Free Republic

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is blaming Republicans after an illegal immigrant who was reportedly deported five times  was charged with murder in California. When asked by reporters about critics of President Obama’s immigration enforcement policies, Earnest insisted that it was actually Republicans who are fault for voting against the Gang Of Eight bill last year, pointing out that it contained funding to increase border security. “The fact is that the president has done everything within his power to make sure that we are focusing our law enforcement resources on criminals and those who pose a threat to public...

Is there such a thing as being too politically correct in San Francisco? Yes -- but a public official has to overreach drastically to hit that mark. Everett Middle School principal Lena Van Haren did just that when she chose to withhold the results of her school's Oct. 9 student council election because students had elected too many white kids. "It's not OK for a school that is really, really diverse to have the student representatives majority white," Van Haren told the San Francisco Chronicle's Jill Tucker as her decision made national news. On Monday, Van Haren finally released the...

A middle school principal in San Francisco has refused to release the results of a school election because of a lack of diversity among the winning candidates. Everett Middle School principal Lena Van Haren said in an email to parents sent Oct. 14 — four days after the student government election — that the results would be withheld because the winning candidates did not properly reflect the diversity at the school, according to KTVU-TV. Van Haren told the news station that her school’s population is 80 percent students of color and 20 percent white students — statistics the election results did...

The slogan to the Marin Convention and Visitors Bureau is "Marin: It's just a little out there." Their site also notes that "It's different here. And not by accident." One difference is that Marin is the culturally, pretty plain vanilla. It's probably not a shock that of all the pockets and regions in the Bay Area, Marin County is the least diverse of them all. Or translated differently, Marin has one of the highest percentage of Caucasians. While this is most likely a well known fact, The Bay Citizen last week confirmed this, in compiling the 10 Whitest Cities in...

Is the “green” movement too white? According to former Obama administration green jobs czar Van Jones, it is. Jones told the news site Grist that the environmental movement has a diversity problem. “The mainstream donors and environmental organizations could be strengthened just by recognizing the other ‘environmentalisms’ that are already existing and flourishing outside their purview,” Jones said. Historically, many environmental organizations have been mostly white, and organizations tying environmentalism to social justice received a much smaller amount of funding than mainstream groups. But Jones said that a movement that welcomed more diversity would flourish. “If you go to Detroit,...

The two remaining fugitives who escaped from an Orange County jail last week were arrested by San Francisco police, authorities said Saturday. The suspects were arrested at around 9 a.m. in the city's park district police area, according to San Francisco police officer Grace Gatpandan. Officials had said Friday that Hossein Nayeri, 37, and Jonathan Tieu, 20, were probably in the Bay Area and might be headed to Fresno. No details about the arrests were immediately available. The Orange County Sheriff's Department scheduled a press briefing for noon in Santa Ana. The location of the arrest was not provided. But...

After Brendan Eich resigned as CEO of the Mozilla Corporation amid controversy when it was revealed that he had given $1,000 to support a California ban on same-sex marriage, he set out to do again what he had done with Mozilla's Firefox browser: revolutionize the way people access the Internet.His newest venture is as bold as what he did when he co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He has started a new company that is producing a browser that promises to strike a balance between web-based advertising and privacy. Coming from anyone else, this promise...

San Francisco police officers are being asked to combat racism in the ranks and take a pledge to turn in colleagues displaying intolerant behavior, such as slurs and jokes targeting people of color, gays and women. The pledge is part of a broader public relations campaign by the embattled police department to repair frayed relations with minority neighborhoods and community activists. The campaign comes amid growing tensions between police and black communities that are shaking up departments across the country and have led to the dismissal of top brass in some cities, including Chicago. Politically progressive San Francisco is not...

A minimum wage of $12.55 an hour in Oakland, Calif., may be the culprit for a Wal-Mart store's closure. Wal-Mart announced Jan. 15 it will close 269 stores globally, including 154 locations in the United States-affecting about 10,000 associates across the nation... snip Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, has been leading statewide efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15. "This higher city minimum wage eliminated the jobs of the very workers advocates wanted to help," said James Sherk, a research fellow in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation... snip The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that most...

An electronic cigarette exploded in a 15-year-old Windsor boy’s mouth, causing him to lose about a half-dozen teeth, police and fire officials said. The explosion sent hot shards of the device scattering, with some still hot like embers on the floor when firefighters arrived after a 911 call came in just after 1 p.m. Jan. 17 at a home on Summer Rain Drive off Los Amigos Road, said Cyndi Foreman, a fire prevention specialist with the Central Fire Authority of Sonoma County. “His teeth literally fell out with braces on them,” Foreman said. “He had lacerations to his lip and...

