Free Republic

Charles Manson is finally strong enough to undergo a surgery that will repair a lesion in his intestines that has caused significant bleeding ... TMZ has learned. TMZ broke the story ... Manson was rushed almost a week ago from Corcoran State Prison to a hospital in Bakersfield, CA for an operation. We're told Manson refused the surgery, but on Thursday had a change of heat. Hours before the scheduled operation, doctors determined they couldn't put the 82-year-old under and operate because he was too weak ... so the surgery was scrubbed.

The parents of Kathryn Steinle, who was shot to death on a San Francisco pier in July 2015 by an immigrant with a record of deportations, can sue the federal government for negligence because a ranger allegedly left the gun used in the shooting in his unlocked car, a federal magistrate ruled Friday. U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero dismissed the parents’ claims against the city of San Francisco, which had released Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez from custody less than three months before the shooting without notifying immigration authorities. But Spero said the parents may be able to prove that the federal government...

An accomplished San Francisco comic book and nonfiction author, who has been published in Marvel and a slew of other publications, was arrested on suspicion of possessing more than 600 child pornography files and uploading the graphic videos to YouTube, police said Friday. Gerard Jones, 59, was arrested after a police investigation and ensuing search warrant at his residence in the 600 block of Long Bridge Street in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood turned up a host of electronic devices storing more than 600 images and videos depicting child pornography, police said. The uploaded YouTube videos depicted a child performing...

Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India is despicable enough when it’s done by profit-making companies such as Southern California Edison and Walt Disney Co. But the latest employer to try this stunt sets a new mark in what might be termed “job laundering.” It’s the University of California. Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That’s not a distinction UC should wear proudly. UC is training software engineers at the...

A 57-year-old convicted killer serving a life sentence in California became the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery, the prisoner’s attorneys confirmed Friday. California prison officials agreed in August 2015 to pay for the surgery for Shiloh Heavenly Quine, who was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery for ransom and has no possibility of parole.

Santa Monica topped notoriously expensive San Francisco and New York City to claim the highest rent prices in America according to a report from rental website Apartment Guide. The coastal city led all other markets with average rent prices of $4,799 for a one-bedroom unit, with Venice not far behind at No. 5 with mean prices around $3,923. Both topped San Francisco, which came in at No. 6 with average rents of $3,880. New York City took second place with mean rents at $4,563, followed by nearby Long Beach, New York, and Great Neck, New York, at Nos. 3 and...

Last week I wandered into the Church of Scientology in Pasadena, California, and what happened during my visit made me afraid for the church's members. While shopping along Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena last week, my friend and I stopped into the Church of Scientology to take a free personality test that was advertised on an A-frame chalkboard sign just outside. As a Christian, I wasn’t really searching for guidance or salvation, but I wanted to hear the Church of Scientology’s elevator pitch. I wanted to know what they said to make people fork over massive amounts of money,...

San Diego, Calif., Jan 5, 2017 / 12:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- January 21. That’s the date when Californians will come together at three events across the state for pro-life advocacy and encouragement. San Diego will host its Fifth Annual Walk for Life in the historic Balboa Park at 6th and Laurel at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 21. The event theme is “Real People, Real Stories.”

A Republican congressman took matters into his own hands Friday and personally removed a painting depicting police officers as pigs that a colleague had allowed to be displayed at the U.S. Capitol complex. “I was angry,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FoxNews.com. “I’ve seen the press [reporting] on this for about a week or so. … I’m in the Marine Corps. If you want it done, just call us.”

Rising housing costs in Colorado are making it hard for teachers to stay in the area, so officials are moving in to help. As Colorado’s housing costs skyrocket, a growing number of school districts, local leaders, and lawmakers are taking steps to make housing more affordable for teachers and staff. For years, resort communities like Aspen, Colorado, and a rural district in the state’s Eastern Plains have leased housing to employees at below-market rates. More recently, subsidized housing for educators has cropped up in pricey urban areas such as San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore. But lately, Colorado districts big and...

