminds us that drug-dealing is a lucrative industry for the cartels:

For drug cartels and low-level street dealers, the business of supplying homeless addicts with heroin, fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids is extremely lucrative. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the average heavy-opioid user consumes $1,834 in drugs per month. Holding rates constant, we can project that the total business of supplying heroin and other opioids to the West Coast’s homeless population is more than $1.8 billion per year. In effect, Mexican cartels, Chinese fentanyl suppliers, and local criminal networks profit off the misery of the homeless and offload the consequences onto local governments struggling to get people off the streets.

The article concludes:

No matter how much local governments pour into affordable-housing projects, homeless opioid addicts—nearly all unemployed—will never be able to afford the rent in expensive West Coast cities. The first step in solving these intractable issues is to address the real problem: addiction is the common denominator for most of the homeless and must be confronted honestly if we have any hope of solving it.

Part of the problem here is that some cities and states are moving toward legalizing recreational drug use. Obviously not all of that drug use will lead to further problems, but a percentage of it will–adding to the homeless problem. The other problem is that treating a drug addict will not be successful unless the addict desires to be free of drugs. You can lock up an addict until he is clean, but there are no guarantees that he will stay clean once he is out on the street again.

 

Child Abuse In Our Schools

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about a lawsuit filed by some parents against an Oregon school district. The case began with an 8-year-old boy with a stomach issue and ends with that child being encouraged to be a girl.

The article reports:

Parents in Woodburn said their 8-year-old son was held back from recess multiple times for one-on-one conversations about his gender identity – and they had no idea.

The mother and father in Woodburn are now suing a school district for nearly a million dollars after they say a second-grade teacher singled out their son by asking him if he was transgender. The parents say the teacher had inappropriate conversations with the child at school without their permission. …

The parents say this all started when their son started using the staff restroom because of a stomach problem. They say their son was uncomfortable using the boy’s bathroom because of his medical condition. However, they believe the teacher assumed their son was uncomfortable because he was transgender.

“Still today, a year later, if he plays with my niece, he’s a girl in that moment… if he plays with my nephew, he’s a boy,” said the mother.

The mother says her son was left confused and hurt after being singled out. Now, a year later, the 9-year-old is taking anxiety medication and going to therapy, according to his parents. The family says the boy’s confusion and emotional distress has also affected the entire family. The father says he’s suffering from panic attacks and the mother says she’s now on medical leave, suffering from anxiety and depression, and staying home from work.

It is entirely possible that the panic attacks and anxiety on the part of the parents might be something of an overreaction, but their complaint is certainly valid.

The article notes:

There’s video at the link, but it’s not embeddable here. Bear in mind that this wasn’t a teenager, which might be bad enough, but an eight year old with a stomach problem. Even granting the best of possible intentions, why wouldn’t the first step in dealing with suspicions of gender dysphoria be to contact the child’s parents? It’s not as if the parents in this case are social neanderthals, at least from the perspective of Academia. They tell reporter Bonnie Silkman in the video that they aren’t concerned about what identity he chooses as long as he chooses it, and not get indoctrinated into it by an activist teacher.

The article concludes:

The most impressively loco part of this story is that the teacher still works at the school — a full year after the school confirmed the parents’ story. The only correction the teacher received was to be reminded of the district’s policies on “controversial issues” and to notify parents and the school when she “alters a student’s regular school day.” Meanwhile, this family will be dealing with the aftershocks of her actions for years.

The school district declined to comment on the story because of the lawsuit, but they might owe an explanation to the other parents in the district, especially to those whose children are within this teacher’s supervision. How many other children has she attempted to indoctrinate into transgender identities? And how many of the parents in this school district — and elsewhere — might start considering private schools or home-schooling to protect their children from predatory behavior?

If I had children in that school district, this article would cause me to consider seriously the option of home-schooling.

Attacked For Doing His Job

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A smart police force keeps track of groups coming into town to hold rallies or protests. I am sure that any time the Tea Party or Antifa holds a rally in a city, the police are aware of the gathering and keep close tabs on it. That is their job. However, some of the residents of Portland, Oregon, seem to be unaware of the procedures involved in policing rallies.

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about some recent events in Portland.

The article reports:

Last week a Portland police lieutenant named Jeff Niiya was accused of colluding with right-wing protest group Patriot Prayer after a string of his texts were released to the public. Lt. Niiya’s job is to coordinate with protest groups coming to the city and the texts show him doing just that, i.e. chatting with Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson about the group’s intentions and planned movements. As I noted last week, Lt. Niiya has previously been in close contact with a member of Antifa who became an outcast when other members of the group learned she’d be talking with police.

