Free Republic

Amid renewed debate over gun control at home and tumult aplenty abroad, President Barack Obama arrives in the Bay Area on Friday to hold two fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee -- including one with a rap artist harboring his own White House aspirations. On Friday night, Obama will attend a reception at a private residence in San Francisco, and on Saturday morning he heads to San Francisco's Warfield Theater for an event featuring rapper Kanye West.

VISALIA, Calif. A man who says he was a cartel enforcer pleaded guilty Tuesday to nine counts of murder in California. Jose Manuel Martinez will be sentenced next month to life in prison without the possibility of parole under the terms of a plea deal. He also pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder of a 17-year-old. After being arrested in 2013, the 53-year-old Martinez opened up to investigators about his violent career with more than 30 killings.

SAN FRANCISCO — It wasn’t his first broken condom, so Rafael didn’t worry. But three weeks later, the man he’d met in a bar called to say that he had “probably been exposed” to H.I.V. Rafael, a muscular, affable 43-year-old, went to a clinic and within 45 minutes learned he was infected. Although it was already closing time, a counselor saw him immediately and offered him a doctor’s appointment the next day. At Ward 86, the famous H.I.V. unit at San Francisco General Hospital, the doctor handed him pills for five days and a prescription for more. Because he was...

The only gun store in San Francisco is shuttering for good, saying it can no longer operate in the city’s political climate of increased gun control regulations and vocal opposition to its business. “It’s with tremendous sadness and regret that I have to announce we are closing our shop,” High Bridge Arms manager Steve Alcairo announced in a Facebook post on Sept. 11. “It has been a long and difficult ride, but a great pleasure to be your last San Francisco gun shop.” Alcairo said the breaking point came this summer when a local politician proposed a law that would...

Nowhere has there been so much hand-wringing over a lack of “affordable housing” as among politicians and others in coastal California. And nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than those same politicians and their supporters. A recent survey showed that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was just over $3,500. Some people are paying $1,800 a month just to rent a bunk bed in a San Francisco apartment. It is not just in San Francisco that putting a roof over your head can take a big chunk out of your paycheck. The whole...

Next month will mark the end of an era in San Francisco as the city’s sole remaining gun shop closes its doors. High Bridge Arms has been in business at the same location since the 1950s, but with the next round of city regulations and restrictions on gun dealers (which means just High Bridge) the city fathers have found the straw required to break the camel’s back. It’s a glorious day for liberals. (Fox News) Business for the last gun shop in the city of 840,000 has been good, according to Alcairo, especially since the store, which caters to...

Every year San Francisco has something called the Folsom Street Fair, where gays do some very bizarre things. They dress like dogs, horses, and ponies, tie themselves up, get spanked, and more. This isn't a fringe movement – thousands of homosexual (mostly men) do this. If gay is now normal, then why do they do these very strange things? (This is from the San Francisco Chronicle, as mainstream as one can get in the City by the Bay.)

To the naked eye, San Francisco City Hall appears to be a hotbed of progressive experimentation. The Board of Supervisors has flirted with allowing 16-year-olds to vote in some city elections, opposed banning sex-selection abortions and unanimously approved the infamous "Due Process for All" ordinance, which directs local law enforcement not to honor federal immigration officials' detainer requests unless an inmate has a violent felony conviction in the past seven years. Take a closer look, however, and you see The Special City has a conservative side. Mayor Ed Lee is running for re-election, yet he faces no serious opposition. And...

Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration. “We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities,” wrote the mayors, all of whom are part of the Cities United for Immigration Action coalition. “Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.” “This is...

According to the broker, it’s the cheapest home on the market in San Francisco, and it’s an unlivable shack. It is a worn-down, decomposing wooden shack that was built in 1906, and the interior is unlivable in its current condition. The San Francisco house is also selling for $350,000. Located at 16 De Long Street in the (slightly) more affordable Outer Mission district, the house’s price is a reflection of the skyrocketing real estate market in San Francisco. Since 2012, the city has seen a 103% increase in median housing prices; this month, that figure stands at $1.35 million. According...