Louisville, Ky. (WDRB) -- Gov. Matt Bevin (R) claimed Thursday that Planned Parenthood is performing illegal and unlicensed abortions in Kentucky. He spoke to reporters and photographers during an unrelated event in Louisville. "I've always been a very strongly unapologetic pro-life individual," Bevin said. "To that end, that has not changed. What I tell you is interesting, and this is just breaking news even today, is that Planned Parenthood is illegally performing abortions in Kentucky." He went on to say, "It's that brazen disregard for the law that is going to be hammered down. There is no tolerance whatsoever for...

Moderator Martha MacCallum twisted facts during the GOP undercard debate in Iowa when she turned to pro-life former Sen. Rick Santorum and asked, "Carly Fiorina was the only one of the GOP candidates to attend the March for Life in Washington last week. Where were you?" The premise of MacCallum's question was deceptive, at best. As Breitbart News reported, Fiorina was the only GOP presidential candidate invited to speak at the March for Life on January 22. The committee that organizes the march set the theme of "Pro-Life, Pro-Woman Go Hand-in-Hand" as a way to counter the "war on women"...

An hour after a Ted Cruz-supporting super political action committee announced it would give $1.5 million to any charity if Donald Trump met him for a one-on-one debate, fellow GOP candidate Carly Fiorina jumped in on the action. Upping the ante, I'm free tomorrow at 8pm, @realDonaldTrump. My campaign will give $2mm to veterans' cause to debate at Drake U. (2/2)-- Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) January 28, 2016 My campaign will also donate $1.5 million to veterans' cause to join debate Saturday in Sioux City, @tedcruz @realDonaldTrump (1/2)-- Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) January 28, 2016 The former Hewlett Packard CEO tweeted late...

On Jan. 14, the National Park Service announced that Yosemite's iconic Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel on March 1. A news release explained that because of a trademark dispute with outgoing concessionaire Delaware North of Buffalo, N.Y., the Wawona Hotel will become Big Trees Lodge and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village. People readily saw a case of corporate greed. At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum posted a blog with a photo of company executives and the heading: "Meet the corporate suits who claim to own the trademark to 'Yosemite National Park.'" The next day, Drum conceded...

The mysterious jihadi bride who helped her husband kill 14 and wound 21 in last week's terror attack in San Bernardino could get the unceremonious - and un-Islamic - funeral she deserves, as no Muslim leaders want anything to do with her, FoxNews.com has learned. The bullet-riddled body of Tashfeen Malik is still at the San Bernardino County morgue, along with that of her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook. But while his remains are expected to soon be released to his family, community and mosque leaders are treating her corpse like a hot potato. "No one wants to claim her and...

The Zika virus, a disease suspected of causing birth defects which spread across much of Latin America in 2015, has now reached the United States. A young girl who traveled from Los Angeles County to El Salvador was infected with the mosquito-transmitted disease, according to the local department of public health. The girl has now recovered, but it’s not the adults infected with the disease who are especially at risk—it’s the unborn. The Zika virus is linked to microcephaly, a birth defect where the infant is born with an abnormally small brain. The majority of children born with the disease...

ight Los Angeles police officers who mistakenly opened fire on Los Angeles Times newspaper delivery women thinking they were rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner in 2013 will not be criminally charged, the L.A. County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday. The officers opened fire in the predawn hours of Feb. 7, 2013, as Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, were slowly cruising though a Torrance neighborhood in a pickup truck delivering papers. Law enforcement officers around the region were on edge during the massive manhunt for Dorner, the ex-LAPD officer who sought vengeance against police officials he blamed for his firing....

Sheriff's officials in Orange County [California] on Wednesday were searching for an AR-15 patrol rifle that went missing after a deputy placed it on the trunk of his vehicle and drove away, authorities said. The deputy, assigned to the Aliso Viejo station, was preparing his equipment before his assigned shift began about 7 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the Orange County [California] Sheriff's Department. The rifle was described by officials as a black, semi-automatic, .223-caliber Colt AR-15 with a 20-inch barrel and serial No. A0091856. It was inside its black case with three loaded magazines when the deputy...

The family of a 51-year-old man who screamed 20 times that police were killing him has settled a wrongful-death lawsuit with the city of Oakland. The Oakland Tribune reports Wednesday that Hernan Jaramillo also wailed that he couldn't breathe repeatedly before he died in 2013. [...] An autopsy found the cause of death to be multiple drug intoxication associated with physical exertion. ...

(Read the bullet points from the bottom to the top to get the correct order of events and points as they were made in the conference call as made.--Swordmaker) MacDailyNews presents live notes from Apple's Q116 Conference Call with analysts starting at 5pm EDT/2pm PDT today.Apple will provide live audio streaming of its Q116 Results Conference Call using Apple's industry-leading QuickTime multimedia software.The live webcast will begin at 2pm PDT/ 5pm EDT today here.Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 first quarter ended December 26, 2015. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $75.9 billion and record quarterly...