PrairiePundit

 Trending Politics: A federal appeals court on Wednesday lifted a temporary order blocking President Donald Trump’s control over Oregon’s National Guard soldiers, handing him another victory in his crusade to restore peace to blue cities through a show of strength. The decision, however, stops short of allowing Trump to ultimately deploy the troops to Portland, who were told to stand down by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut earlier this week. The Trump-appointed judge also ordered the administration not to deploy the National Guard to other parts of the state, a decision that stays in place for now. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit wrote in a brief memo that its decision helps ensure the “status quo.” “The effect of granting an administrative stay preserves the status quo in which National Guard members have been federalized but not deployed,” they wrote. The panel, comprising two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee, will hear oral argum...

 Blaze: The Trump administration confirmed a Justice Department investigation into the arrest of a conservative journalist at an anti-ICE riot in Portland and suggested the city might face a steep price. Left-wing protesters have been rioting outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland for months, but the issue came to a head on Thursday when conservative journalist Nick Sortor was arrested during the protest. "President Trump will end the radical left's reign of terror in Portland once and for all," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a media briefing Friday. "The president has directed Secretary [of War Pete] Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war-ravaged Portland and any ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other left-wing domestic terrorists." She said that Antifa militants have been attacking the ICE field office in south Portland since mid-June. "This is not peaceful protesting. This is le...

Federalist Wire: ... Portland, Oregon, is once again a battleground for lawlessness, and this time it’s not just Antifa thugs hurling firebombs at federal buildings. Federal agents just busted a crew of four illegal immigrants after one of them allegedly blasted a laser straight at a Customs and Border Protection helicopter hovering over the city. This brazen move happened on Saturday night, turning a routine patrol into a potential disaster high in the skies. Picture this: law enforcement choppers are up there keeping an eye on the streets, trying to maintain some shred of order in a city that’s been under siege for years. Then, out of nowhere, a beam of light slices through the darkness, aimed right at the cockpit. It’s the kind of stunt that could blind a pilot mid-flight and send a helicopter crashing. The FBI jumped on it fast, confirming the target was not just one aircraft but multiple ones scanning the urban war zone below. In a no-nonsense post on X, Kash Patel laid it out pla...

  Newsmax: President Donald Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, "authorizing Full Force, if necessary” to handle “domestic terrorists” as he expands his controversial deployments to more American cities. He made the announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland.” Trump said the decision was necessary to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he described as “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” ... The ICE facility in Portland has been the target of frequent demonstrations, sometimes leading to violent clashes. Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. When protesters erected a guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security described it as “unhinged behavior.” ... The open borders left are chiefly responsible for these ICE att...

  Trending Politics: Northwestern conservatives leading the charge to secede their red, rural counties from a reliably blue state got a boost to their efforts over the weekend as a Republican lawmaker promised to officialize an investigation into making their dream a reality. For years, the Greater Idaho movement has stagnated as 13 of Oregon’s reddest counties have rowed together to try and separate their homes from places like Portland, an epicenter of violent Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020. Now, legislation has been filed to explore the details of how residents may do so. State Rep. Mark Owens, R-Malheur, filed HB 3844, which would establish and direct a task force to explore extending the Idaho border into eastern Oregon. A final report would be compiled and presented to lawmakers in Salem, according to Fox News . Greater Idaho president Mike McCarter said in a statement to the outlet: “We are encouraged to see the representatives of Eastern Oregon coming togeth...

 PJ Media: BREAKING: Arsonists Destroy 'Hundreds' of Ballots Inside 'Secure' Ballot Boxes in Oregon and Washington   ... ...  Joe Kent has been depicted by the left and his opponent as a white supremacist nutter. Kent is anything but. He's a Gold Star husband whose wife was killed as part of a U.S. special forces outfit in Syria —AFTER DONALD TRUMP HAD ISSUED THE ORDER TO GET ALL U.S. TROOPS OUT OF THAT COUNTRY. You'll recall how that went down. Mark Milley and those generals ignored Trump's order. Kent is a Green Beret soldier who went to work as a CIA paramilitary operator. After his wife Shannon died, he went back home to the Northwest to make sure his two young boys, barely out of toddlerhood, could be close to their grandparents. Now remarried and running for congress for the second time, Kent has been smeared by Antifa leftists and his opponent. His crime is serving the country and supporting Donald Trump. ... This is more evidence that drop boxes are...

