Free Republic

California is siccing its Environmental Protection Agency on property owners who have private water wells on their land and making them pay based on how much water volume they use, according to a new report. California Globe reported Wednesday that an anonymous tipster produced a letter signed by Natalie Stork, identified as chief of groundwater management program unit 1. The letter advised the San Diego-area resident that they would have to report the volume of well water they used and pay a fee per acre foot of groundwater extracted starting in February 2023.

Today, the “Big 3” Blue States, New York, California, and Illinois, all announced a State of Emergency to address the “Monkeypox Crisis”. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/news/gov-pritzker-monkeypox-virus-outbreak-illinois-public-health-emergency/ You’ll notice Newsome and CA are already mobilizing for mass vaccination, and trying to encourage the rest of the States to do the same. The vaccine and fear campaign is now in motion. Soon, the remaining states with Dem governors, will likely declare a State of Emergency as well. The Red States probably won’t play along, but this won’t stop the DNC from trying to justify a National State of Emergency and lockdowns. Is this based on...

The appearance of camouflage-clad militia members in the small Sierra foothills town of Mariposa as the Oak Fire raged nearby has sparked a furor in Mariposa County, with the local sheriff’s department praising the group for its help while some residents accused the militia of exploiting the disaster. The California State Militia 2nd Regiment — whose website features pictures of men in military fatigues, helmets and assault-style rifles preparing for “the unrest yet to come” — set up a mobile kitchen trailer from Saturday evening through Monday morning in the parking lot of a lumber store in Mariposa, just southwest...

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing California for states like Texas and Florida, but it's not always easy to adjust to life in an American state. Let's look at the 10 biggest adjustments fleeing Californians have to make in their new states: 1. Strange wet stuff falls from the sky once in a while. Try not to drive your car into a pole when this happens. Take a deep breath. You will get through it. 2. People don't say "The" in front of highway names. If you're driving on I-10 in Texas, you'll feel the urge to say "The...

A Supreme Court decision may force over 70,000 truck owner-operators in California to stop driving, creating another choke point in the already stressed West Coast logistics networks. The AB5 law restricts the use of independent contractors and will soon be enforced against the trucking industry after the court declined to hear their appeal. The California Trucking Association said in a statement that gasoline has been poured on the fire that is the ongoing supply chain crisis, and the decision by the Supreme Court could deny a judicial review of a lower court ruling. In an end-of-term orders list released in...

A plan to tax lithium, which is widely used in the production of electric vehicle batteries, has been approved in California as part of the state’s efforts to generate revenue for environmental remediation projects. The decision was pushed despite reservations from players in the battery industry, some of whom argued that a lithium tax would harm the sector. Two of California’s most notable lithium companies such as Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd and EnergySource Minerals LLC have suggested that the tax could scare off potential clients. The California lithium tax was approved by Governor Gavin Newsom as part of a must-pass...

The U.S. has become the world’s oil barrel of last resort, singlehandedly keeping prices in the energy market from exploding even higher by selling a large chunk of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Washington can’t use the reserve forever: It’s a finite stockpile fighting a potentially unlimited flow shortage. More worryingly, the U.S. is depleting its cache a lot faster than it looks. And that matters. The International Energy Agency earlier this week warned that “global oil supply may struggle to keep pace with demand next year.” The SPR may be the final cushion late this year and in 2023 to...

SAN FRANCISCO - A man who shot and killed a passenger on a San Francisco subway commuter train will be charged with gun crimes but not homicide in what was "clearly" a case of self-defense after he was attacked with a knife, his attorney said Monday. Javon Green, 26, will face charges of having a concealed weapon in a public place and having a loaded gun in a public place, both felonies that possibly could be reduced to misdemeanors, attorney Randy Knox told the San Francisco Chronicle. Green was scheduled for a court appearance on Tuesday. The San Francisco District...

Man Released from Jail Immediately Steals Truck Outside Police Department This California man managed to get arrested three times in three days... Here's a timeline of events: August 2, 2021, at 9:45 pm - Glendale Police arrested 23-year-old Kaelun Scharrer, for vehicle theft and possession of drug paraphernaliaAugust 3, 2021, at 9:30 am - Scharrer was arrested and booked for trespassingAugust 4, 2021, at 6 am - Immediately upon being released, he decides to steal a flatbed truckThis was all possible because of Los Angeles County’s “Zero-Dollar” bail schedule.

On April 5, 2022, the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network Open published a study attempting to find a reduction in firearms fatal and non-fatal injuries associated with the very aggressive implementation of a “Red Flag” law, also known as a gun violence restraining order or GVRO, in San Diego County, California. The results surprised and appear to have shocked them. No statistical association existed, although the data was the most comprehensive to date, and the study was designed to find such an association.No such association existed.The study was funded by various contributions from philanthropic and government sources....

