Free Republic

Conservative Republicans who are upset with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are heading to Bakersfield this weekend and are certain to vent their feelings. However, most experts say a full-blown conservative revolt against the GOP's only major candidate for the state's highest office is unlikely. The California Republican Assembly, which represents the conservative wing of the Republican Party, will gather at the DoubleTree Hotel starting Friday for its election-year nominating convention. CRA president Mike Spence was among conservatives who until recently were threatening to lead a movement to withdraw the Republican Party's endorsement of Schwarzenegger. However, that threat appears to have been...

A second female teacher has been accused of molesting a male student, Kern County Superior Court records show. Jennifer Lynn Sanchez, 31, a mathematics teacher at Buena Vista Continuation High School in Taft, was charged on Dec. 22 with four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old student, and one count each of oral copulation and sodomy with the same student. She has resigned from her teaching job, school officials said Thursday. She has pleaded not guilty in the Taft division of Kern County Superior Court and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 26. Her bail initially...

BAKERSFIELD - A robbery suspect from Palmdale who reportedly ran from officers was shot and killed Sunday night, Bakersfield police officials said. Erson Alexander Welchen, 22, died at 11:15 p.m. Sunday at the Kern Medical Center emergency room, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department coroner's division. Welchen was in a Cadillac with three other people suspected of robbing a Rite Aid when the car was pulled over by an officer at 10:17 p.m. near the 3200 block of Panama Lane. According to a department statement, the Cadillac had been spotted by another officer leaving the Rite Aid. When driver...

Photo Gallery - Tuesday Tuesday morning started in Bakersfield bright and early on the air with Channel 29 Eyewitness News Daybreak. Afterward we met with supporters and media outside the studios of KERN 1410 AM. Then, it was on the air at KERN. The caravan then left Bakersfield for the trip to Los Angeles. The first stop was the studios of KFI 640 AM in Burbank. Burbank photos courtesy of MAF friend John Thompson. From Burbank the caravan drove on to join the Al Rantel Show at KABC 790 AM in Los Angeles, and then went on to meet...

As a Vietnam veteran, Bakersfield resident Bob Blount said he will never oppose a sitting president during time of war. "I'm not pro-war," he said. "I know what war looks like. I've been through it." Blount was one of about a dozen locals who showed up to support the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" tour during the organization's appearance Tuesday morning in Bakersfield. The caravan-style tour, which began in San Francisco on Monday, is a counter-protest of sorts, designed as a response to Cindy Sheehan, the military mom whose vigil near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas has energized...

Song springs from Bakersfield roots 8/21/05 BARNEY BRANTINGHAM Whenever I write about Bakersfield, poking a little innocent fun at our dusty San Joaquin Valley neighbor, some people take it the wrong way. Now I've heard from ex-Bakersfieldian (Bakersfieldite?) Karen Jones of Santa Ynez, who's written an affectionate song about B-Town and recorded it in one take. It's delightful, sung in her twangy voice with twangy accompaniment. Here are some of the lyrics: "We got equal opportunity. Everybody's down and out like me. "Bakersfield's got lots of bars, toothless whores and beat-up cars, rusted, busted missing locks. Sittin' up on concrete...

SACRAMENTO -- Amid the first signs of possible trouble in raising money for his special election campaign, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is sending top administration officials out looking for free media -- beginning with a stop in Bakersfield next Tuesday. Tom Campbell, the governor's finance director, and Margaret Fortune, a senior education adviser, will hold "an informal discussion" with Bakersfield business and community leaders about the issues in the election, said Todd Harris, spokesman for the governor's campaign organization. Details on the time and place of the event had not been worked out Thursday, Harris said, but the media will be...

SACRAMENTO -- Willie Brown, who for years was demonized as the autocratic liberal who stymied Kern County's Republican politicians, has become a registered lobbyist, and one of his first clients is the city of Bakersfield. Brown, the flamboyant and controversial former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor, has been retained to help get a bill passed that will give the city more clout in turf battles with nearby cities and the county. But he wasn't hired directly by the City Council, City Manager Alan Tandy said Monday. He was retained by a law firm that has a consulting contract with...

Today is a no-burn day in most of Kern County, and local air pollution control inspectors are using high tech gadgets to seek out violators -- a method some say is against the law because it amounts to an illegal searches of people's homes. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District is using six new infrared heat detectors, called non-contact infrared thermometers, to catch people burning wood in their fireplaces on designated no-burn days. With the devices, pollution control inspectors can be outside a home, point the infrared scanner at a chimney, pull the trigger and get a temperature...

Yesterday, I drove by the welfare department in Bakersfield, California to see if anyone was registering voters there (as sometimes is the case). Sure enough, there was a democrat voter registration table. Now, hold your fire on the location. In all fairness, we Republicans have sometimes registered voters at the welfare office, though with probably far less of a natural constituency. Anyways, I parked, walked up, and listened to a woman I will refer to as "Rat-lady" as she attempted to register voters. A woman I will refer to as Maisha came over to the table to register to vote....

