Free Republic

Kamala Harris’s memoir gives you little idea of what she believes. John Fetterman’s is better.Earlier this week everyone piled on congressional Democrats, or furiously defended them, over the government shutdown and its end. It was the longest in U.S. history, 43 days, and utterly pointless. When it was called I thought of Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News,” who asked, of a different predicament, “Does anybody ever win one of these things?” No, not the administration, not its opponents, not federal employees, not the country. Shutdowns are a trauma without meaning. All this had me thinking about an aspect of the...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is reportedly considering a run for California governor — a possible foil to frontrunner Katie Porter. Two anonymous sources close to the congressman told MSNBC that he has been considering a play for the Golden State governor’s mansion with a possible announcement as early as next week. “Swalwell declined to comment when reached by MSNBC, but a source close to the congressman, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the private discussions, said Swalwell allies had asked him to run ‘to fill a “fighter/protector” role’ in the mold of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom,” reported MSNBC. Should...

A Utah judge just handed Democrats a major win ahead of the 2026 midterms, tossing out a GOP-drawn congressional map and replacing it with one that carves out a new Democratic-leaning district in the deep-red state. Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled late Monday that the map approved by the Republican-controlled legislature “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.” The ruling wipes out the current lines, which gave the GOP control of all four congressional districts. The move marks the latest flashpoint in a coast-to-coast redistricting war, one pitting President Donald Trump and his Republican allies against Democrats fighting for control...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter announced she will run for the California State Senate in 2028. Christine Pelosi made the announcement amid reports that she could potentially run to replace her mother, who announced last week that she would retire in 2027 after more than 40 years in Washington. Instead, the younger Pelosi will run to replace State Senator Scott Wiener, who is running for Pelosi’s House seat. “We need leaders who advance our San Francisco values and build power for the people. And that’s the kind of representative I will be in the California State Senate,” Christine Pelosi,...

And deserves to get it good and hard.Last night was the (well, not mid-term elections — those are next year — “quarter-term” elections?) and the areas that thought that Kamala Harris was a damned fine pick for POTUS last cycle stayed Blue. That should not have been a big surprise to anyone with a licence to adult..In Newt Yack City, a CAIR1-funded communist Democratic Socialist is now mayor.Whee. As long-time readers of my little scribblings have probably already figured out, I doubt that Mamdani will be as bad as his detractors say; but I damned sure don’t think he’s going...

Zohran Mamdani’s incoming administration began taking shape on Wednesday as the New York City mayor-elect announced a transition team to help enact what he called the city’s most ambitious policy platform in a generation, vowing to get right to work when he takes office on 1 January. Speaking at a morning press conference in Queens, the 34-year-old democratic socialist revealed an all-female transition team led by Elana Leopold as executive director. It also includes co-chairs Maria Torres-Springer, the former first deputy mayor; Lina Khan, the former federal trade commission chair; the United Way’s president and CEO, Grace Bonilla; and the...

California Republicans aren’t taking Tuesday’s landslide victory for redistricting sitting down, instead announcing the morning after the statewide special election that they have filed a federal lawsuit to challenge Proposition 50. Attorneys for the plaintiffs alleged the ballot measure violates the 14th and 15th amendments by unconstitutionally gerrymandering congressional districts to favor one race. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has in the past permitted gerrymandered maps in limited instances to protect minority voters under the Voting Rights Act, the attorneys said there was no proof that gerrymandering to favor Hispanics, in the case of Proposition 50, was necessary. Aside from...

Zohran Mamdani will be the unlikeliest mayor in New York City history. A 34-year-old backbench state assemblyman and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Mamdani ran on the promise of affordability and was declared the winner not long after polls closed tonight. On his path to victory, he thrilled young voters in a way that few Democrats have in years. But perhaps no one was more delighted by his election than President Donald Trump. Mamdani’s victory was his second decisive win over former Governor Andrew Cuomo, whom he defeated in the Democratic primary in June. (The current mayor, Eric Adams, skipped the primary,...

Six years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld highly partisan state election maps in North Carolina and Maryland — ruling that federal courts cannot block states from drawing up maps that favor one party over the other — one of the court’s liberal justices issued a warning.“If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent.Kagan argued that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland — the two examples before the court — had rigged elections in a way that “deprived citizens of the most...

'You can't just destroy small communities along the way'An impassioned and oftentimes angry cohort from a small California city turned up ready for a fight this week in opposition to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s proposal to bisect the town. On Monday, residents of Shafter, a rural town of 22,000 just about 20 miles northwest of Bakersfield, showed up en masse to provide almost two hours of unanimous testimony opposing the plan to their city council. Individual pleas from community members often began calmly and then crescendoed into yelling (or even escalated to holding back tears) following a presentation by...