 Newsweek: In February 2021, politicians and activists celebrated Oregon's implementation of Measure 110, the nation's first law to decriminalize drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and meth. It's not a surprise what happened next: a dramatic increase in overdoses. Fast forward to last week: Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency in Portland due to sharp rises in overdose deaths, public drug use, and crime. Though the state of emergency is a step in the right direction, more must be done to undo the harm caused by Measure 110 and help more Oregonians live safe and healthy lives. Now that Democratic and Republican state legislators have introduced bills to increase penalties for the possession of drugs—effectively reversing decriminalization and conceding it has failed—it is a good time to look back at what led to this state of emergency. Overdose deaths in Oregon have spiraled out of control. Between 2020 and 2022, overdose...

 Mike Miller: Nike Permanently Closes Factory Store in Portland, as Mayor Wheeler Makes Ridiculous Claim on 'Solutions' This is what happens when officials fail to prosecute shoplifting crimes. It seems to be an epidemic in many Dem-led cities.

 National Review: To send a message to residents and state lawmakers amid a spiraling drug crisis and rampant homelessness, the city council in Portland, Ore., voted unanimously Wednesday to approve an emergency ordinance banning the use of hard drugs in public. The emergency ordinance amends the city code that already prohibits the open consumption of alcohol and marijuana in places like public parks and on sidewalks to also include hard drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. But the vote was mostly symbolic because of Measure 110, the ballot initiative approved by voters in 2020 that decriminalized user amounts of street drugs , like heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines, and that forbids local governments from regulating their use. State lawmakers would have to change the law for Portland to act on its ordinance. Mayor Ted Wheeler had floated a similar crackdown on public use of hard drugs over the summer, but temporarily backed down. At the start of Wednesday afte...

 Fox News: A brutal, random attack left a doctor unconscious and bleeding on sidewalk in Portland, Oregon. Three weeks later, police have no updates for her. "This is the Wild West," Corey Judd told Fox News after his friend's attack. Judd and Mary Costantino were walking in Southwest Portland when, out of nowhere, a metal water bottle was flung, striking Costantino in the face and knocking her unconscious. There was no warning. Surveillance video showed the attack happened in about three seconds, with a figure darting across the light rail tracks and hurling the bottle. CRIME TURNED PORTLAND INTO A ‘HOLLOWED OUT SHELL.’ ITS NEIGHBORS ARE TRYING TO KEEP IT FROM HAPPENING TO THEM "What strikes me is just the randomness of this," said Judd, who lived in Portland in the early 2000s and was visiting from Spokane, Washington. "This was not a bad part of town. It's not a bad block. This is a very public place where you get on the train." Judd and Costan...

 Breitbart: Multnomah County, Oregon, lost 14,257 taxpayers, which resulted in a $1 billion loss in tax revenue, according to local media. The Democrat-run city of Portland is in Multnomah County, and that’s where most of these losses came from. That 14,257 number is not the city’s net population loss. That is merely the number of tax filers who fled. You can bet their families went with them. What is especially interesting about this news is who is leaving : “The average income of Multnomah County residents who moved away in 2020, the most recent figure available, was 14% higher than of those who moved the year prior[.]” That’s the news that should worry Democrat city officials most. Normally, it’s the other way around. ... These numbers are from 2020 and 2021, and this local media report blames the population loss of all these wealthy taxpayers primarily on the anti-science lockdowns Portland’s Democrats inflicted on their citizens. Naturally, this local media report fails to m...

 Victoria Taft: You can’t say Portland had good intentions because they should have known that what they were trying to do wouldn’t “solve” the drug and homeless problems in the metro areas. Free-wheeling drugs and government tents have never worked anywhere they’ve been tried. Never. Not in San Francisco, not in Los Angeles, not in San Diego, and not in Seattle. But the we’re-smarter-than-you set just threw millions more at it, ignoring that Portland doesn’t just have a homeless problem; it’s got a drug problem. And predictably, things are worse. Oregonians can blame their “progressive” leaders, George Soros, and the voters staring back at them in mirrors for this mess. The governmental equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle — state progressives, Multnomah county actors, and Portland activists — have worked together to dispirit the people through their lawlessness, destroy their once beautiful metro area with tents and bodies strewn about, and make it a hospitable place, as a local ph...

 Fox News: Real estate developer and lifelong Portland, Oregon, native Dustin Michael Miller is saying goodbye to the city after walking into his office to discover bullet holes had penetrated the glass close to where he would normally sit while working. "Alright Portland, I'm done with you. I'm over. This has gotta stop, OK?" he said in an Instagram reel Saturday. Miller panned the camera around to his desk, adding, "I work right here a lot during the day. Well, look what happened last night." Bullet holes riddled the window over his shoulder, close to his desk. 'OUR CITY IS IN PERIL': PORTLAND BUSINESS OWNERS DEMAND MORE ACTION AS CRIMINALS ‘WREAK HAVOC’ "If I was here [the bullets would] be in the back of my head right now," he added. Miller said Monday on " Fox & Friends First " that the development was the final straw in the city's relentless crime saga for him, telling anchors Todd Piro and Ashley Strohmier that the...