Officials await tests to confirm possibility of new West Nile Cases in Kern County: State announces first horse infection in Kern.

Bakersfield Neighborhood Covered In Oil Homes Ruined By Oil Spill POSTED: 7:56 p.m. PDT April 16, 2004 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A malfunctioning oil well left a west Bakersfield neighborhood covered in black, KERO reported. Residents of Sunnybank Avenue didn't strike oil -- it struck them. Oil soaked trees, covered driveways and destroyed lawns. Ted Sisco's home was covered in oil. "It's a mess. How do you replace mature trees?" Sisco told KERO. Oil shot into the sky Thursday, leaving homes covered in oil. Officials evacuated 10 homes for several hours. A $750,000 home will likely have to be torn...

Demands that the Shell Bakersfield Refinery remain open intensified Friday, as Sen. Barbara Boxer joined a chorus of calls to the Federal Trade Commission and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to prevent the closure. "The plant must remain open until a buyer is found and a sale is completed. Otherwise, consumers will pay the prices," Boxer wrote in a letter to FTC Chairman Timothy Muris. Boxer's letter caps a week that has seen a wide array of critics of the proposed closure emerge. Also this week, the FTC announced it is evaluating the situation, and the state Attorney General's office...

Police: 10-Year-Old Driving For Drinker Man Faces DUI, Contributing To Delinquency And Child Endangerment Charges POSTED: 3:46 p.m. PST March 8, 2004 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A man who allegedly had a few too many drinks decided he shouldn't drive drunk -- and so handed off his car keys to his underage companions, police said. Lionel Cerda told officers that he had been nodding off, so he first let a 14-year-old drive. B>But when police pulled the car over after midnight on Saturday, they found Cerda in the front seat, with empty bottles at his feet, the 14-year-old in the...

This morning at 9:10 am, George W. Bush landed in Air Force One at Meadows Field here in Bakersfield CA to attend a townhall meeting at a local business. The business is "Rain for Rent", which is a family owned national pipe, tank and pump rental company providing services to the oil, ag and industrial community.Rain for Rent is a good choice because they are based here, but have facilities throughout the US. The owners, the Lake family, I suspect are politically active and supportive of GWB. This meeting will have a tentacle effect in that, company pics and memo's...

Second Amendment Sisters, Inc. - Ladies Handgun Seminar This Saturday, January 31, 2004, Second Amendment Sisters (SAS) will hold a Ladies Handgun Seminar at Second Amendment Sports, 2523 Mohawk St., in Bakersfield, starting at 9 a.m. Forty women will learn the basics of gun safety and self-defense. Most of the women are novice shooters. The event is free and includes lunch. The morning session will consist of classroom instruction on safety and self-defense theory. After lunch, the women will head to the range to shoot, some for the very first time. Instructor will be Don Busse of "Martial Arms" (tactical...

<p>The morning host on KERN-AM (1410), Cox began plugging the actor's candidacy the morning after Schwarzenegger announced his campaign on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."</p> <p>The payback has been handsome. Cox, who looks like a lot of 39-year-old guys around here — tall, husky and with a tricked-out truck — now is easily recognized around town, a rarity for a voice on the radio. His show has soared in popularity, beaten in the morning commute hours only by KUZZ-AM (550), a country radio station owned by Buck Owens.</p>

. It all surrounds a patrol car, which carried a message some found offensive. The car decal said, "We'll Kick Your Ass".It is the kind of stunt that could have quickly been put to rest.Instead it has prompted a flood of editorial letters to the Bakersfield Californian with mixed reviews on what the sticker said.There is still plenty of controversy over how the sheriff handled it.It is not the act that gets you in trouble, but whether or not it is a cover-up.There may or may not be a cover-up in this case, but there are a lot of different...

<p>A skinny rapist met his match in an angry, 275-pound prostitute, police said.</p> <p>Adrian Castillo Ramirez, 140 pounds, allegedly tried to sexually assault a 24-year-old Bakersfield prostitute who was nearly twice his weight.</p> <p>But she took his knife, stripped him naked and paraded him in front of other prostitutes, after asking how many of them had ever been forced into sex at knifepoint. Then she tried to take him -- still naked -- to the police station, reports said.</p>

TESTING THE FAITHYMCA fliers banned from schoolAd promoting basketball camp mentions 'Christian principles' Posted: December 11, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Not known as an overtly Christian organization, the YMCA has come under fire in Bakersfield, Calif., where a school district banned the organization's promotional fliers from its campuses. The local Y can no longer send fliers home with children because a recent one happened to mention the organization puts "Christian principles into practice," reports the Bakersfield Californian. YMCA officials are fuming, the paper reports, and the brouhaha could possibly affect other area school districts. The offending flier, which a district...