Free Republic

The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California said Friday that his office has "multiple fraud investigations underway" in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecutor, Bill Essayli, also said in the announcement that he's working with Harmeet Dhillon, U.S. assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, to conduct a comprehensive audit of the state's voter rolls. Essayli didn't comment on any specific investigation, but he said he'd "follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent." "The state has stonewalled every effort to verify...

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s lead over Nithya Raman continued to shrink Friday with the latest ballot drop. Councilwoman Raman scored a major boost, cutting Pratt’s lead by about 13,000 votes from Thursday’s drop. Mayor Karen Bass remained in first place at 35% of the vote, while Pratt held onto second with 28.4% of the vote, down from 29.35% on Thursday. Pratt added just 10,651 votes in the latest count. Raman, meanwhile, surged from 23.42% to 24.89%, picking up 23,115 votes. The latest results keep Raman within striking distance as hundreds of thousands of ballots remain uncounted. 71% of...

Former Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra is headed for a November showdown after making his way into the top tier of California’s gubernatorial primary, according to the Associated Press. The ex-Health and Human Services secretary made up significant ground on Republican frontrunner Steve Hilton as late-arriving ballots continued to be counted across the state. With more than 67% of expected ballots tallied, Hilton — the former Fox News host — fell behind with 26.3% of the vote, while Becerra held a razor-thin lead with 26.7% of the vote, according to AP. As of Friday afternoon, more than 24,000 votes separated...

California takes forever to count ballots. And there’s no excuse. No excuse for the delays, no excuse for the Election Night leads that are mysteriously reversed as the mail comes in. It doesn’t have to be this way. California’s “electile dysfunction” is not a necessary condition. It’s not about fairness, or access, or the size of the population. It’s a political choice. A lifetime ago, I was an election observer in a squatter camp in a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It was the year 2000, and South Africa was holding its first municipal elections....

California Democratic Congresswoman Judy Chu got into a vicious back-and-forth over the Iran war with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Thursday — but was caught flat-footed when asked who the president was during World War I. At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing to discuss the Trump administration’s fiscal policies, Chu tried to grill Bessent on a past remark by the Republican president, suggesting he wasn’t factoring in the financial situations of US citizens during negotiations to end the war. “Do you agree with President Trump that you also do not care about Americans’ financial situations?” Chu asked, while a...

A hardcore warrior against all criminal fraud in California is on the case to discover exactly what Democrats are doing in controversial primary elections that first trended in Republicans’ favor, but after days of “counting” are now phasing Republicans out. Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, confirmed on Friday that there is evidence of election fraud in California, and he is certainly investigating the ongoing primary counts for governor, Los Angeles mayor, and other key state and city positions. Yes. There is evidence of election fraud in California. Here’s a case we charged just...

A shifting economic landscape has culminated in Texas dethroning California as the nation’s premier hub for Fortune 500 companies. Data from the 2026 Fortune 500 list show Texas leading with 57 headquarters, compared with California’s 56, marking a reversal from two years ago, when California held the lead. Additionally, corporations in Texas generated $2.8 trillion in revenue, while those in California reported $2.7 trillion in revenue. “Texas is the undisputed headquarters of headquarters,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press release reacting to the news. “The world’s leading businesses invest with confidence in Texas because of our welcoming business...

Nobody believes that Karen Bass is indifferent to whether she faces Nithya Raman or Spencer Pratt as her opponent in November. Raman is a weak candidate, and every Democrat wants Spencer Pratt out of the race for obvious reasons, not the least of which is that anybody but a leftist on the ballot is an atrocity in their eyes. When Raman collapsed after the sole mayoral debate, Raman's polling and chances of victory, which were considered good, nosedived into single-digit territory. On election night, nobody was shocked that Pratt had closed the gap with Bass, just as nobody was surprised...

President Trump sounded the alarm on California on Thursday, telling reporters, “They’re rigging the election,” as counting continues across the state and key races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor remain undecided. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt had surged on election night, taking an early lead over Democratic Councilwoman Nithya Raman and trailing incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass by a slim margin. The two top vote-getters will advance to a runoff if no candidate receives over 50% of the vote. However, the late-arriving mail-in votes, which are expected to be roughly a third...

Nithya Raman continued to gain ground on Spencer Pratt in the latest vote tally released Thursday as the pair battle for second place in the race for mayor. Though the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office will continue counting ballots for the next two weeks, Mayor Karen Bass' comfortable lead led the Associated Press to conclude that the incumbent had secured her place in the November runoff on election night. Still to be determined is who will face off against Bass in November. The registrar's office released another round of ballot-count results on Thursday afternoon, which showed Bass with 35.08%...

