Free Republic

Six years after California legalized marijuana, the bodies keep piling up. Earlier this year, six men were murdered in the Mojave Desert. Four of the men had been burned after being shot with rifles. In 2020, seven people were killed at an illegal pot operation in Riverside County.Violence like this was supposed to disappear after legalization. Legalization advocates argued that making the drug trade legal would end the grip of the cartels. Instead, the legal market has failed, and the cartels are taking over sizable parts of California and the rest of the country.California's legal drug revenues have fallen consistently,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday ruled against a California woman who said her rights were violated after federal officials refused to allow her husband into the country, in part, because of the way his tattoos were interpreted. The 6-3 decision along ideological lines found that citizens don’t necessarily have the right to participate in federal government decisions about whether immigrant spouse can legally live in the U.S. “While Congress has made it easier for spouses to immigrate... said Justice Amy Coney Barrett..it is a fallacy to leap from that premise to the conclusion that United States citizens...

ACalifornia Democrat held back tears earlier this month when a Republican lawmaker said it would be unfair to make Asians and Latinos pay slavery reparations to African-Americans. The exchange happened on June 11 during a meeting of the California Assembly Committee on Judiciary. The lawmakers were discussing SB 1331... ... Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez, a Republican from Santa Margarita... cited economists who analyzed the proposal from California's reparations task force and found it could cost $800 billion...."That's two and a half times the size of our entire state budget," she said. "To pay for that, you'd need a major tax hike...

Colorado Governor Gary Polis signed Senate Bill 24-068 on June 5 to expand their state assisted suicide law. Nearly every state that has legalized assisted suicide has expanded their law. Senate Bill 24-068 expanded the Colorado assisted suicide law by: allowing advanced practice registered nurses to approve and prescribe lethal poison, reducing the waiting period from 15 days to 7 days, allowing the doctor or advanced practice registered nurse to waive the waiting period if the person is near to death, Adding language specifying that if any end-of-life options conflict with requirements to receive federal money, the conflicting part is...

Six years after California legalized marijuana, the bodies keep piling up. Earlier this year, six men were murdered in the Mojave Desert. Four of the men had been burned after being shot with rifles. In 2020, seven people were killed at an illegal pot operation in Riverside County.Violence like this was supposed to disappear after legalization. ...California's legal drug revenues have fallen consistently, as have those in other legal drug states including Colorado, whose model helped sell the idea that drug money would fix everything.***Cartels and gang members dominate the business. And open borders allowed them to bring massive numbers...

The California Senate has approved a bill that would prohibit school districts from requiring school officials to share information about a student's sexual orientation and gender identity with the child's parent, drawing concerns from Christian and parental rights groups. On Monday, the Democrat-controlled California Senate passed Assembly Bill 1955 in a 29-8 vote. Support for the legislation fell along party lines, with all votes in favor of it coming from Democrats and all opposition coming from Republicans. The legislation includes a provision declaring that "[a]n employee or a contractor of a school district, county office of education, charter school, or...

Los Angeles just opened a state-of-the-art luxury hotel for the city’s homeless and, unlike voting, will require a photo ID to participate.On Wednesday, city officials opened the brand new 19-story residential high-rise with 278 units that cost as much to build as a five-star resort. To lease an apartment in the downtown luxury tower, however, homeless residents must provide their “photo identification, and social security card.” Repeat Los Angeles voters, however, don’t need any photo ID to turn in their ballots.To lease one of these apartments in the new homeless high rise, you have to show PHOTO ID and SOCIAL...

California is beyond saving ... California Supreme Court .. block an anti-tax initiative from appearing on the ballot. This initiative, known as the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, was backed by the business community and sought to make it more difficult to increase taxes in California. Among other things, it would have required the legislature to obtain voter approval for any new or increased state taxes. There's nothing groundbreaking about it, as voters in other states have used the ballot box to approve or deny tax initiatives before. But Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature were having none of...

A USC student whom police accused of fatally stabbing a man who had broken into a car on Greek Row will not be charged in the killing, prosecutors announced Thursday. Ivan Gallegos, 19, was being held on bail of $2 million after Los Angeles police say he and two others confronted Xavier Cerf, 27, as he was breaking into a car, and Gallegos pulled out a knife and fatally stabbed him. "After careful consideration and a thorough review of all available evidence, we have decided not to pursue charges against ... Gallegos. We believe that Mr. Gallegos’s actions were driven...

