Free Republic

On February 9th, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments for two Second Amendment cases.  They were Jeff Silvester v. Kamala Harris, in which the District Court found that the California statute that required a waiting period for people to purchase a firearm, even though they already owned a gun and had passed a background check, was unconstitutional. The second case was Tracy Rifle & Pistol LLC. v. Harris, a case where California forbids shops selling guns to advertise handguns with the image of a handgun outside of their store. That the waiting period ban is...

Ever since the demographic composition of California was transformed by the infusion of millions of Hispanics and the driving out of middle- and upper-middle-class residents (of any race) through high taxes, the state has been a Democrat stronghold - a sure win for the Electoral College and Senate. Could that possibly change? The announced retirement of Senator Barbara Boxer has created an open seat, and there has been much glee among progressives over the prospect of the dimwitted but vicious Boxer being succeeded by the photogenic and much smarter attorney general of California, Kamala Harris, who has been dubbed "The...

If you were at Sleep Train Arena about 90 minutes before tipoff Monday night, you would have thought the Kings were handling major laundry duty. Before fans entered for the game against the Milwaukee Bucks, T-shirts that were placed on every seat to celebrate the Lunar New Year were being collected and put in large piles. The shirts had a monkey on the front because this is the year of the monkey. The shirts became an issue because they were to be distributed on the first day of Black History Month, when NBA players and coaches wear commemorative shirts.

Obama administration officials met in Los Angeles on Friday with Mayor Eric Garcetti, local nonprofits and business owners to discuss ways to encourage immigrants to become U.S. citizens. "To launch forward we must return to our core values as Americans and even in these tough times strive to embrace our role as a nation of immigrants, a nation of dreamers, a nation of hope," Garcetti said on Twitter about the meeting, which was closed to the public. The 4 1/2-hour meeting in City Hall was part of a multi-city tour by the White House's Task Force on New Americans, which...

Hanson blames the current state of affairs on the modern, elite liberals who controlled the levers of power in California throughout its decline. These "richerals" - a term he coined for rich, cool liberals who shelter themselves from the real world in a cocoon of wealth - reshaped the state to fit their vision of utopia. All the while they used their clout to escape the effect of the high taxes and regulations they imposed on others, namely the middle class and people who settled away from the coast. "California is run from a sort of Pacific Versailles, an isolated...

I drove up from Yuma to Las Vegas today, to go to the Industry day at the Range tomorrow.  It is nice to be one of the media invited to this event, which most of the industry from around the world uses to highlight and show off the latest in technological improvements and new products.  If I want to take my laptop, they will have media tents to do stories from, complete with wi-fi to blog directly to the net.  Pretty cool stuff. Always nice to run into professional colleagues as well.  I am looking forward to seeing Alan...

Students on Cabrillo College Nursing Program’s waiting list are postponing their careers for six years or more due to high demand and a new state-approved application called the multicriteria selection process. While aspiring nurses are no longer being added to Cabrillo’s waiting list, hundreds remain on it, each hoping to nab one of only 60 slots available every year.

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) says that although he is a gun owner himself and strongly believes in the Second Amendment, he also believes people on the no-fly list should be barred from purchasing guns. "I’m a gun owner. I strongly believe in the Second Amendment," Thompson said during an emotional press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday held by House and Senate Democrats to commemorate the third anniversary of the Newtown, Conn. shootings.

Amid a new round of debate over gun control, Californians have already bought a record number of firearms in 2015, including major spikes in sales on Black Friday and the days after the San Bernardino attacks, an analysis of new federal and state data show. Firearms purchases in California triggered 1.51 million federal background checks in the first 11 months of the year, breaking the previous annual record of 1.47 million set last year.

Isn’t it ironic that a Messianic Jew, Nicholas Thalasinos, was one of the people killed in the terrorist attack in San Bernardino.  Nicholas was a co-worker with the shooter, and had argued with him, saying that Islam is violent.  Maybe that is why he was killed, to show how non-violent Islam is.  He is reported to have been threatened with death just hours before the attack.  The NY post is reported to be using the fact that he called Islam violent a possible reason for the attack.  From facebook, Carl Ludwig: This literally makes me sick.Nicholas Thalasinos was a...