During an interview with CNN aired on Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Story Is,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said that New York City mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) isn’t bad for the Democratic Party and responded to a question on if democratic socialism belongs in the Democratic Party by saying the party needs to be a bigger tent and “you can disagree on certain issues. But when we fundamentally believe in the values of growth and inclusion and we believe in social justice, racial justice, economic justice, the things that bind us together, I think we’re all better...

New polling, conducted after videos of former Rep. Katie Porter‘s interactions with a journalist and a staffer went viral, shows the former congresswoman and Republican Steve Hilton at the front of the pack of contenders in the 2026 race for California governor. But it also shows many likely voters are still undecided. Hilton, a former Fox News host who got his start in politics in the United Kingdom, led the new Emerson College poll with 16%. Porter, who served three terms in Congress representing an Orange County district before mounting an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate last year, was nearly...

During his first month in office, Mayor Daniel Lurie achieved something remarkable: He received near-unanimous approval from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to make himself more powerful. The board voted to broaden Lurie’s power to dole out contracts related to homelessness, mental health and drug abuse, and to reduce its own control over the process. In interviews with over a dozen people who work in city politics, most agreed that the new administration is a sea change from former Mayor London Breed’s way of doing things, which was marked by interdepartmental animosity, bad blood with supervisors, and corruption. “There’s a...

As mail-in ballots began arriving for California's redistricting plan, voters in some counties have found a strange feature in their ballot envelopes: A hole that shows if they voted "no." Check it out: VIDEO AT LINK............. And lest anyone think this is just a bunch of conspiracy theorists overreacting, the Los Angeles Times addressed the issue with a statement from the California Secretary of State. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media claiming that mail-in ballots for the state's Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how...

Gov. Kathy Hochul embraced mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani Tuesday — calling him “eminently reasonable” and claiming they’ll find a way to cover the tab for his socialist dreams without raising taxes. Hochul offered her comrade in the Big Apple mayor’s race a political lifeline during a news conference in Queens, telling reporters the pair would somehow scrounge up funds for the Democratic nominee’s top agenda items, such as universal childcare. “I found him to be eminently rational and understands this is something that would take an act of the legislature and the governor to sign,” Hochul said when asked if...

As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday. “California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4.” The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the election. Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California...

Far-left Democrat Katie Porter, candidate for governor in California, is facing myriad obstacles of late, despite leading the polls against other challengers. One is the disastrous interview with CBS Los Angeles in which she crashed and burned like the Hindenburg. Another is leaked video of the deranged F-bomb-laced tongue lashing she gave to a staffer. And third, her record as a domestic abuser has resurfaced. Years ago, her ex-husband said in court filings, she regularly verbally abused him, and one awful night, dumped scalding mashed potatoes on his head. “Argumentative” ReporterThe latest trouble for Porter is the interview that quickly...

The Palisades Bowl mobile home park remains debris-covered, nine months after the fire and months after the neighboring park was cleaned FEMA denied cleanup services, arguing it couldn’t trust that the land owners, with a history of attempting to redevelop the park into something more lucrative, would let residents rebuild Former residents are running out of insurance money and aid to pay for temporary housing, still with no clear path home. As local and state leaders celebrate the fastest wildfire debris removal in modern American history, the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates — a rent-controlled, 170-unit enclave off Pacific...

A New York City man with nearly two dozen arrests is facing even more time behind bars for allegedly fatally striking a cancer survivor with his motorcycle last year, according to police. Timothy Bohler, 31, is accused of slamming into Lelawattie Narine, 52, with his Jiajue motorcycle in the Bronx at around 8:30 p.m. on March 22, 2024, the New York Daily News reported. The pair reportedly fell into the street, with Bohler abandoning his motorcycle and feeling the scene on foot. Narine, who was standing on a nearby street corner at the time of the collision, suffered a severe...

Experts worry about health, sustainability of non-stick pots and panss you’re pulling out pots and pans to cook Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, some culinary experts are warning Canadians about the pitfalls of a common, convenient tool you might be turning to: non-stick cookware. When she was just starting out in the industry, maintaining a food blog, Julia House spent hours researching the right tools to buy for her ever-growing kitchen, wanting to know which products would last, and which ones were safe. “The nature of non-stick pans is there isn't one on the market that will last forever, period. Full...