Free Republic

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Ralphs and Food 4 Less, both owned by the parent company Kroger, announced Monday that they will be closing 25% of their stores in Long Beach after the city council passed an ordinance requiring companies with over 300 employees nationwide to pay employees an extra $4 per hour. "As a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass an ordinance mandating Extra Pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close long-struggling store locations in Long Beach," said a company spokesperson. "This misguided action by the Long Beach City Council...

Nearly two years after a motion to defund the Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore-led Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was rejected by messengers, a new report from a task force commissioned to study the denomination’s public policy arm has found it to be a major threat to the funding of the $15 billion Protestant Christian organization’s Cooperative Program. The ERLC, which currently has an operating budget of $4.3 million, is funded through the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which also provides funding for the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, and the six Southern Baptist seminaries in America — Southern, Southeastern,...

Hundreds of people serving on the Pentagon’s 42-civilian advisory boards were forced to resign on Tuesday upon the orders of Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The move effectively purged many Trump appointees who were put in place in the final days of the Trump administration. While the resignations were reportedly part of a broader review ordered by Austin, the Pentagon’s top spokesman did acknowledge that move was prompted by the 11th-hour appointments by Trump. “The Secretary was deeply concerned with the pace and the extent of recent changes to memberships of department advisory committees,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon’s...

The city of San Francisco plans to sue its school district to reopen on Wednesday, making it the first city in California to carry out such action. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, with the support of Mayor London Breed, will sue the San Francisco Board of Education and the San Francisco Unified School District for violating a state law requiring districts to enact a clear COVID-19 plan "to offer classroom-based instruction whenever possible," not one of San Francisco's 52,000 public school students has returned to in-person learning in nearly 11 months.

According to a report from The Hill, at least 30,000 registered Republicans have changed their voter registration since the beginning of the year. Most outlets are optimistically positioning these changes as a rejection of the party following the Capitol riots and as an actual sea change. This point of view is simplistic given the number of things that have happened since the election. Additionally, only a small fraction of those leaving the GOP is signing up to join the Democrats. And given there were 213,799,485 registered voters in 2020, these shifts do not even equate to a drop in the...

The effort to recall California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is growing, and his allies and Democrats are taking notice. This will be the sixth recall attempt against Newsom, now two years into his first term. But organizers and Republicans in the state say it's the most serious effort yet due to outrage over his COVID restrictions, slowdowns in vaccine distribution, mounting homelessness and unemployment fraud. "During moments of crisis, people need strong, solid leadership, and this governor does not offer that. And the people have lost confidence in his ability to lead," said the recall's founder Orrin Heatlie, a retired...

You silly person, you thought that since the kids were sitting at home, glued to their COVID Chromebooks for something like three hours a day that snow days would be a thing of the past.In fact, we were assured in September by no less an authority than the thought leaders over at The New York Times that snow days – days off school, whee! – were a thing of the past because no one would have to make a perilously slippery step into a brick-and-mortar school. No school buses or their charges inside would be harmed in the making of...

Backers of an effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom have raised more than $2.5 million, according to financial disclosures filed with the state through Tuesday. Political analysts say that’s approaching the minimum amount required to gather enough valid signatures to place the matter on the ballot. Recall proponents said the amount of money they have raised shows they have the momentum necessary for the 1.5 million valid signatures needed to get on the ballot. By the end of this week, they said, they will have mailed recall petitions to a total of 3.5 million households. About 200,000 volunteers are also...

Gov. Gavin Newsom has overturned a parole board decision and denied the release of a Highland man who was convicted in the horrific 1997 murder of his pregnant wife.Newsom, who had commuted the sentence of Rodney Patrick McNeal earlier last year, instead said he still poses a threat to society.

It is an absolute waste of time crafting more election laws for corrupt individuals to ignore, like they ignored in this last election. The ONLY way out of this mess is to arrest and convict all those who broke the EXISTING laws, and to apply the maximum sentences in each and every case! That will have a chilling effect on anyone contemplating such actions in future elections.

