Free Republic

A tentative labor contract for California’s state craft and maintenance workers hikes costs to taxpayers more than any deal bargained by the union in at least 11 years, according to a new report by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The pact with International Union of Operating Engineers Bargaining Unit 12, adds a total $473 million over four years to the state’s pay and benefits costs, the analyst’s office estimates. The figure includes increased pension, health care and other costs for the roughly 11,000 employees in Bargaining Unit 12 from July 1, 2016 to July 1, 2019. In sum, the analyst...

On a cool spring day at the Capitol, Toni Atkins delivered a series of blows unlike anything the tobacco industry had ever felt in California. Then speaker of the Assembly, the San Diego Democrat had been a lame duck for the last six months since the house elected Anthony Rendon to replace her. It was a Thursday morning in March and her final session as speaker, a tenure that lasted just shy of a year and 10 months. In a series of quick votes, the Assembly passed six smoking bills, the most significant of which raised the age to buy...

Churches in California are officially subject to an onerous state regulation that requires them to pay for abortions, thanks to a ruling by the Obama administration. The troubling situation began in 2014 when the California Department of Managed Health Care reclassified abortion as a “basic health service” under the Affordable Care Act and ordered all insurance plans in the state to begin covering surgical abortions immediately. Even churches are not exempt from funding abortions. The churches filed a lawsuit against the regulation last October, and it has been moving through the courts. They also asked the Obama administration to uphold...

March for Environmental Hope A real thing, Jimmy. If truth is stranger than fiction, it should come as no surprise that Friday marks the start of the first-ever pro-nuclear power march — probably in world history — and it all starts in San Francisco. The March for Environmental Hope, a four-day trek from the City by the Bay to Sacramento, is being pitched as a family-friendly event — and in this case that means more than funnel cakes and bounce houses. Organizers are hoping to tug on the collective heart strings of America by making this about the children, as...

Now that many environmentalists and climate scientists have realized that nuclear energy is essential for addressing global warming, a coalition of environmental groups is sponsoring a multi-day March for Environmental Hope in California in support of nuclear power

If you’re wondering why Donald Trump is so popular… Republicans are sick of electing good conservatives, only to watch them cave to the bullying tactics of those so very tolerant and nice liberals. One by one, elected Republicans compromise away their principles to sit at the cool kid table. Paul Ryan used to be pretty cool. Speaker Paul Ryan is joining Apple’s Tim Cook for a fundraiser next week in California. A couple of days ago Cook said Apple will not be sending any money to the GOP convention because they do not agree with Donald Trump. I’m sure that...

The entire Los Angeles metropolitan area and most of Southern California can expect blackouts this summer. The power grid is under direct threat as a result of the unprecedented, but little reported, massive natural gas leaks at Alisco Canyon that was ongoing for four months as an intense summer heat wave sets in. According to Reuters: California will have its first test of plans to keep the lights on this summer… With record-setting heat and air conditioning demand expected in Southern California, the state’s power grid operator issued a so-called "flex alert," urging consumers to conserve energy to help prevent...

Sharon Tate's sister Debra has handed in a petition with 139,000 signatures on it to California governor Jerry Brown, appealing to him to intervene in the parole release of a Charles Manson follower. The actress was murdered by Manson's gang at the age of 26 in August 1969. Tate, who was eight months pregnant by film director husband Roman Polanski, was one of seven people killed in two separate massacres.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill to expand Obamacare to cover illegal immigrants, but now it’s up to the Obama administration to determine if the nation’s largest state will get an exemption related to a specific promise the president made when trying to sell the health care law. The Golden State will be asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for a “State Innovation Waiver” under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. This would allow illegal immigrants in the state to purchase private health insurance plans from the California exchange, Covered California,...

In a state ruled by a former Jesuit, perhaps we should not be shocked to find ourselves in the grip of an incipient state religion. Of course, this religion is not actually Christianity, or even anything close to the dogma of Catholicism, but something that increasingly resembles the former Soviet Union, or present-day Iran and Saudi Arabia, than the supposed world center of free, untrammeled expression. Two pieces of legislation introduced in the Legislature last session, but not yet enacted, show the power of the new religion. One is Senate Bill 1146, which seeks to limit the historically broad exemptions...

