Free Republic

Several weeks ago, I flew to Texas to visit my friend Mollie, who had left California in 2022. Whenever I told someone I was going to Texas, their first question was, “Are you moving out of California?” How different from when I moved to California in 1977… “I’m so jealous!” That was the reaction of family and friends when my husband and I announced that, after one year of marriage, we were leaving New York. It was a difficult decision because I was close to my parents, particularly my mother. For us, the primary reason was the weather. We did...

Gabriel Shin described the attack at the hands of another San Francisco firefighter. "The whole time I was yelling at him, I said, 'Robert, stop, what's wrong with you, stop,' you know, and he just didn't stop. He was relentless." Shin is talking publicly for the first time about a brutal attack that he says ended his career. Another firefighter stands charged with beating him with a hydrant wrench. -snip Connected to this attack, Gabriel Shin has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that asks a basic question. Why was the victim forced out of the San Francisco Fire Department...

California is awash in water after record-breaking rains vanquished years of crippling drought. That sounds like great news for farmers. But Ron McIlroy, whose shop here sells equipment for plowing fields, knows otherwise. “I’ll be lucky if I survive this year,” he said. Illustrating how broken California’s vast water-delivery system is, many farmers in Central Valley, America’s fruit and vegetable basket, will get just 40% of the federal water they are supposed to this year. Why? Endangered fish. The pumps that transport water from wet Northern California to the semiarid south have been drastically slowed to protect threatened migrating smelt,...

While questions remain surrounding Oakland’s landmark sale of its undivided half of the Coliseum property to an all-Black private development group a little over two weeks ago, not just the stadium and arena are waiting for the Athletics to make a decision. The state of uncertainty is also affecting one of the most vital pieces surrounding the site: the Coliseum BART Station. BART director Robert Raburn, whose jurisdiction includes the Coliseum Station, is one of many public officials in Oakland who are quite optimistic about what the African American Sports and Entertainment Group wants to do with the Coliseum site....

Earlier today, I wrote about why Jillian Michaels fled California--it has been taken over by woke fanatics and is becoming unlivable and even "demonic." Well, here's a perfect example of just how stupid, even ridiculous, the state has become. BREAKING: LA City Council members have removed "No U-Turn" traffic signs in a gay neighborhood.They say the signs were homophobic.No, this is not satire. pic.twitter.com/yadflyo588— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 14, 2024In their ever-expanding efforts to wipe out all vestiges of common sense, Los Angeles is removing 'No U-Turn" signs from a gay neighborhood because, supposedly, they were put up to deter...

As homicides and robberies continue to rise, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon has created a backlog of 15,000 unfiled criminal cases, leading to concerns that unprosecuted criminals in the zero-bail county are able to stay on the streets and keep committing new crimes without any consequences. While LAPD did not respond to a public records request on updated crime data by the time of publication as the department adopts a new crime reporting system, a LAPD public information officer told The Center Square there were 438 gunshot victims and homicides are up 11%, robberies up 17.6%, motor vehicle theft...

Daniel Alman from Squirrel Hill @DanielAlmanPGH By not arresting anyone, #KarenBass, #GeorgeGascón, and #GavinNewsom are sending a message that it's OK to trap people inside a building, assault people, and damage property. https://yahoo.com/news/pro-palestinian-protesters-over-cal-140532316.html #Palestinians #Jews #Antisemitism #Israel #CalState #CalStateLA 12:43 PM · Jun 14, 2024

The Stanford Internet Observatory, a small but prominent research group studying abuse on social media platforms, looks to be in crisis, according to a report by Platformer. Some key staff have departed recently, including founding director Alex Stamos and research director Renée DiResta, Platformer reports. A handful of staff have left recently after not having their contracts renewed, and other members have been told to look for other jobs. Platformer describes the turmoil as a “dismantling” of the research group. Stanford Internet Observatory research centers on some of the most pressing types of abuse online, including threats to democracy and...

Wells Fargo, the San Francisco-based banking giant, has fired a small group of employees who allegedly tampered with their computers to fake the appearance of working. The company’s St. Louis-based subsidiary, Wells Fargo Clearing Services, filed five disclosures with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority saying that it had fired workers in early May. Each disclosure said the worker was “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work.” Bloomberg, which first reported the firings on Thursday, wrote that “more than a dozen” employees were fired from Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management arm. SFGATE...

