Free Republic

President Donald Trump's administration has begun issuing massive fines to illegal immigrants who are refusing to leave the country, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prepares large-scale nationwide arrests and deportations.Illegal immigrants are being warned they will be fined nearly a half-million dollars for refusing to leave the U.S. after judges order their deportation.According to a Tuesday report by National Public Radio, Edith Espinal-Moreno, a Mexican illegal alien living in Ohio, has already received a fine of almost $498k for ignoring an October 2016 "removal order."

This would be so California-hilarious if it didn’t affect the health of millions of its citizens. Statistics show that after some years of improvement, mainly nationally, air in the country’s capital of smog, Los Angeles, is deteriorating again. Los Angeles has chronically been the worst place for childhood asthma too.

Weatherby ribbon-cutting cermonyWhen Weatherby Inc. opened its doors to their new headquarters in Sheridan, Wyoming on June 13, 2019, it ushered in a lot more than customers, employees and the media. The company welcomed something they haven’t felt in years – freedom.You see, when Weatherby packed up their people and gun-building business in Paso Robles, Calif., one thing they couldn’t bring with them was California’s support for the 2nd Amendment. It doesn’t exist. And, as Adam Weatherby discovered immediately, Wyoming doesn’t simply tolerate the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution, they support it openly and passionately. California’s distain for American’s constitutional...

Decades of emissions-cutting regulations under a bipartisan law — the 1970 Clean Air Act — have eased the choking pollution that once shrouded U.S. cities. Cleaner air has saved lives and strengthened the lungs of Los Angeles children. But now, air quality is slipping once again. Bad air days are ticking up across the nation, and emissions reductions are slowing. The most notable setback has been with ozone, the lung-damaging gas in smog that builds up in warm, sunny weather and triggers asthma attacks and other health problems that can be deadly. Health effects from ozone pollution have remained essentially...

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez was "full of indignation" when he saw the reports and heard from politicians about the deplorable and inhumane conditions for illegal immigrants at an El Paso County, Texas migrant detention center. But what he saw at the same facility toured by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. with a group of pastors was "drastically different." The president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the world's largest Hispanic Christian organization, and senior pastor of New Seasons Christian Worship Center in Sacramento shared his firsthand experience touring a migrant detention center during a press briefing Monday. “I read the reports,...

A new gas tax went into effect in California today which helped make California’s gas cost $1 more per gallon than the national average. From CNBC: California’s already-high gas prices jumped up again on July 1, with a new 5.6 cents per gallon gasoline tax hike. The increase brings the average price per gallon in California for regular gasoline to a national high of $3.755 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association, more than a dollar a gallon more than the national average of $2.717 per gallon.

The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, proudly announced Monday that she has instructed city sanitation workers to install a giant toilet handle in order to flush the city of feces and urine periodically. Rather than trying to keep up with the rapid accumulation of human waste in city streets, San Francisco Public Works employees will simply pull the giant toilet handle from time to time, causing billions of gallons of water to rush down alleys, sidewalks, and roads to keep things clean. Small urinal cakes are also being installed along city sidewalks. Breed assured concerned residents that this is...

[...] What do you think of when you hear the word “witch”? Pointy black hats? The Salem witch trials? The free-spirited members of the pagan religion Wicca? Today’s working witches, whose prominence is growing thanks to social media, primarily see themselves as healers. They help clients who are struggling to cope with life’s hurdles — heartache, aging, misogyny, work stress — and who find that more culturally accepted remedies, such as therapy and meditation, aren’t enough. They want to help you be your best possible self, or as the Oracle puts it, “My contribution is to … cultivate beauty and...

A federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment Thursday against Ismael Huazo-Jardinez, 33, a Mexican citizen residing in Yuba City, charging him with two counts of possessing a firearm while being an alien unlawfully in the United States, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott announced.