…Despite the fact that it was the Mayor’s own office requesting the information Lt. Niiya was gathering on Patriot Prayer, the investigation prompted by Niiya’s texts remains ongoing. As part of that process, Police Chief Outlaw scheduled a listening session to hear the community’s concerns Thursday night. Reporter Andy Ngo, who attended the meeting, says it quickly became a “sh*tshow” and a “circus of identity politics and hysteria.”

Some attendees at the listening session called for the Portland police to be disbanded. This sort of foolishness in Portland is not all that unusual.

The article concludes:

It’s not hard to imagine why Antifa anarchists like the idea of a city without a police force. That’s pretty much what they got last August when Mayor Ted Wheeler allowed an Occupy ICE camp full of vile extremists to grow and fester. Protestesters became so violent that ICE officers called 911 for help but Mayor Wheeler ordered the police not to respond. When the same mob turned on a woman running a food cart and burned it down, the police never responded. In the end, it was Police Chief Danielle Outlaw who demanded the Mayor allow her to clear out the camp. Naturally, the protesters left behind loads of garbage for the city to clean up.

At this point, Chief Outlaw seems to be one of the few city officials with any sense. Hopefully, she won’t buckle under the pressure from extremists to condemn Lt. Niiya.

This would be comical if it were not so serious.

Eventually Justice Shows Up

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Most of us remember the stand-off between ranchers and the federal government in Oregon in 2016. Robert LaVoy Finicum was killed during the protests surrounding these events. Yesterday The Wall Street Journal posted an article about W. Joseph Astarita, who was part of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team deployed out of Quantico, Va., to assist other state and federal law-enforcement officers during the standoff. Mr. Astarita is now on trial in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice related to the 2016 fatal shooting of Robert LaVoy Finicum.

The article reports:

The trial will bring to a head the tensions between Western ranchers and the government that had been at the heart of the 2016 standoffs. Mr. Bundy’s armed occupation was fueled by the federal prosecution of Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, for arson. The duo, who were sentenced to five years in prison, received a presidential pardon earlier this month.

Mr. Bundy was acquitted for his role in the occupation, along with six followers.

The death of Mr. Finicum has spurred outrage among friends and family. They have long accused the government of carrying out a deadly vendetta. While federal investigators determined the rancher was reaching in his coat for a gun when he was shot, supporters said he was surrendering.

“Someone needs to be charged with murder,” said Angie Bundy, wife of Mr. Bundy’s brother, Ryan.

Local law-enforcement authorities also have criticized the Justice Department for Mr. Astarita’s alleged actions. When the indictments of Mr. Astarita were announced last summer, Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson said they “damage the integrity of the entire law-enforcement profession, which makes me both disappointed and angry.”

The original disagreement between the Bundy family and the federal government had to do with federal regulation of grazing lands.

American Soldiers Are Very Special People

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line today that is an update of an incident that occurred on a Paris to Amsterdam train on Friday. Two American military men in civilian clothes were riding a high-speed train from Paris to Amsterdam on Friday.

The article reports:

A friend of the heroes, Anthony Sadler, also was aboard the train and saw what happened. He identified them as Spencer Stone, of Sacramento, who was injured and Alek Skarlatos of Roseburg, Ore., who was unhurt.

“We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle,” Sadler told the AP.

Then they spotted a gunman entering the train car with an automatic rifle.
“As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, ‘Spencer, go!’ And Spencer runs down the aisle,” Sadler said.

“Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious. The gunman never said a word.”

A military friend of mine reminded me that the American military is trained ‘to run to the sound of guns.’ These men did exactly that. All of us should be grateful for their training and for the lives they saved that day.

The Double Standard At Work

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On Friday I posted an article about Aaron and Melissa Klein, who ran a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa. They were fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding. They were also ordered “to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of sexual orientation.” This occurred in the State of Oregon. I guess Michigan doesn’t do things that way.

This was posted on YouTube on April 2nd of this year:

Now that same-sex marriage is legal, will Muslim bakeries still be able to refuse to bake cakes for those weddings without any consequences?

Losing Our Rights

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The Weekly Standard posted an article today about Aaron and Melissa Klein, who previously ran a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa. The bakery is now closed and shuttered after the State of Oregon fined them  $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding. To add insult to injury, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian added a gag order to the fine, ordering the Kleins “to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of sexual orientation.”