 Fox News: Crime turned Portland into a ‘hollowed out shell.’ Its neighbors are trying to keep it from happening to them Counties near Portland aren't experiencing the same crime surge — here's what leaders say has worked Portland is a poorly run city that became worse when it fell for the "Defund the Police" movement.  Eastern Oregon is more normal. ... Shocking and often gruesome headlines have become commonplace in the state's most populous county. One man allegedly struck a woman in the head with a rock moments after leaving a mental health facility. A domestic violence suspect was charged with murdering the mother of his children one week after a liberal bail fund helped secure his release from jail. Surveillance video appears to show a woman pushing a toddler onto train tracks in Portland, and a 25-year-old man allegedly chewed off an elderly man’s ear and part of his face on a train platform in Gresham. "What's happening is with our de-carcerat...

 Fox News: 'Greater Idaho' movement to absorb conservative rural counties from liberal Oregon gains momentum Idaho legislature pushing bill to open talks about moving border between western states You can't blame the conservative counties of Oregon for wanting to leave.  Portland and the coastal liberals have made a mess out of their government.  See, also: Nike BEGS Portland mayor for police protection to reopen shuttered community store plagued with retail theft "It is critical that one of these two models be made effective prior to May 1, 2023," Nike said.

 Daily Mail: 'I felt safer in downtown Saigon during Vietnam': Moment squatters terrorizing Portland family almost set their home on fire as city battles to deal with 6,600 homeless people across 700 encampments A family in Portland is being terrorized by squatters who have set up camp next door and even set their property on fire. Jacob and Beth Adams live next door to an abandoned home that has been taken over by several homeless people. The couple has caught the homeless people overdosing and stealing from their backyard - but said the final straw was when the group set their property on fire. 'There are fires that have been happening off and on. Major ones. This recent one actually came and set our property on fire,' Jacob told Fox12. The Adams' official neighbor, who is a Vietnam veteran, echoed his concern, adding that the squatters have made his living situation worse than his military deployment in Vietnam. 'I felt safer when I was walking around in do...

 Fox Business: After 11 Oregon counties approved a preliminary vote to secede from the Democrat-led state, local leaders around the movement are explaining how the urban-rural divide has left them with no other choice. "People in eastern Oregon have felt like their state-level governance has not heard them, has not paid attention to our concerns, and has not been working for eastern Oregon," Greater Idaho Movement spokesperson Matt McCaw said on " Fox & Friends First " Monday. McCaw, along with Oregon business owner Sandie Gilson, supports the idea of having select counties elect to move their state borderlines so state-level governance would come from Idaho. "The west side of Oregon is very populated, very urban, and very left-leaning, whereas the east side of the state is very rural, very conservative, and it's much more economically, culturally, politically similar to Idaho," McCaw explained. Over the last two years, the Greater Idaho Movement ...

 Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Leaders of East Oregon bid to secede and join Idaho thinks movement could go nationwide - with more rural countries looking to dump urban Democratic leaders and woke havens like Portland who impose taxes on them and shun 'traditional values'  The leader of east Oregon's plan to leave liberal Portland behind and join conservative Idaho is moving fast. Mike McCarter has a $70,000 budget for lobbyists in the two states, has seen allies introduce legislation in Oregon last month and has a bill ready to go in Idaho that would accelerate discussions for 15 counties to jump the border. If it works, he says other red counties will have a model for how to dump their urban, Democratic rulers. ... In Texas, parts of Houston have become an outlier within the state, But Texas rural areas still control much of the state.  In Oregon that does not appear to be the case.  Portland has gone downhill since the Democrats took over.

 Fox News: ‘LAWLESSNESS:’ Cataloguing Portland’s Year of Violence Record homicides, homelessness and property crime paint bleak picture of Portland in 2022 When you do not properly police your city you get results like this.  It is sad to see such a potentially attractive city deteriorate like this. 

 Victoria Taft: Iconic Business Declares Portland 'Unsafe' City and Accidentally Outs Biden's Open-Border Insanity This is a long story that demonstrates how ruinous liberalism can be when it allows drugs to become dominant.  Hint, Biden's open border policy is the source of much of the drug trade.