A California valedictorian used her high school commencement speech last week to accuse office staff of nearly making her lose out on scholarship money, a counselor of never having time for her and another teacher of being consistently drunk in class. The address has since gone viral. Nataly Buhr, a senior at San Ysidro High School in San Diego, began her address by thanking her parents, friends and a few select teachers for inspiring her to achieve success. She then continued to “thank” other school employees whom she said taught her valuable lessons by failing to do their own jobs...

Trump is known for calling others disrespectful names, especially women. It's your turn now. What name would you call him? ____

FULL TITLE: Rats at the police station, filth on L.A. streets — scenes from the collapse of a city that’s lost control The good news is that two trash-strewn downtown Los Angeles streets I wrote about last week were cleaned up by city work crews and have been kept that way, as of this writing. The bad news is that I didn’t have to travel far to find more streets just as badly fouled by filthy mounds of junk and stinking, rotting food. Then there was the news that the LAPD station on skid row was cited by the state...

A 102-year-old Los Angeles woman is reportedly being evicted from the apartment she has lived in for 30 years to make room for the landlord’s daughter. Thelma Smith received a 90-day eviction notice for her month-to-month lease in early March and is now relying on friends and relatives who live on the East Coast to help her find a new place to live, The Los Angeles Times reported. The Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance says that landlords in the county can evict tenants to accommodate a relative, but they must start with the most recent resident. Smith, however, lives in...

A loophole in California’s voting system allows voters to cast two ballots. One America’s Pearson Sharp explains how, despite knowing this, Secretary Alex Padilla refuses to take action to fix it. https://www.oann.com/watch-loophole-in-calif-voting-system-lets-voters-cast-2-ballots/

As an increasing number of residents are looking to leave high-tax Opens a New Window. states, such as California and New York, some of these state and local governments Opens a New Window. are not making the process easy. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced a number of reforms, including a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, which have caused Americans to look into establishing legal primary residences in states where they can limit their liabilities. But some states give taxpayers a hard time when they are trying to change their domicile – thereby establishing their permanent...

<p>A plan by California’s biggest utility to cut power on high-wind days during the onrushing wildfire season could plunge millions of residents into darkness. And the vast majority isn’t ready for it.</p> <p>The plan by PG&E Corp. comes after the bankrupt utility said a transmission line that snapped in windy weather probably started last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history. While the plan may end one problem, it creates another as Californians seek ways to deal with what some fear could be days and days of blackouts.</p>

In response to pending bill requiring Catholic priests to report child sex abuse learned about through the sacrament, priests insist on upholding sacred trust. California state Sen. Jerry Hill introduced a bill to the state Legislature on Feb. 20 that would require Catholic priests to report child sex abuse learned about in the confessional. The clergy and more than 40 other professions are already mandatory reporters there, but crimes disclosed during confession have been exempt. According to Hill, “The exemption for clergy only protects the abuser and places children at further risk.” The bill is currently awaiting a hearing. Although...

A little over a year ago I left one of the most beautiful places on Earth -- California -- because the Democrats running the state were even worse than the Democrats ruining various other states and municipalities throughout America. I wrote a farewell post here titled "Dear California: Call Me When the Commies Leave" in which I chronicled many of my problems with the Democratic supermajority in the California legislature. Many think I use the term "commie" flippantly, but I assure you that is not the case. When I call someone a commie, he or she is acting like a...

The Trump administration moved forward Thursday with its plan to open up more federal land in California’s Central Valley and Central Coast to oil and gas drilling, including fracking. The Bureau of Land Management Central Coast Office released new documents on its proposal for oil and gas leasing and development on the public land it administers. The field office’s boundaries stretch across 11 California counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Merced, Monterey, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Stanislaus. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that opposes the plan, estimates that the proposal could...

Two University of California system employees claim they are effectively being held "against their will" and forced to pay monthly union dues, despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer barring public-sector unions from requiring nonmembers to pay so-called agency fees without their consent. The June 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME sent shockwaves through organized labor, holding not only that public unions violated the First Amendment by taking money out of unwilling workers' paychecks to fund collective bargaining, but also that employees must "clearly and affirmatively consent" before any fees or dues are collected.