I am hoping that the gag order will be repealed. The fine should also be repealed, but I don’t see much chance of that happening in Oregon. This is another example of what is happening to our First Amendment–the concept of the ‘free exercise of religion‘ has been replaced with the idea of ‘freedom of religion.’ The concept of ‘free exercise’ allows people to practice their religion in the public square. The concept of ‘freedom of religion’ confines religion to the interior of the church. It is hard to be ‘salt and light’ in a society (as mentioned by Jesus) when you are not allowed to express your views in that society.

An Interesting Development For The Political Left In America

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The political left in America loves the United Nations. When the U.N. condemns Israel and supports countries that routinely practice persecution of non-Muslim religions, the political left in America doesn’t seem to notice. When the U.N. creates gun treaties that will take away Americans’ Second Amendment rights, the political left doesn’t worry about American sovereignty. Well, the question of American sovereignty is about to impact some of the political left.

Reuters posted a story yesterday reporting that Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has told reporters that moves by some U.S. states to legalize marijuana are not in line with international drugs conventions.

The article reports:

“I don’t see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions,” Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told reporters.

Asked whether there was anything the UNODC could do about it, Fedotov said he would raise the problem next week with the U.S. State Department and other U.N. agencies.

I have stated before that I do not support the legalization of marijuana. However, I do support American sovereignty and states’ rights. Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have all authority not enumerated as federal authority (Tenth Amendment). I believe that according to the U.S. Constitution, the states are within their rights to legalize marijuana. Has America given the U.N. sovereignty over our states?

The article concludes:

On the international level, Uruguay‘s parliament in late 2013 approved a bill to legalize and regulate the production and sale of marijuana — the first country to do so.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has said Uruguay’s new bill contravened the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which it says requires states to limit the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes, due to its dependence-producing potential. The Vienna-based INCB monitors compliance with this and two other drug control treaties.

This could get interesting.

 

 

I Don’t Think This Was Part Of The Plan

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article about the Maryland Obamacare exchange. It is currently under federal investigation for fraud.

The article reports:

The inspector general’s office for the Department of Health and Human Services reportedly told Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris that it will proceed with an investigation into how Maryland’s Obamacare exchange spent copious amounts of federal grant money in the face of its failing exchange.

Oregon’s Obamacare exchange will also be investigated by the General Accountability Office after a separate request from House Republicans.

Large amounts of federal money were given to these two states to set up their exchanges–Oregon was awarded $304 million in federal funding for its Obamacare exchange — in addition to $160 million spent in state funding so far, the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange expects to spend $261 million, over 80 percent of its federal grants, by the end of 2015.

It seems to me that any person with some degree of common sense would be looking at these numbers and wondering how Obamacare was going to save money. It really is time to get the federal government out of the health insurance business and let the free market reign. There are ways that the government can set basic regulations to make it easier for people to afford health insurance–more competition in the free market would allow prices to drop, as would portability across state lines, tort reform, tax credits for individuals purchasing health insurance, and some other basic changes. It’s time to admit that Obamacare does not work and needs to be done away with and replaced with a free market system. The insurance industry is a business. There is nothing evil about business. Businesses work best with the least amount of government interference.

 

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What About The Baker’s Rights?

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On Sunday, KATU.com reported that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled that the Gresham bakery violated the civil rights of a same-sex couple when it refused the order for a wedding cake on Jan.17, 2013.

The article reports:

Portland, OR—A Gresham bakery violated the civil rights of a same-sex couple when it denied service based on sexual orientation, a Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) investigation has found.

The couple filed the complaint against Sweet Cakes by Melissa under the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, a law that protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender Oregonians in employment, housing and public places.

Under Oregon law, Oregonians may not be denied service based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The law provides an exemption for religious organizations and schools, but does not allow private business owners to discriminate based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot legally deny service based on race, sex, age, disability or religion.

The investigation concludes that the bakery is not a religious institution under law and that the business’ policy of refusing to make same-sex wedding cakes represents unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.

What about the rights of the bakery owners to practice their religion? If they are Bible-believing Christians, their Bible states that homosexual marriage is wrong. To bake a cake for a lesbian couple goes against the bakery owners’ religious beliefs. I think this is a situation where the law should not be involved–the couple could have easily gone to another bakery for their cake. If we are going to support the rights of homosexuals, we also need to support the rights of Christians.