All across California, residents are being told to scrimp and save water because of historic drought conditions. Meanwhile, state officials are dumping freshwater into the ocean while intentionally depriving rice farmers of the water they need to grow food. Colusa County in Northern California is the top producer of rice in the Sacramento Valley. The area generates more than 150,000 acres of rice in a normal year – but as you can probably tell by now, 2022 is anything but a normal year. Officials there say that only a fraction of the usual rice crop will be grown there this...

snip: ......"As California Governor Gavin Newsom’s incredible unpopularity with his constituents forced him to ease up on mask restrictions for the time being, eight highly controversial, draconian bills are being pushed in the State House by Democratic legislators. They include: SB 871 – would require all children 0-17 to get the COVID -19 vaccine to attend childcare or school potentially without FDA approval. That bill also takes away any personal or religious belief exemptions, SB 866 – would allow kids 12-17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine without parental consent, SB 1464 – would force law enforcement officials to enforce public...

It’s a scene (almost) straight from the book of Genesis, but with a few notable exceptions: The mother’s name is Penelope, not Sarah. Her husband is Alfred, not Abraham. And instead of baby Isaac, there’s Allie, Benjamin and Wyatt. After 69 years of marriage, Penelope and Alfred Cruz have stunned family, friends and the larger medical community by announcing the birth of a daughter and two sons. They were born by Caesarean section just after midnight Friday at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. “We’re absolutely thrilled!” said Penelope. “And maybe a little stunned, too,” admitted Alfred. The arrival of...

Chief Duane Yellow Feather Shepard, whose family are descendants of Charles and Willa Bruce, the couple whose land was seized in Manhattan Beach, said on Wednesday that he supported limiting reparations to descendants of slaves as the most appropriate way forward. The taskforce has not yet decided how residents would prove eligibility and what kind of reparations they could receive; the state would need to pass a new law to dole out compensation. Two million Black Californians are estimated to be descendants of slaves, out of 2.6m total Black residents in the state, the taskforce said in a meeting on...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Thursday voted to make abortions much cheaper for people on private health insurance plans, bringing California closer to becoming the fourth state in the country to ban insurance fees for the procedure. California already requires private health insurance plans to cover abortion services. But insurers are allowed to charge people things like co-pays and deductibles, which adds an average of $543 to the cost of a medication abortion and $887 to the cost of a procedural abortion. The Assembly approved a bill that would eliminate out-of-pocket costs for abortions on private health plans....

Republicans ostracized from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend in Orlando, Florida, are staging their own counterprogramming in Washington, D.C., this weekend. The Republicans opposed to former President Donald Trump are gathering for the Principles First summit Saturday and Sunday, and the speakers list includes anti-Trump Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., the two GOP members who are skirting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to join House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's partisan Jan. 6 Select Committee. "Principles First is excited to announce a two-day grassroots summit at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Feb....

SAN BRUNO, Calif. - A legally armed jewelry store owner in San Bruno thwarted a smash-and-grab robbery attempt by five men at his shop, authorities said. The incident happened Friday around 1:06 p.m. at Maaz Jewelers, which is located inside the Tanforan Mall, police said. Authorities said five men who appeared to be in their teens or early 20s approached the store and one of them entered with a crowbar. Store surveillance video shows the suspect using the crowbar to smash a jewelry display case when the owner, Usman Bhatti, comes up and tries to pull the suspect away. Officers...

The California Public Utilities Commission is poised to kill off much of the rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) industry in California, which will result in the use of more polluting natural gas and biomass electricity as well as dirty electricity imported from out of state. The use of the new dirty electricity will raise air pollution death rates in California above the 12,000 per year who perish in the state already. Most of these additional deaths will be in poor communities in the Los Angeles basin and Central Valley, where pollution levels are already the highest in the state. Roof PV...

California’s long-running descent into madness continues as its bizarre Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) now encourages public school students to pray to bloodthirsty Aztec deities. The California State Board of Education approved the almost 900-page ESMC in March 2021, saying teaching children about the systemic racism that supposedly plagues America has never been more urgent, as Fox News reported at the time. “The curriculum’s unequivocal promotion of five Aztec gods or deities through repetitive chanting and affirmation of their symbolic principles constitutes an unlawful government preference toward a particular religious practice,” Frank Xu, president of Californians for Equal Rights...

The Navy has a perplexing mystery on its hands. For several weeks in 2019, unknown objects stalked U.S. warships off the coast of southern California. While the bizarre "drone" encounters remain unsolved, the incidents occurred in an area with a long history of UFO sightings, including two of the most credible encounters on record. According to documents reviewed by The Drive, the first reports of unidentified objects hovering and flying near Navy vessels sparked a sweeping, high-level investigation. The Navy, working with the FBI and Coast Guard, now appears to have ruled out civilian activity or U.S. military operations as...