Free Republic

Top California lawmakers on Tuesday ordered the removal of a marble sculpture depicting explorer Christopher Columbus and his patron, Queen Isabella, from the Capitol Rotunda. The statue has been in the Capitol for more than a century. Top lawmakers called for its removal a day after a statue showing white settler John Sutter was taken down in front of the Sacramento hospital that bears his name.“Christopher Columbus is a deeply polarizing historical figure given the deadly impact his arrival in this hemisphere had on indigenous populations. The continued presence of this statue in California’s Capitol, where it has been since...

KTXL reports that a rally was held in Sacramento, California Wednesday by proponents of a bill that would create a one payer health care system. Participants included health care unions and patients. Dr. Paul Song told KTXL, “If we make the system more efficient by having one payer, we can save billions of billions of dollars a year. Plus, we don’t really need to put any more money in - the money is there.” Bill co-author Senator Toni Atkins of San Diego says Californians shouldn’t have Washington dictate how healthcare is provided to its citizens. She tells KTXL, now that Californians...

Lawmakers in the state of California are proposing a law that would require schools to portray lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals and those who have chosen other alternative sexual lifestyles as positive role models to children in all public schools there. "SB 48: The worst school sexual indoctrination ever" is how officials with the Campaign for Children and Families describe the proposal, SB 48, sponsored by state Sen. Leno. Openly homosexual, Leno boasts on his website of founding a business with his "life partner, Douglas Jackson," who later died of AIDS complications. That description as "worst" is considerable, considering the Campaign for...

SAN DIEGO – Downtown San Diego developer Doug Wilson threw a party so posh this summer that it violated state and local gift limits for the public officials who attended, barring five of them from working on his projects for a year. It was hardly the splash he wanted. San Diego City Councilman Jim Madaffer and four Centre City Development Corp. staff members, including President Nancy Graham, are disqualified from reviewing or recommending any of Wilson's projects until next summer. They, along with other public officials and hundreds of invitees, attended the lavish party Wilson threw in July for a...

Cigarette smoking would be banned at city beaches and parks under a measure tentatively approved Monday by the city council. Sponsors said the measure will reduce litter and allow beachgoers to avoid secondhand smoke. "To me, this is a quality-of-life issue for San Diego," said Councilman Jim Madaffer, a co-sponsor. "This is an issue that is about public health and safety." The council unanimously approved the ban. A second vote is required before the measure becomes law. San Diego, whose miles of beaches are a major tourist draw, joins a handful of other California cities that have similar bans, including...

8:10 p.m. March 8, 2005 SAN DIEGO – The San Diego City Council on Tuesday rejected a plan to transfer the property atop Mount Soledad, including its 43-foot-tall cross, to the federal government to be designated a national veterans memorial. The panel voted 5-3 not to transfer the property to the National Parks Service, a last-ditch effort proposed by two San Diego congressmen to stop the removal of the cross from Mount Soledad. Advertisement The cross was ordered moved after federal judges twice declared the sale of the city land to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association unconstitutional because it favored...