In what is a transparent act of virtue signaling, the Biden administration has taken to flying the LGBTQ pride flag over all US embassies around the world. Nominee for Secretary of State Antony "Winken" Blinken (Nodd) explained it this way: “We’ve seen violence directed against LGBTQI people around the world increase,” Blinken said. “And so, I think the United States playing the role that it should be playing in standing up for and defending the rights of LGBTQI people is something that the department is going to take on and take on immediately. Raising the pride flag is one way...

While the recall effort against California Governor Gavin Newsom has continued to pick up steam, a recent poll found his approval rating 28 percent higher than the approval rating received by former Governor Gray Davis, prior to his own recall. The poll, which was conducted by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), found 52 percent of likely voters in California saying they approve of the job Newsom is doing as governor, while 43 percent said they disapproved and five percent said they didn't know. The polls' findings come as the recall effort against Newsom continues to gain more...

New paper describes species of baleen whale in the Gulf of Mexico - Rice's whale For many decades Rice's whale was thought to be a subspecies of Bryde's whale Analysis finally confirms its identity - but its endangered status has not changed ====================================================== A species of baleen whale that is native to the Gulf of Mexico, called Rice's whale, is already threatened by extinction – even though it's only just been properly identified. US experts unravelled 'a complex species puzzle' with an analysis of a Rice's whale skull, which revealed key morphological differences compared with other baleen whale species. Rice's...

Sicknick died after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 against the mob that stormed the building and interrupted the electoral count after then-President Donald Trump urged supporters on the National Mall to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat. The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement that Sicknick, who died the next day, was injured “while physically engaging with protesters,” though a final cause of death has not yet been determined.

Liberals have realized that the massive support for Donald Trump and his views is not going away. As long as freedom of speech survives and distrust of the liberal media persists, Democrats are unable to capture control of the minds of the American people.First they wrongly impeached President Trump for a political speech, and now the Democrats are going full throttle to censor anyone who speaks out for ordinary Americans as Trump did.Newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is the latest target of this liberal censorship. Despite being sworn in less than merely a month ago, Greene is being...

This week, Seattle Public Schools (and other area schools) are teaching students in kindergarten to pick their gender, combat a so-called hetero-patriarchal society, and disrupt the nuclear family structure. The lessons are part of the Black Lives Matter at School movement.

Two young men grow up in the same neighborhood and spend four years together at the same high school taking the same classes from the same teachers and playing on the same winning football team. Both are good students and dedicated, hardworking athletes. But one is a journeyman offensive lineman, while the other is an all-state quarterback. In their senior year, they both decide they want to attend the same prestigious private university that plays in the Football Bowl Subdivision — and where the tuition and board and room exceed $60,000 per year. The university accepts them both. But the...

"The chances are you're gonna' get an enhanced protection..." Dr. Anthony Fauci says it’s “possible” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could recommend wearing two masks to stem the spread of COVID-19. Fauci has previously suggested wearing two masks was preferable to one – although he later walked that back a bit. But in an appearance on The Washington Post Live on Tuesday, Fauci was asked if the CDC would issue guidance for all Americans to wear two masks. “That’s possible,” said Fauci, an immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who served...

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine supported the closure of 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZіK TV channels. This was reported by the press service of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. "The United States supports Ukraine’s efforts yesterday to counter Russia’s malign influence, in line with Ukrainian law, in defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We must all work together to prevent disinformation from being deployed as a weapon in an information war against sovereign states," the message says. Related: ZIK TV channel website moved to new domain, previous one was simply taken away On February 2, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a...

I filed a police report a couple of weeks ago about a caller selling extended car warranties. Several months before I had received a notice from our Dept. Motor Vehicles that inquiries were made against the 2 vehicles parked in my driveway. So when the call came about extended warranty shortly thereafter, I thought it might be a scam and reported it. Three days ago I get a call from a local number about extending my car's warranty, ..., ... I really didn't hear what he was saying because suddenly my phone turned BlueTooth (BT) on, and I immediately set...