President Barack Obama used his visit to Yosemite National Park on Saturday to tout his administration’s environmental record and to warn Americans about the dangers of climate change — albeit with false information. “Fires are raging across the west right now … all while it’s still really early in the season,” he said in a speech at the park, according to the Los Angeles Times. Obama joins California Governor Jerry Brown in making a spurious connection between wildfires and climate change that scientists have long since rejected.

SACRAMENTO — When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium here the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels. Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language. “The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.” As the Democratic presidential primary...

California Gov. Jerry Brown has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president ahead of next week's California primary, giving the Democratic front-runner a major ally as the race tightens. Brown announced the endorsement Tuesday morning in a letter posted online, in which he called Clinton the only person who could beat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

SACRAMENTO – The latest round of gun-control bills speeding through the Legislature should offer a reality check to those of us who own firearms: Democratic leaders will never be satisfied closing the latest round of “loopholes.” Every year they push new rounds of “reasonable and common sense” gun laws, few of which seem reasonable given they target law-abiding owners. To many legislators, the Second Amendment is the real loophole. Most Register Opinion readers already know this, of course, but they might not understand some other dismal realities: Law enforcement is generally not on our side on this. For instance, Assemblyman...

Gov. Jerry Brown’s solution to California’s affordable housing crisis is to build, build, build, and not let local politics get in the way. Earlier this month, the governor introduced a bill under which proposed urban housing developments that meet local zoning requirements and reserve some portion of their units for low-income residents would be exempted from any additional environmental or local government review. The governor’s theory is that neighborhood opponents and other parochial interests have consistently blocked or downsized badly needed development projects, leading to a housing crisis in which California's major cities are increasingly unaffordable for most of its...

An angry anti-Israel mob at the University of California at Irvine chased a Jewish student into a building while chanting anti-Semitic epithets after she tried to attend a campus screening of an Israeli documentary last Wednesday, the Observer reported. Second-year Eliana Kopley was attempting to enter the showing of the Israeli documentary "Beneath the Helmet" about the IDF when a crowd of protesters physically obstructed her and chased her into an adjacent building. The angry mob proceeded to pound intimidatingly on the windows and doors while shouting "Long live the Intifada!" and "F**k Israel!" Kopley called the police, who escorted...

How is it that nearly fifteen (15) years after 9/11 none (ie ZERO) of the Islamic advisors to the United States government have shared with our leaders the Quranic concept of abrogation, the definition of “jihad” in sharia (Islamic Law), or the fact sharia obliges jihad until the entire world is under sharia? It is because sharia obliges Muslims to lie to non-Muslims when the goal is obligatory (eg Jihad), and makes it a capital crime for Muslims to teach other Muslims anything about Islam which is not a part of authoritative Islam. This means if American leadership wants to...

Pro-Palestinian activists turned violent last Wednesday night as they protested a pro-Israel movie screening at University of California, Irvine (UCI), and in the process hunted down a Jewish woman who was forced to hide and call for police rescue. At least 50 anti-Israel protesters from the Muslim Student Union and the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCI physically blocked the screening of “Beneath The Helmet,” a documentary about the IDF shown in an event hosted by Students Supporting Israel at UCI as part of a series of Peace Week events. The protesters blocked the exits to the...

The incredible journey of California's high speed rail took another hit this past week when authorities inked a contract revision pushing back the opening of the first segment of the line from 2018 to 2022. Project costs for this one, 119 mile stretch of track through the relatively empty Central Valley have topped $69 billion, with only a fraction of those funds appropriated. The high speed rail authority has only purchased half the land necessary to complete the first leg of the project and not a single foot of track has been laid. The feds are blaming opponents of the...

Misaligned mirrors are being blamed for a fire that broke out yesterday at the world’s largest solar power plant, leaving the high-tech facility crippled for the time being. It sounds like the plant’s workers suffered through a real hellscape, too. A small fire was reported yesterday morning at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in California, forcing a temporary shutdown of the facility. It’s now running at a third of its capacity (a second tower is down due to scheduled maintenance), and it’s not immediately clear when the damaged tower will restart. It’s also unclear how the incident will...