A federal agent is alleging the San Diego Police Department is trying to cover up his confrontation with an off-duty officer at a Costco — who allegedly directed a racial slur at him and knocked him out. Immigration officer Chu Ding filed a lawsuit last week against the city and several officers, alleging they hushed up the 2024 incident. Surveillance video shows San Diego cop Jonathan Ferraro blocking Ding from leaving as he waited for a nearby parking spot. When Ding knocked on his window, a plain-clothes-wearing Ferraro allegedly got out of the car and called Ding a “Chinese piece...

4 people were shot during a graduation ceremony at Fairfield High School. 1 person was killed, police say. 3 of the shooting victims were hospitalized. Their conditions are not yet known. No suspect information is available. No one is in custody, according to police. The investigation is active.

Karell Reader’s heart sank when she saw acres of apple trees piled up on her neighbor’s Watsonville farm last month. Her neighbor used to sell apples to California cider empire S. Martinelli & Company, but he was forced to bulldoze dozens of apple trees after the company canceled his contracts. For farmers in Pajaro Valley, a fertile region between Monterey and Santa Cruz, growing and selling Newtown pippin apples to Martinelli’s had been a lifeline for over a century. But now, apple farmers like Reader’s neighbor are scrambling to find solutions after the 158-year-old company blindsided them by canceling their...

Monterey Park voters made history Tuesday by passing the first permanent ban on data centers nationwide. Voters are on track to overwhelmingly approve the ban, with 86% in favor according to the latest ballot count, leading organizers to claim victory (the official results won’t be certified until July 10). Where other jurisdictions have passed temporary measures to curb the controversial development of these massive server farms, Monterey Park voters’ decision in this election will keep developers at bay unless voters want to revisit the decision in a future election. “It really goes to show the power of community,” Monterey Park...

By now, everybody is familiar with how absurdly stacked the political system is in California. The "jungle primary" system was introduced to almost ensure that the top two candidates who make it onto the general election ballot are Democrats, and a while back, when it looked like two Republicans might achieve that this year, Governor Newsom assured Democrats that there was a "Break Glass in Case of Emergency" contingency to ensure that a Democrat would win the election anyway. When asked about the possibility of ending up with two Republican candidates for governor and no Democrats, Gavin Newsom responded:“We all...

Southern California-based Hasan Piker, the communist darling of left-wing livestreaming, resorted to gay insults Tuesday night after being upset his “friend” lost to a gay state senator. SNIP “You know what it is? I know what it is,” Piker responded. “F–ing car-reliant infrastructure. The more cars you have, the more chuddy the f-ing city is. That’s it. No public transit. No f–ing people living close to one another.” SNIP He then made a sudden switch from ranting on public transportation to the gay community in his critique of the West Coast city. “It’s just f–ing rich liberals who just want...

California election results are rolling in as voters wait for outcomes in the California governor's race and several key Bay Area races. A lot is at stake, and we are breaking everything down. As I of this writing…, Steve Hilton has 28% of the vote Xavier Becerra has 25% of the vote

San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener dominated early returns in the bitter showdown to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress, claiming victory in the primary contest. Wiener won 43.4% of votes in the first batch of returns posted Tuesday night — with Pelosi’s pick Connie Chan and lefty tech millionaire Saikat Chakrabarti trailing behind at 28.5% and 13.5%, respectively. “The people of San Francisco sent a very clear message … San Franciscans are ready for bold forward looking leadership, for real results,” Wiener said at an election night party near the Castro neighborhood. The top two vote getters will...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) Board of Directors today approved the launch of the initial phase of the nation’s largest track and systems installation efforts. An American-led consortium of Kiewit, Stacey Witbeck, and Herzog will install the track, overhead contact system, train control and communications infrastructure needed to transform the 119 miles of guideway completed in the Central Valley into an electrified high-speed rail system capable of speeds up to 220 mph.

Los Angeles voters are heading to the polls Tuesday to elect their next mayor, a race that has put all eyes on the nation's second-largest city. But if no one reaches more than 50% of the vote after all the ballots are counted, the top-two vote getters will head to a November runoff. Traders on prediction market platform Kalshi think the incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and insurgent former reality TV star Spencer Pratt are most likely to advance to the second round. Traders are fairly certain Bass will make it to the second round, giving her 93% odds. Bass has...