Oregon

Will Oregon be the next blue state with a Republican governor?

Conservatives like to tout the benefits of federalism, and there are many. However, if states are the “laboratories of democracy,” there will always be a few mad scientists to contend with. One of the dumber things you’ll experience in driving across the country is that in Oregon you’re not allowed…

Remember "Juicero"? Get ready for "Raw Water." The Silicon Valley company mocked for its pointless technology replicating squeezing (really) is in the news again after one of its founders was quoted in a New York Times story about "raw water." It is dumber than it sounds:

At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

It's the quintessential Churchillian remark—particularly in the sense that there's no evidence that Winston Churchill ever actually said it: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've exhausted all other options." But perhaps the adage should be updated to this: You…

The most crushing defeat for Democrats on November 8 was quite obviously Hillary Clinton’s. The party's next most significant loss, however, may well be that of Brad Avakian. He was an obscure candidate for what might seem to be a relatively inconsequential position. But as it turns out, Oregon's…

In the state of Oregon, the secretary of state is charged with auditing public accounts, managing elections, and administering public records. It's a glorified administrative role, which for whatever reason is an elected office in the Pacific Northwestern state.

In late October, a jury in Oregon acquitted Ammon Bundy and six codefendants for illegally occupying a building in the federal Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a remote eastern part of the state. The protest, the subject of national news coverage in January, was in support of local ranchers…

Powell's Books, which bills itself as the world's largest independent bookstore, is a Portland, Oregon, institution. (Though I've always been more partial to nearby Cameron's.) Its popularity among Portlanders ranks up there with bikes and beer. But now Powell's finds itself in direct conflict with…

Police were called to a meeting of the Multnomah County, Oregon, Democrats late last week. According to the Oregonian, a "scuffle" broke out when a handful of Bernie Sanders supporters, led by one Leigh LaFleur (a prominent Wiccan supporter of the Vermont senator) disrupted the meeting by shouting.…

The news last week was that The New Republic had been sold. After the magazine's turbulent tenure under Facebook mogul Chris Hughes, it was purchased by Win McCormack, an Oregon resident. At first glance this seems like a good fit. McCormack co-founded Mother Jones, another liberal publication, and…

While things on college campuses are less chaotic and violent than they were a few months ago, make no mistake—sanity has not been restored. We got fresh evidence of that when the University of Oregon, in the middle of renovating their student center, debated removing a quotation from Martin Luther…

Harmony Daws was recently appointed president of the Oregon Right to Life board of directors. She works at a cleaning business in Portland, and informed her boss of her new position. Her boss did not take it well:

East of the Cascade Mountains, Oregon is largely bitterbrush and high desert. Virtually no one lives there, and compared with the populous and rainy Willamette Valley to the west, agriculture is difficult. Unless you’re from the area — I was raised there — it's hard to appreciate the sense of…

I grew up in the next town west of Burns, Oregon, where so-called militia men are occupying a federal building in protest of the federal sentencing of some local ranchers for arson. If you know anything about how sparsely populated Eastern Oregon is, that means Burns is a two hour drive from my…

President Obama will be heading to Oregon tomorrow to visit Umpqua Community College, the site of a shooting rampage last week. But Obama's not heading home directly after meeting with families of the victims. Instead, the president will attend a series of West Coast fundraisers immediately after.

"They have good days and bad days, but I will tell you they are resolute,” attorney Herb Grey says of his clients, Aaron and Melissa Klein, two bakers from Portland who are facing a $135,000 fine from the state of Oregon for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian commitment ceremony in January 2013.…

In April, an administrative judge with the Oregon Department of Labor ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of the now shuttered bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa, to pay a fine of $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple's wedding. While there's a case the couple violated the…

The New York Times has an alarming article today about the movement to push sex change operations at earlier and earlier ages. It contains this detail:

In January 2013, Rachel Cryer and her mother walked into Sweet Cakes By Melissa, a bakery in Gresham, Oregon, and tried to order a wedding cake. Aaron Klein, the co-owner (and Melissa’s husband), was informed Cryer would be marrying another woman. He apologized and told them that providing a cake…

The Oregonian, the biggest paper in the state, is calling for the resignation of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber as a result of shady dealings related to his longtime girlfriend and fiancée:

While college football fans were riveted to the two playoff games on New Year’s Day (make that one-and-a-half playoff games, as the second half of the Rose Bowl was hardly must-see T.V.), some commentators could hardly wait to seize the moment to criticize the Bowl Championship Series (BCS),…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the new year, the College Football Playoff, Foreign Policy, and Politics.