Surveillance cameras at a county jail in San Bernardino County captured an inmate armed with a homemade metal knife launching out of a cell and attempting to stab a deputy. The violence unfolded at around 2:45 p.m. on June 11 at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, according to a news release from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The inmate, 25-year-old Christopher Lommie Jackson, who has been in custody since 2019 on numerous violent charges, including the alleged murder of 51-year-old Subhi Baghdadi, 51, of Anaheim, had attempted to stab another inmate, prompting a response from jail-assigned...

School districts in California would be barred from forcing 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. The state Senate approved the proposal Thursday, which would ban school districts from passing or enforcing policies requiring school staff to disclose a student's gender identity or sexual orientation to anyone else without the child's permission, with some exceptions. The goal is to protect students whose safety could be threatened if they live in unwelcoming households.

First Lady Jill Biden is set to arrive Thursday evening in the Bay Area to attend a campaign fundraiser, according to the White House. Biden is expected to fly in from a political event in Minnesota and will arrive at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View. On Friday at 12:45 p.m., she will visit and talk at a political finance event in Los Gatos before going to Reno, Nevada, for another event later in the day, according to the White House. It is the second time that the first lady has been in the Bay Area in as many months...

If you or any of your friends have gotten sick with COVID-19 recently, you’re not the only ones: Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California. In an email to SFGATE, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford, said that over the past 21 days “consistently high concentrations” of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in wastewater samples collected across San Francisco. “Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations...

Having laid relatively low in recent weeks, America's pro-terrorism contingent is back with a vengeance -- seemingly energized in opposition to Israel's successful hostage rescue mission over the weekend. Perhaps that timing is a coincidence, but I doubt it. The Hamas mob's political allies and apologists often insist that it's unfair to frame their words, chants and actions as pro-Jew-murder, or even as expressions of anti-Semitism. Well, let's check in on what just happened in New York City, where Hamas supporters protested an exhibit dedicated to the victims of the Nova music festival, where terrorists from Gaza slaughtered hundreds of...

A 77-year-old Oakland man has been arrested after he shot and killed a suspected burglar. Police say two men and a woman pulled up outside the man's home in a stolen vehicle on Monday evening. One suspect was allegedly holding a crowbar as the three headed inside the man's home, as reported by KTVU. The homeowner, who has not been publicly named, apparently shot one of the men, the woman in the group told officials. He was pointing the gun at the woman when police arrived, per officials. A 77-year-old Oakland man has been arrested after he shot and killed...

A San Francisco Chronicle report claims that while Planned Parenthood was busy “publicly supporting state-level efforts to pass abortion shield laws that protect clinicians providing care to patients within their own state,” the corporation also “privately lobbied officials in California, New York and Massachusetts” against passing so-called telehealth abortion shield laws. The Chronicle reportedly received this information from “half a dozen people involved in the laws’ passage.” The paper claimed Planned Parenthood’s motive for the opposition was that the abortion corporation believed telehealth shield laws “could be risky for providers and damaging to efforts to protect existing abortion care.” The...

In Oakland, California, a startling incident unfolded as a 77-year-old homeowner found himself at the center of a controversial arrest after fatally shooting a robbery suspect. The homeowner, whose identity remains undisclosed, was taken into custody under suspicion of murder following the tragic event that transpired at 98th Avenue and Burr Street in East Oakland on Monday evening. Reports indicate that the homeowner encountered a harrowing situation when two men and a woman arrived at his property in a stolen Infiniti Q40. Eyewitnesses recall observing the trio trespass onto the premises, with one of the men wielding a crowbar. The...

The Los Angeles City Council officially terminated its vaccination mandate for municipal employees Monday... The council members voted to end the city’s vaccination mandate .. The decision was unanimous, with all present council members voting 13-0 to rescind the mandate, effective retroactively from June 2. This move aligns with actions taken by other Southern California cities and comes more than a year after the city lifted its coronavirus emergency declaration. The ordinance ends the vaccine requirement for current and future city employees and allows those fired or who resigned over the mandate to seek re-employment, ABC 7 reported. The council...

President Trump’s visit to Newport Beach, California on June 8, 2024, brought thousands of enthusiastic supporters to the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Jamboree Road near Balboa Island. The next day, mariners for Trump, their watercraft of all sizes festooned with flags and banners, sailed through Newport Harbor.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year agreed to a tax increase that aimed to do two things: Help balance a budget with a multibillion-dollar shortfall, and pay doctors more money to treat patients covered by Medicaid — the taxpayer-funded health insurance program for people with low incomes that now covers one out of every three people in the state. A year later, California is relying on this tax more than ever. Newsom raised it again in March to help cover another multibillion-dollar shortfall this year. And he's proposing to raise it a third time to generate even more money as...