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When Reality Gets In The Way Of Promises

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Remember the promise that ObamaCare would eventually make health care cheaper for everyone because universal coverage would make us all healthier? Well, it seems as if we tend to be as healthy as we want to be regardless of whether or not we have universal coverage.

On Friday the Daily Beast reported that a study on Oregon’s Medicaid expansion showed that the people who were now eligible for medical treatment had no improvement in their health (as measured by basic health indicators such as like blood pressure or cholesterol).

The article reports:

…health insurance doesn’t actually improve access to necessary treatment that much.  If someone else covers the cost, it can help with the financial burden of health care.  But uninsured people will mostly find a way for the most important treatments, the ones we know improve health, from stitches to control bleeding, to antibiotics, to blood pressure medication.  It’s the expensive stuff on the frontier–the stuff that’s as likely to be useless, or harmful, as it is to help–that the uninsured mostly forego. 

When you consider the fact that hospitals are not permitted to turn away patients because of their inability to pay, this makes sense.

The article concludes:

…But I think it’s instructive that the political campaign for Obamacare leaned so heavily on claims about death and untreated suffering.  Whether or not we should provide that sort of insurance, I don’t think that Obamacare would have passed if its backers had said “The best study available shows that we’ll probably get a nice reduction in depression and catastrophic expenses, but no statistically significant improvement in diabetes, mortality, or cardiovascular health.”

That should give us pause.  We passed a big, complicated piece of legislation on the assumption that Medicaid expansions like Oregon would make us healthier–so much helathier that we’d obviously be able to measure it.  It just made gut sense, after all.  And that shouldn’t just make us pause and think about Obamacare. What other policies are we pulling out of our intestinal loops?

Frankly, I think the best thing the government could do for the health of Americans would be to get out of healthcare. Repeal ObamaCare, and set up a system that subsidizes low income people who need insurance and let the free market run healthcare. There would have to be some basic guidelines set up for pre-existing conditions, but the healthcare industry knows much more about healthcare than the government does. Let’s let them take care of America.

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The Health And Human Services War Against Religion Continues

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A website called Catholic Online is reporting a new aspect of Obamacare. Under Obamacare, children 15 and over in the state of Oregon will now be able to undergo sterilization without parental consent. Just for the record, children younger than 18 need parental consent to get their ears pierced.

The article states:

The “Required Health Plan Coverage Guidelines” set forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states: “Non-grandfathered plans and issuers are required to provide coverage without cost-sharing consistent with these guidelines in the first plan year.that begins on or after August 1, 2012.All [FDA] approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”

Under Oregon State Law, the state’s revised statutes (ORS) defines “informed consent” for 15-year-olds independently pursuing reproductive sterilization as being “(a) Based upon a full understanding of the nature and consequences of sterilization pursuant to information requirements set forth in ORS 436.225(1); (b) Given by an individual competent to make such a decision; and (c) Wholly voluntary and free from coercion, express or implied.”

I need to state here–I am not Catholic and I am not opposed to sterilization of an adult who makes that choice. That is not the point. What is happening here is that a major decision that will affect a child for the rest of his (or her) life is being made without parental input. That is just too much government for my taste.

 

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Why Voters Need To Pay Attention When They Vote

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CNSNews posted a story today about Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber.

According to the article:

Democrat Gov. Kitzhaber has granted a reprieve “for the duration of my service as governor” to Gary D. Haugen, who has twice been convicted of aggravated murder. Haugen – who wants to be executed – was first convicted of killing the mother of his girlfriend and later was found guilty of murdering a fellow inmate.

The irony here is that Mr. Haugen claims that the state allows him to refuse the reprieve and has asked the state to execute him. He has filed a lawsuit against the state to invalidate the reprieve so that he can be executed.

Meanwhile, in another case in Oregon, the Governor has refused even to discuss clemency in the case of a man facing prison time for collecting rainwater on his property. Gary Harrington is scheduled to begin serving a 30 day jail term this week.

The article reports:

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., was sentenced July 25 in Jackson County Circuit Court to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines for violating Oregon state laws that say all water is publically owned–making the 3 reservoirs on his property used to house rainwater and snow runoff illegal.

CNSNews.com has repeatedly contacted the governor’s office via phone and email to ask if the governor has any intention of pardoning Harrington or commuting his sentence. But the governor’s office has not responded to any of those inquiries.

Does this mean that if I have a water feature in my backyard and rainwater falls in it that I am breaking the law? Doesn’t the state government of Oregon have anything better to do than send people who collect rainwater to jail?

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