Portland, Oregon, city commissioner Steve Novick is nothing if not verbose. Since his 2012 election, he’s used his publicly funded position to rail against DirectTV, driving around to look for a parking space, and–I’m not kidding–sitting in chairs. Rare indeed is the issue that the proudly…

Most college football fans are happy that the sport has adopted a 4-team playoff.  The method of selecting those four teams, however, is another matter.  This past offseason, McLaughlin & Associates asked self-described college football fans this question:  “As you may know, college football will…

The campaign of Democratic senator Jeff Merkley turned away three people from a "private event" in Hillsboro, Oregon, despite the fact that the people said they were invited to the event. A tracker with the campaign of Merkley's Republican opponent, Monica Wehby, captured the exchange between the…

For anyone who follows national politics, there is no shortage of scandals and harrowing economic figures to buttress the opinion that our leadership is corrupt and incompetent. My own pessimism about government, however, is born of experience. I was foolish once and young; I even believed in The…

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is bringing her name and fundraising prowess to Oregon next week to help her fellow Democrat, Jeff Merkley. Politico Playbook reports:

Monica Wehby has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Oregon by double digits, according to the projections of the Associated Press. Wehby, a Portland-based pediatric neurosurgeon and political newcomer, won 55 percent of the vote, while her closest rival, state senator Jason Conger,…

Monica Wehby is on track to win today's Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Oregon, and Democrats are already unloading on her as she prepares to face off against incumbent Jeff Merkley in the fall. Last Friday, a Politico article described a police report filed last year that alleged Wehby, a…

Monica Wehby, a Republican candidate for Senate in Oregon, leads her primary opponent Jason Conger by 17 points in a new poll by a GOP polling group supporting Wehby. New Republican, which has been running TV ads on Wehby's behalf, polled 500 likely primary voters in Oregon and found 41 percent…

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon defended Obamacare's record in his state, despite months of turmoil for the Oregon health insurance exchange that has ended in closing the exchange and prompted a federal investigation. One recent poll found 51 percent of Oregonians disapprove of Obamacare. Merkley, a…

The Wall Street Journal reports that the feds are investigating the implementation of Cover Oregon, the state of Oregon's now-defunct health insurance exchange as provided under Obamacare. Here's an excerpt:

A new poll shows Republican Monica Wehby leading incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley for the first time in the race for U.S. Senate in Oregon. The poll, conducted for the Daily Caller by Vox Populi Polling, asked registered voters who they are supporting in the race, with 40 percent saying they'd…

A GOP super PAC is spending more than $75,000 on TV ads supporting Oregon Senate candidate Monica Wehby ahead of the state's May 20 primary. The Oregonian reports that New Republican, headed up veteran consultant Alex Castellanos, will be airing ads in the Portland market touting Wehby as an…

Monica Wehby, Republican candidate for for U.S. Senate in Oregon, released a 60-second ad this week offering window into her biography. The ad features Lex Liebelt, an Oregon woman who discovered during her pregnancy that her daughter had a spinal issue. Her obstetrician recommended Liebelt abort…

Fred Barnes, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

Democratic senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is polling ahead of his potential Republican opponents, but his position is weak heading into his reelection campaign, according to a new survey by a GOP polling firm. Harper Polling found Merkley is ahead of two possible Republican opponents but is still…

On December 20, Cover Oregon—one of 14 state-based Obamacare insurance exchanges—began robocalling all Oregonians who had attempted to get health coverage through the state’s new marketplace. “If you haven’t heard from us by December 23, it is unlikely your application will be processed for…

After a couple reports on the governor of Oregon's disastrous rollout of the state's Obamacare exchange, Governor John Kitzhaber abruptly canceled an interview with affiliate KATU:

A Republican candidate for Senate trying to unseat first-term Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon raised half a million dollars in the last quarter of 2013. The Oregonian reports:

Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon probably isn't the first sitting senator Republicans think they can defeat this November. After beating incumbent Republican Gordon Smith in 2008 by 3 percentage points, Merkley appears safe in his seat. In 2012 Oregon voted for Barack Obama by more than 12 points,…

You’ve got a problem.  Seems Oregon’s health care exchange is, on the eve of Christmas, throwing up its hands and saying to those applying for (mandatory) coverage, “Hey, don’t look at us.  You’re on your own.”

