Free Republic

"When you embrace somebody for the job, you really want to embrace a winner" Ouch. Willie Brown made Kamala, gave her positions, introduced her to donors and moved her through the political system. It probably helped that Kamala, unlikely presumably Gavin Newsom, was his ‘side piece’. Now with Kamala polling behind AOC in a hypothetical Dem presidential primary, Willie just dumped her. Politically at any rate.

Karen Bass will escape being asked under oath about her actions leading up to The Palisades Fire at the trial of the man accused of starting the blaze which destroyed the beachfront enclave and killed 12. The trial against Uber driver Jonathan Rinderknecht started Monday with jury deliberations, where Judge Anne Hwang read out the witness list including dozens of names. But the embattled Los Angeles mayor, who it currently in a tight reelection fight, was not mentioned. Prosecutors claim Rinderknecht ignited the most expensive wildfire in US history, killing 12 people, torching thousands of homes and causing $150 billion...

Nithya Raman even LOST her own district (CD-4) to Spencer Pratt and Karan Bass, but you expect us to believe she beat them BOTH by winning 40% of the vote in the rest of the city by mail-in ballots?

* Nithya Raman is now in second place in the mayor’s race, with 27.1% of the votes counted so far compared to 26.7% for Spencer Pratt. * Mail-in ballots will continue to be accepted through Tuesday, but analysts say the trend favors Raman moving into a Nov. 3 runoff with incumbent Karen Bass. Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman surged past reality television personality Spencer Pratt in the city’s mayoral primary election Sunday, capping off a five-day turnaround after she fell behind Pratt on election night. Raman now sits in second place with Pratt in third, according to the latest...

Karen Bass and Nithya Raman are now the projected winners in the primary for the Los Angeles mayoral race and will likely face each other in November’s runoff as reality television star Spencer Pratt falls to third place. Decision Desk HQ called the race for Nithya Raman to secure the number two spot behind incumbent Karen Bass on Sunday, with roughly 87 percent of the votes in. Bass earned 34.68 percent while Raman won 27.12 percent. Spencer Pratt earned 26.69 percent of the vote and had been in the lead ahead of Nithya Raman since election night; his lead over...

A recent report exposes the concerning ways in which the Chinese Communist Party has leveraged the University of California system to shape California’s climate and energy policies — prioritizing China’s strategic interests while undermining American economic independence, energy stability, and national security. Titled “Behind the Climate Curtain: China’s Hidden Role in California’s Energy Mandates and University Partnerships,” this report by Ian Oxnevad, senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars (NAS), examines how California’s aggressive climate agenda, facilitated through partnerships between the University of California (UC) and China’s Tsinghua University, has benefited Beijing’s economic and military ambitions at the expense...

3:06 Half a century after Steven Spielberg challenged audiences to think about what lies beyond the starry canopy that defines our universe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the director is again challenging accepted precepts of faith and singular belief in a supreme being. His new film Disclosure Day sees him revisit the possibility of aliens: “I absolutely think that they have been here, and they are here,” he outlined in an interview with CBS News. First he outlined the themes behind the $115 million creation and the answers it (possibly) posed to questions of life, faith and mortality.

The child was in Sacramento County’s child protection system at the time of his death CPS allowed weekend visits in Linda with an older sister, who has pet pit bulls Investigators say the boy was killed when his sister left him alone with her dogs

A McDonald’s manager in Yuba City was rushed to the ICU with horrific burns after a co-worker allegedly threw scorching hot oil on him following their shift. Jacob Smith, 20, suffered third-degree burns to his face, neck, hands and shoulders and is receiving specialized treatment at UC Davis Medical Center. Police said the attack happened May 30 when Smith’s co-worker, 23-year-old Jalani Bluett, is accused of attacking him. Following the incident, Bluett was reported missing before authorities located him days later and took him into custody, according to CBS News. Smith’s mother, Amber Smith, said her son, a manager at...

Donald Trump urged his followers to 'watch closely' and called the California elections system 'CROOKED' as Spencer Pratt fell to third place in the Los Angeles mayoral primary. The Hills star had seen his lead on socialist Nithya Raman shrink over the weekend during his quest to face incumbent Karen Bass for a runoff in November. Trump has made repeated allegations of election fraud. 'Has anybody been watching the CROOKED Election going on in California,' the President wrote on Truth Social Sunday night. 'Two great Republican Candidates are being cheated, and so is America, which if the Dumocrats are able...