A Mexican woman has pleaded guilty to bribing a U.S. border inspector in San Diego with cash and sexual favors for allowing people to enter the country illegally. Miriam Juarez’s plea agreement, disclosed Thursday in federal court, says she helped smuggle at least 10 people in cars from November 2015 to September 2016 at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, charging them $15,000 each. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Jose Luis Cota has pleaded not guilty to charges of smuggling and receiving bribes. …

ierra travelers trapped by back-to-back storms that dropped more than 2 feet of snow have a brief window to pass before the arrival of a weather system Saturday so wet forecasters are calling it an "atmospheric river." Up to 12 inches of rain below 8,500 feet is expected, and massive amounts of snow — up to 6 feet — above that elevation. A fifth, colder storm two days behind will drop yet more heavy snow. “It’s a once-in-10-year event,” said Zach Tolby, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno. “It’s the strongest storm we’ve seen in a long...

You’ve got to hand it to the Dem-controlled California state legislature: When you’re seeking ways to fight back against people who are insisting that federal laws should apply to everyone, look no further than the former chief law enforcement officer in the land under Barack Obama who was found in contempt of Congress: The California Legislature hired former Attorney General Eric Holder as it prepares for expected battles with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Numerous cities in the state are sanctuary cities, and Democrats have been gearing up to battle Trump’s immigration policies that would...

Coastal elites set rules for others, exempt themselves, and tolerate rampant lawlessness from illegal aliens.

Hollywood celebrities never really have had trouble telling the nation what they want to happen. They told voters to vote for Hillary Clinton before the election, and when she lost, a team of mostly B- or C-list names insisted they wanted at least 37 Republican electors to be turncoats to their party and vote for someone other than Donald Trump. Their failed effort, had it succeeded, would have accomplished nothing anyway, since the election, if Trump had not gotten the 270 Electoral College votes needed, would have ended up before the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives where he and Hillary...

California lawmakers already are preparing for a legal brawl with the Donald Trump administration – and they’ve got President Obama’s former top attorney in their corner. Top state Democratic lawmakers announced Wednesday that former Attorney General Eric Holder has been tapped as outside counsel to advise the Legislature on potential challenges with the Trump government. He will lead a team from the Covington & Burling law firm, where he’s been working since leaving the Obama administration in 2015. “With the upcoming change in administrations, we expect that there will be extraordinary challenges for California in the uncertain times ahead,” California...

Mother Jones writes, "It's not easy to evict someone in California… Generally that's a good thing." But many people who read the article in which this claim appears may reach a different conclusion.Elizabeth Abel, an English professor at the University of California-Berkeley, rented her two-bedroom home to David Peritz, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Abel didn't bother to ask for references or do much research on her prospective tenant, according to Mother Jones: the fact that he was an academic was essentially good enough for her.Her trust was misplaced. Peritz failed to pay rent on time, and it...

Girding for four years of potential battles with President-elect Donald J. Trump, Democratic leaders of the California Legislature announced Wednesday that they had hired Eric H. Holder Jr., who was attorney general under President Obama, to represent them in any legal fights against the new Republican White House. The decision by the Legislature to retain Mr. Holder, who is now a prominent Washington lawyer, is the latest sign of the ideological battle that may play out over the next four years between this predominantly Democratic state and Washington. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for president, defeated Mr. Trump by more...

What makes the law-abiding leave California is not just the sanctimoniousness, the high taxes, or the criminality. It is always the insult added to injury. We suffer not only from the highest basket of income, sales, and gas taxes in the nation, but also from nearly the worst schools and infrastructure. We have the costliest entitlements and the most entitled. We have the largest number of billionaires and the largest number of impoverished, both in real numbers and as a percentage of the state population. In feral California, we suffer not just from too many and too few applications of...

One reason for the emergence of outsider Donald Trump is the old outrage that elites seldom experience the consequences of their own ideologically driven agendas. Hypocrisy, when coupled with sanctimoniousness, grates people like few other human transgressions: Barack Obama opposing charter schools for the inner city as he puts his own children in Washington’s toniest prep schools, or Bay Area greens suing to stop contracted irrigation water from Sierra reservoirs, even as they count on the Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy project to deliver crystal-clear mountain water to their San Francisco taps. The American progressive elite relies on its influence, education, money,...