Free Republic

It’s official: Hispanics are now the largest ethnic group in California. About 15 million Hispanics lived in California on July 1, 2014, compared to roughly 14.9 million non-Hispanic whites, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released late last week. The California Department of Finance predicted in 2013 that Hispanics would outnumber whites in 2014; the census figures confirm that prediction.

A huge fault in the Earth's crust near Los Angeles is leaking helium, researchers have found. They say the unexpected find sheds new light on the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. It reveals the fault is far deeper than previously thought, and a quake would be far more devastating. It follows a report from the U.S. Geological Survey has warned the risk of 'the big one' hitting California has increased dramatically.

It's a musician's forum but they talk about current events and politics, without really talking about politics. They're discussing the current water shortage and are dancing around the real issues, viz. moonbeam inviting the entire third world into the state and the fact that the "environmentalists" (who I suspect of actually following some primitive stone aged religion attaching spiritual significance to a turtle) are determined to return civilization to wilderness. Unbelievable. Liberals are truly insane. Discussion here.

A Northern California woman who opted to drive an unfamiliar path to her parents’ house while in labor found herself alone during childbirth and fighting off bees shortly after, KCRA.com reported. Amber Pangborn, 35, told the news station that amidst a drive in Plumas County National Forest to her parents’ house on Thursday, she ended up giving birth alone to her daughter Marissa. Next, her cellphone died and her car ran out of gas.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday ended months of speculation by signing off on contentious legislation -- Senate Bill 277 -- that requires almost all California schoolchildren to by fully vaccinated in order to attend public or private school, regardless of their parents' personal or religious beliefs.

California has become the place where politicians go to rich people's homes to talk about the lives of less-fortunate people they rarely meet. What's notable is the fact that California, despite its huge number of electoral votes, is no longer in play politically in general elections. The state is widely considered to be a shoo-in for Democratic presidential candidates. But contenders from both parties continue to visit to raise money, which they spend on advertising and other campaign costs in battleground states. That’s why visits by presidential contenders to the Golden State tend to be private affairs rather than public...

WASHINGTON (June 30, 2015) — The Supreme Court will consider limiting the power of government employee unions to collect fees from non-members in a case that labor officials say could threaten membership and further weaken union clout. The justices said Tuesday they will hear an appeal from a group of California teachers who say it violates their First Amendment rights to have to pay any fees if they disagree with a union's positions and don't want to join it.

Tax reform isn’t exactly something we associate with California. With the highest income-tax rate in the nation (and the third-worst overall state business tax climate, per the Tax Foundation’s most recent rankings), the Golden State offers plenty of practical lessons in how not to run an economy. However, California State Controller Betty Yee recently suggested tax reform that shows a clear understanding of the peril facing California’s economy – and offers ideas that could restore energy and momentum to a sluggish state business climate. Yee, a Democrat, wants to broaden the state tax base. California bureaucrats have grown far too...

UC Santa Barbara geologist Jim Boles has found evidence of helium leakage from the Earth’s mantle along a 30-mile stretch of the Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. Using samples of casing gas from two dozen oil wells ranging from LA’s Westside to Newport Beach in Orange County, Boles discovered that more than one-third of the sites — some of the deepest ones — show evidence of high levels of helium-3 (3He).Considered primordial, 3He is a vestige of the Big Bang. Its only terrestrial source is the mantle. Leakage of 3He suggests that the Newport-Inglewood fault is deeper...

Los Angeles city council members are debating controversial new gun law changes aimed at locking up handguns when they're not in use. According to the Los Angeles Times, the proposal would require city residents to either lock up handguns not being used or apply trigger locks to them. The proposal was authored by Councilman Paul Krekorian and is meant to protect children from gun accidents. But the plan has faced resistance from the local police officers union – the Los Angeles Police Protective League. The proposed rules exempted active duty and reserve officers, but the union wants retired officers and...

Two days after the Supreme Court affirmed gay marriage as a fundamental right, New York City’s pride parade began, appropriately enough, with a wedding. Presiding over the same-sex ceremony, which took place in front of the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village on Sunday afternoon, was New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, according to Newsday. Cuomo, who noted he was officiating his first wedding ceremony, wed Human Rights Campaign staffer David Contreras Turley, 36, and UBS financial analyst Peter Thiede, 35, while a crowd of onlookers cheered and The Beatles’ “Love Is All You Need” played, Newsday reported. The Stonewall...

Now that you’ve created the next great app and your investment in your startup is worth a billion dollars, at least on paper, it’s time for a really difficult challenge: how to cash out without paying capital gains taxes anywhere in the world? With no U.S. or Puerto Rican tax on much investment income of new residents, U.S. citizens now can pay zero tax on capital gains. For several hundred affluent Americans over the last couple of years (including Toby Neugebauer, a key financier to Ted Cruz) the answer has been to establish a principal residence in Puerto Rico, and...

Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi sued the Obama administration Monday to stop a new regulation asserting federal authority over minor waterways like streams and wetlands. The rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the most controversial regulations from the Obama administration, redefining how the EPA enforces the water pollution protections of the Clean Water Act. In the lawsuit, filed in a Houston-based federal court, the states argue that the rule “is an unconstitutional and impermissible expansion of federal power over the states and their citizens and property owners.” The states’ attorneys general — all Republican — said the...

DENVER -- Ben Carson, the famed surgeon turned presidential candidate, rode his outsider message to victory on Sunday at the Western Conservative Summit straw poll sponsored by the Washington Examiner, edging out former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Taken together, the results point to the resonance of the anti-Washington message among conservative audiences, as all three candidates argued in different ways that they would shake up the DC status quo. Carson garnered 26 percent of the 871 votes cast; Fiorina got 23 percent; Walker was at 22 percent; and Ted Cruz, at 11 percent, was the...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

San Francisco will close borders to talented and artistic teens looking for a free and prestigious arts education at the city’s Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, a decision derided by many students, parents and teachers, yet unanimously approved by the school board Tuesday. The decision ends the long-standing practice of allowing transfer students from other school districts to audition and gain admission to the high school, considered among the region’s most elite public art schools. The new policy will apply to admission for fall 2016. Current out-of-town students would be allowed to complete high school there, as well as...

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered for gay pride parades, parties and celebrations around the world Sunday. Most events were peaceful, but in Istanbul, Turkish police fired water cannon and rubber pellets to disperse a crowd. It was not immediately clear why Turkish police stopped marchers in Istanbul, where gay pride parades have been held in previous years. Turkish media reported that police said people would not to be allowed to march this year. In New York, massive crowds gathered ahead of the city’s annual gay pride parade, which was first held in 1970. Organizers said they expected a record...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva don’t agree on much, but both worry California could take Arizona’s water. The conservative governor and the liberal congressman say Arizona must be vigilant to ensure its drought-parched neighbor doesn’t use federal action to grab some of Arizona’s Colorado River supply. Of particular concern is a California drought bill that’s been quietly negotiated for months in the U.S. Senate. “The secrecy generates concern and nervousness. Nobody I know in Arizona knows what’s in this bill at this point,” says Chuck Cullom, who manages Colorado River issues for the Central Arizona Project,...

National Organization for Marriage (NOM) president Brian Brown tells Breitbart News exclusively that he can’t support Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for president after they have both completely caved to the left on same-sex marriage. “We need bold leadership from the next President to fight back against an imperial judiciary,” Brown said in an email to Breitbart News.