Senior Vice President at The Walt Disney Company details discriminatory hiring practices: "Nobody else is going to tell you this, but they're not considering any white males for the job," says Michael Giordano, a Vice President of Business affairs, "there’s no way we’re hiring a white male.” Giordano reveals Disney uses "code words and buzzwords" to avoid legal action and even mentions a candidate being rejected for not looking black enough. Giordano also admits Disney gives bonuses to executives for practicing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), agreeing that "diversity helps with financial incentives." Giordano further claims he’s been denied promotions...

A business-sponsored initiative that would have required voter approval for any increase in state or local taxes or fees must be removed from the November ballot because it is so far-reaching that it would be a “revision” of the state Constitution, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday. “The measure would fundamentally restructure the most basic of governmental powers,” the power of state and local lawmakers to raise taxes to fund the government, Justice Goodwin Liu wrote in the 7-0 ruling. The court granted a request by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators to remove the measure from the ballot....

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- A home owned by Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was raided by the FBI Thursday morning, a source tells ABC7 News. A neighbor confirmed to ABC7 News that the FBI was in the Lincoln Highlands neighborhood in the Oakland Hills. Security footage from another neighbor shows the FBI on the property. The FBI provided this statement Thursday morning: "The FBI is conducting court authorized law enforcement activity on Maiden Lane. We are unable to provide additional information at this time."

The Shasta Indian Nation will be returned 2,820 acres of ancestral land in northwestern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday. The land return is the largest in California history and comes as a reconciliation effort to apologize to Native communities for historical injustices, the release said. Newsom's office said he discussed the land return with the Shasta Indian Nation earlier this month after visiting the Klamath River dam removal project, which is on ancestral lands near the California-Oregon border. The project is the largest dam removal and river restoration in the country intended to restore land and more than 300...

The California Senate has approved a bill that would ban school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child asks to go by a new pronoun at school California Senate approves ban on requiring schools to notify parents of child’s pronoun changeBy SOPHIE AUSTINAssociated Press/Report for AmericaThe Associated PressSACRAMENTO, Calif. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — School districts in California would be barred from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child asks to go by a new pronoun at school under a bill the state Legislature is weighing amid legal battles over the rights of parents and gender-nonconforming students....

On November 8, 2023, the Sierra County Sheriff’s deputies performed a welfare check on 71-year-old Patrice Miller at her home in Downieville, California. At the house rented by Miller, they found a gruesome scene. The door had been broken in, and there was bear scat on the porch. What was left of Miller’s body was inside. The bear had been feeding on it for several days. California has a rapidly growing bear population and rapidly increasing numbers of bear-human conflicts.Downieville is a small village at the confluence of the Yuba and North Downie rivers, 54 miles west of Reno, Nevada....

A crime-plagued California city may be one step closer to reversing its misfortunes after taking drastic action against its progressive mayor. Sheng Thao will face a historic recall election in November amid anger over her failure to get a grip on the situation in Oakland. The progressive Democrat lawmaker is the first mayor in the city's history to be up for recall, after a campaign to oust her gained more than 40,000 signatures.

A suspect arrested in relation to arson attacks at University of California, Berkeley is a 34-year-old PhD student who lived in his parents' million-dollar home and called the U.S. a "fascist hellhole." California and federal law enforcement say that 34-year-old Casey Goonan was arrested on Monday for allegedly committing four acts of arson at Berkeley during pro-Palestinian anti-Israel protests on campus. His attorney confirmed that officials had raided Goonan's parents' home in Pleasant Hill on Monday at about 10 a.m. A CalFire news release said that Goonan had been booked into the Alameda County jail on suspicion of arson and...

Los Angeles-based affiliates of the Sinaloa cartel, the organization once helmed by infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, have partnered with underground banks in China to launder more than $50 million, authorities say.

San Francisco has ranked as America's worst-run city, thanks to its looming $1.4 billion budget deficit and social problems from homelessness to crime and cash-strapped public schools. Researchers at WalletHub found that San Francisco was the worst-managed of all the 148 major cities assessed in its report, in a damning indictment of the administration of Mayor London Breed. The personal finance website ranked other big-name cities among the lowest-performing ten.

The mayoral debate in San Francisco, California, took a bizarre turn after Democrat Mayor London Breed asked her challenger to name three LGBTQ advisers to his campaign as well as three drag queens in the city or prove his loyalty to the cause. Breed pitched the question during Monday’s debate, putting the five candidates on the same stage. They were each given the opportunity to ask a fellow candidate a question, and Breed used the opportunity to ask challenger Mark Farrell to prove his loyalty to the LGBTQ2S+ community by naming three drag queens in the city. “I’d like to...