Now this is what we call a long-haul flight. Air India has recently proposed a new flight route linking the IT hotspots of Bengaluru and San Francisco, located a staggering 8,699 miles (14,000km) apart. If approved, this particular path would be the world's longest non-stop commercial route with an estimated flight time of between 17 to 18 hours.

Germany, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, has driven the debate on the handling of migrants in recent weeks, but there are signs that domestic tolerance is becoming stretched. At the same time some local governments are looking at measures which risk further anger, such as compulsory rental of private property for migrant housing. When Chancellor Merkel first announced that Germany would open its borders to welcome Syrian migrants, she enjoyed a degree of support from domestic and international media. Even from the outset Merkel’s move was not without its domestic critics. As Breitbart London previously reported, there were those among...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell Tuesday introduced an ordinance that would require firearms dealers to videotape all gun and ammunition sales and share ammunition sales data with police. The ordinance would require gun stores to keep all videos made of gun and ammunition sales for at least a year, and all records of ammunition sales for up to five years, according to Farrell.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Tuesday criticized San Francisco's policy of not cooperating fully with immigration officials, calling it counterproductive and unacceptable. The city's sanctuary policy has come under scrutiny since the shooting in July of Kate Steinle as she walked with her father and a family friend along the San Francisco waterfront. The shooting triggered a national debate over immigration after it was revealed the man charged in the killing, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had been deported five times to his native Mexico and was out on the streets after San Francisco officials disregarded a request from immigrations authorities...

As polls show Donald Trump performing better than ever with black voters, progressive rapper Azealia Banks is expressing support for Trump’s popular immigration policy because of the positive impact it could have on black Americans. “Do you think it’s bad that I sort of agree with [Trump’s] stance on immigration?” the rapper wrote on her Instagram account on September 7th. Banks, a black rapper from Harlem, made headlines in March of this year by declaring her hatred for “this country” and “white Americans.” Banks explained that her support for Trump’s immigration plan is based on the detrimental impact mass immigration...

Judicial Watch has been keeping tabs on the sanctuary city problem for a while now, with particular attention being paid to San Francisco. This week they released the results of an investigation into the crime rates in the City by the Bay over the period of time since the locals began offering safe harbor to illegal aliens and telling ICE to go pound sand if they want any criminal aliens held over. Through a series of FOIA requests they assembled the data from 2011 (when the unofficial policies were first going into effect) through the advent of “official” sanctuary...

Transgender inmates in San Francisco jail to be housed based on identity regardless of whether they have had surgery The San Francisco jail is taking steps to house female transgender inmates based on their gender identity by the end of the year, regardless if they have had gender reassignment surgery. The move is the beginning of a two-phase policy expansion, announced Thursday, that will ultimately house transgender women and men in the jail based on their preferred gender identity. The women will participate in classes, job training, physical recreation, and other programs in the women's jail during the day but...

Historically American has flown 757s and 767s on their routes to Hawaii. This August American mixed things up by starting to fly some of their brand new A321s on their routes from Los Angeles to Hawaii. These are different than the “premium” ones they fly between New York and Los Angeles/San Francisco. This started on August 18, when American launched twice daily A321 flights between Los Angeles and Honolulu. The number of A321 flights to Hawaii is continuing to grow, as American is launching flights on the A321 from Los Angeles to Kona, Kahului, and Lihue. The A321 is perfectly...

ACLU announces civil rights complaint filed against police department A civil rights complaint filed by a 23-year-old man against the San Francisco Police Department claims he was beaten by officers simply for being black. Travis Hall says three plainclothes officers assaulted him. Wednesday, he, his lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union went public with their accusations. “That night, the officers automatically assumed I was doing something wrong because I’m black,” Hall said. The San Francisco man described an encounter he says he had with three undercover officers in April. “Not all police do terrible things,” he said, “but...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The herd of $1 billion-plus startups -- the so-called "unicorns" -- is growing. But the workforces at these oversized startups are raising a question now familiar to Silicon Valley: do these mythical creatures only come white and male? A year ago, Rev. Jesse Jackson drew attention to Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity and spurred Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and many others to start issuing “diversity reports” to hold themselves accountable. But now he has a new target: the unicorns, which are delaying their IPOs and, in a sense, public scrutiny, as they look to establish markets around...