New agreement could allow Arizona to access more Colorado River water by helping expand ocean desalination in Southern California. For years, Arizona has explored the possibility of turning seawater into drinking water as a way to help offset shortages on the Colorado River. Now, state water leaders say a new partnership with California could move that concept one step closer to reality. This week, Arizona signed a memorandum of understanding with California water agencies to explore a first-of-its-kind water exchange involving desalinated ocean water from Southern California. The agreement centers on the Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Carlsbad,...

Socialist Nithya Raman might be familiar with a phrase widely misattributed to Joseph Stalin: “It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.” Not much voting went on in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, so Stalin probably didn’t say that. But the point about counting the vote stands. On Sunday evening, Raman overtook challenger Spencer Pratt for second place in the race for LA mayor. The trend seems likely to continue. We would like to report the ballots counted thus far as a percentage of the total cast, but unfortunately, we cannot: ballots...

Texas has overtaken California in Fortune 500 companies for the first time, as firms continue to leave the Golden State’s increasingly unfriendly business environment.

The FBI arrested three men on Friday on charges of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS), according to a statement from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, and Bereen Dzayee, 25, were taken into custody following a complaint filed in the District of Kansas. They were accused of 'conspiring to provide material support to terrorism' after collectively giving over $2,000 in cryptocurrency to an individual believed to be a member of ISIS. The allegations in the complaint were found to be substantiated, and the funds were proven to have...

A 25-year-old man faces a felony charge after authorities say he managed to bypass airport gate agents and board a full United Airlines flight to Los Angeles using a fake boarding pass, triggering an explosives sweep that forced every passenger off the aircraft. Abdulrahman Oriyomi was arrested Friday morning and charged with felony impairing or interrupting the operation of a critical infrastructure facility. The charges stem from an incident last month at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

LOS ANGELES — The co-founder of Aspiration Partners, a Southern California-based, environmentally-conscious online bank, was sentenced on Monday to 14 years in federal prison for defrauding lenders and investors out of $248 million. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles rebuffed Joe Sanberg’s bid to be spared prison all together because of his past anti-poverty work and his purported good intentions in trying to save the struggling bank he helped set up in 2013. “The circumstances of this offense are among the worst I have encountered,” said Wilson, a Ronald Reagan appointee who has served more than 40 years...

California health officials discovered evidence of measles in routine wastewater testing as the state faces a sharp resurgence of the disease. The Merced County Department of Public Health reported the finding, and while no confirmed clinical cases have been identified in the county, officials said it could indicate undetected circulation. The state has confirmed infections climbing to 74 cases across seven counties, the highest annual total California has recorded in seven years. Health officials said the jump is already far above last year’s numbers, with just 25 cases reported in all of 2025, underscoring how quickly the virus has regained...

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said Friday it had opened “multiple election fraud investigations” related to California's elections and sent a prosecutor to the county's vote-counting center. The developments came a day after President Donald Trump made baseless claims of mass fraud in California's drawn-out vote count from Tuesday's primary. Late-tallied Democratic-leaning mail ballots were continuing to eat into the vote totals for the president's preferred candidates for governor and Los Angeles mayor. The announcement by U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Trump's appointee as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, and the visit to Los Angeles County's ballot...

On a leafy Connecticut road in the summer of 2024, would-be kidnappers pulled a couple from their Lamborghini SUV, beat them in broad daylight and threw them into a van, only to be arrested shortly thereafter as multiple witnesses, including a passing off-duty FBI agent, called police. The investigation would lead police to some sensational findings. The attack turned out to be linked to a $245 million Bitcoin heist the month before involving the couple’s son. And this week, a California cryptocurrency mogul who authorities say called himself “The Godfather” and had previously hired off-duty sheriff’s deputies to strongarm his...

Two California men have been charged over an ISIS terror plot to kill US Special Forces operatives with grenades and drones. Bereen Dzayee, 25, of Lakeside, near San Diego, and Elias Shamsaldeen, 21, of Porterville in Tulare County were arrested Friday alongside Bisaam Ghafoor, 21, from Leawood, Kansas. Prosecutors allege the three paid $2,000 to someone they thought was from the jihadi group to buy rocket-propelled grenades and UAVs for the attack. According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Kansas, the three men allegedly spent more than a year communicating about extremist plans, including discussions about leaving...