Maybe you're a liberal, reluctant to accept Charles Krauthammer's conclusion that President Obama's speech on terror tonight was a "complete failure." Fine. But there's no getting around Richard Engel, whom no one would accuse of conservatism. Speaking with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, NBC's chief foreign correspondent bleak assessment was that President Obama laid out "the same strategy that hasn't been working for last several years." After a point-by-point takedown of Obama's weak tea, Engel concluded "the course of treatment that he laid out for this sick patient with cancer with no immediate cure does not seem like an incredibly strong...

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Investigators on Thursday hunted for a motive in the backgrounds of a husband and wife suspected in a shooting rampage that left 14 dead and 17 others wounded here, while federal agents traced the origins of the four guns recovered from the suspects — at least two of them bought legally — and officers combed through a sprawling set of crime scenes for evidence. The suspects, identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27 — armed with .223-caliber assault rifles and semiautomatic handguns and wearing masks and body armor — are believed to have...

A Muslim U.S. citizen and his wife burst into his office holiday party with assault rifles and tactical clothing, massacred 14 and injured 17 before they were both shot dead in a police chase through suburban San Bernardino. Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, was at the celebration for local health officials but reportedly left angry before returning heavily armed with wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, and opening fire at the city's Inland Regional Center Wednesday morning. The two escaped the scene before being tracked by police to a home one city over. They sped away from the house in a black...

Farooq Saeed has been identified as the possible San Bernardino shooting suspect, who reports indicate walked into a medical facility for people with developmental disabilities and opened fire. The shooting took place at close to 11 a.m. in the 1300 block of South Waterman Avenue in the California city, taking place at a building identified as the Inland Regional Center. The facility is a state-run medical center that serves people with developmental disabilities, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services. Unconfirmed reports identified the suspect as Farooq Saeed, a name repeated on police scanners and reported...

Authorities are responding to a report of 20 victims in a shooting in San Bernardino on Wednesday. The incident was reported in the 1300 block of S. Waterman Avenue (map), according to the San Bernardino Fire Department. Story developing...

Workers represented by Los Angeles County's largest employee union voted to approve a tentative agreement with county management that would give them a 10% raise over three years. Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 57,000 county employees, including nurses, social workers and clerical workers, tallied ballots Thursday after a month long voting process. Apart from the pay increase, the new contract would make Cesar Chavez Day an official county holiday starting in 2017, provide as much as an additional week of annual vacation every year and put some temporary workers on a path to full-time jobs....

Former neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson is leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination among Colorado voters, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday which also finds that he is one of a number of Republicans who would soundly beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Centennial State in a general election match-up. In the race for the Republican nomination, the poll finds Carson leads in Colorado with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with 19 percent, business mogul Donald Trump with 17 percent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 14 percent, Carly Fiorina...

A whistleblower has emerged in the controversy of Governor Jerry Brown’s use of state oil experts to study his own family’s private land. Jennie Catalano, a mapping specialist for the California Department of Conservation, says she faced retaliation after complaining about being required to do personal work for Brown. It is illegal for politicians to use state resources for personal benefit. Brown says he used the same resources available to any Californian. The Associated Press confirmed the whistleblower complaint, which is separate from the original legal action by Kern County farmers alleging that Brown colluded with oil companies over the...

Donald Trump and Ben Carson remain the leaders in the Republican presidential field, both in California and nationally, but two freshman senators, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, have moved into a solid second tier, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows. Complete results of the poll, looking at voter attitudes one year ahead of the 2016 election, as well as the race on the Democratic side, will be released on Sunday. The poll, conducted online by SurveyMonkey, surveyed 2,009 voters in California and 3,035 nationwide. It has an error estimate of plus or minus 3...

A reclusive student shot dead by police after stabbing four people in a California university campus attack 'had far greater intentions to do damage', Merced County Sheriff said Wednesday. Faisal Mohammad, a freshman who majored in computer science and engineering at the University of California was carrying highly flammable petroleum jelly, ziptie handcuffs, night vision goggles, duct tape and a hammer in his backpack when he was shot in the back by cops. In reference to the petroleum jelly, Sheriff Vern Warnke said: 'He had poor man's C4' - C4 being the dense, putty-like explosive used widely by the military...