Oregon, once touted as a model for President Obama's health care law, signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange.

Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, said that President Obama was "grossly misleading" on Obamacare:

It’s a pity that there’s no Portland, Oregon, edition of the New York Post. After all, one can only dream of the headlines the wags at the Post would come up with to describe the ongoing travails of (now former) Multnomah County (home of Portland) Commissioner Jeff Cogen.

Portland city commissioner (as city councilmen are called in that Oregon city) Steve Novick has never been one to respect the limits of his office - or recognize that it has any limits at all. Since being elected just over a year ago, Novick has used his minor public position to 1) assail DirecTV…

In light of the beating the Obama administration is taking over the ignominious launch of the Obamacare insurance marketplaces, it makes sense that the White House would be looking for good news to share.  The White House Twitter account attempted to provide a boost on Thursday with the following:

A Minnesota affiliate reports that MNSure, the state's Obamacare exchange, is down due to a glitch:

As Ben Schachter explained earlier this month in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the implementation of Obamacare has been especially hard on creative professionals, whose trade associations have been forced to eliminate various cost-effective insurance offerings due to the law’s mandates. But uninsured…

Could we be witnessing a revival of moral standards in our politics? Not only does Anthony Weiner look certain to go down in ignominious defeat in New York’s mayoral election in a couple of weeks, but Multnomah County, Oregon, chair Jeff Cogen–or, if you prefer, Portland’s Weiner--who admitted to a…

Democratic congressman Kurt Schrader of Oregon said on a local TV show over the weekend that he is suspicious that the employer mandate delay in Obamacare is politically motivated:

Portland city commissioner (as city councilmen are known in the Oregon city) Steve Novick may have been elected only last year, but he’s wasted no time in using his public office to indulge his personal crotchets. Drawing on his extensive experience running a business–which is to say, absolutely…

Portland is nothing if not tolerant. The picturesque city in the Pacific Northwest has, in recent years, endured one mayor who admitted to a gay affair with an underage intern, a different mayor who claimed residency in Washington state (where there is no income tax) yet voted in Oregon, not to…

Cover Oregon, the state of Oregon's health insurance exchange program required by Obamacare, began a $3.2 million ad campaign last week to inform Oregonians about the October 1 launch of the exchange. Included in that campaign is a minute-long TV ad featuring a song titled "Live Long in Oregon" and…

A host of liars, miscreants, and extreme leftists – and those were just the serious candidates! – squared off yesterday in the Portland, Oregon, mayoral election. In total, 23 candidates were on the ballot to see who would run the so-called “Rose City” (or, more appropriately, “Insufferable…

As Ronald Reagan famously quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I'm here to help.’” Portland, Oregon, though, really is here to help. The problem is that the city hasn’t created laws to benefit Portlanders—it’s created them to benefit one…

I keep expecting America’s trendsetters to get over Portland, Oregon, but the odes to the City of Roses just keep on coming. The Portland tourism board could compile an impressive anthology of the New York Times’s recent coverage of the city, most of which couldn’t be more fawning if it were…

In this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD I have a long feature on how America's hipster theme park Portland, Oregon, destroyed its infrastructure and jobs base in order to indulge a bizarre obsession with public transportation and other cultural fetishes. Among other things, I noted that the…

A week ago in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I wrote about the special congressional election in Oregon's first congressional district. The Republican candidate, businessman Rob Cornilles, appeared to have forced Democrats into making millions in ad buys, suggesting it was close race. However,…

Oregon Congressman David Wu has just resigned. Dave Weigel has his statement:

House Democrats, in their depleted numbers and minority status, probably felt left out of this week's tense budget battle in Congress. Former House speaker and minority leader Nancy Pelosi even left town Friday. So perhaps fellow Democratic congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland felt like she had…

Minnesota, like a lot of states, is facing a major budget shortfall. In order to close the state's $6.2 billion gap, the Wall Street Journal reports that the state's new Democratic governor is considering jacking up the state's taxes on high income earners to unprecedented levels: