Free Republic

This year California legislators passed the largest gas tax increase in decades, a move which will hit the middle class the hardest. When middle class taxpayers got upset, Gov. Brown hit back, calling them "freeloaders" and invoking the "everyone has to pitch in for society!" talking points. Maybe they'd have more money if they weren't spending it on things people don't rely on the government to provide. One thing legislators have found the money for is anti-gun research. They call it "gun violence research," but make no mistake, there is only one acceptable outcome for the research. During the 2016...

University of California Santa Cruz administrators recently agreed to meet to all four demands lodged by a black student group who commandeered a campus building and would not leave until their conditions were met. But in addition to the four initial stipulations, the group made three other demands to the university, and it has warned UC Santa Cruz that it has four months to comply with these demands or “more Reclamations” will result. After three days of occupation by students of Kerr Hall, Chancellor George Blumenthal agreed to give all black and Caribbean-identified students a 4-year housing guarantee to live...

California Sen. Kamala Harris dropped a bomb on Saturday. “What the f*** is that?” the Democrat said at a public event held in San Francisco during a discussion of the House’s recent passage of a bill aimed at repealing and replacing Obamacare. Speaking with former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, Harris took a shot at Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican who drew fire this week when he said at a town hall that “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” “Like this guy, this congressman, you might as well say,...

Al Franken made a strong case for himself during the Gorsuch confirmation hearings, but in a last-minute surge, his Democrat Senate colleague Kamala Harris has stolen the crown (or dunce cap) from his grasp. The magnitude of this achievement should not be underestimated: after all, Franken is a man whose distinctive competence is beclowning himself. With this tweet, Senator Harris has achieved some sort of immortality: Judge Gorsuch has consistently valued legalisms over real lives. I won't support his nomination. https://t.co/7SLAOI6MXx — Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) March 24, 2017 Brian Anderson aptly sums up the message here: “Kamala Harris says she...

California Gov. Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump on Sunday for federal emergency assistance for the fourth time in just two months since the new administration took office, putting the nascent “CalExit” movement in a difficult position.

Violent crime increased in Los Angeles for the third straight year as police tried to stem a rash of homicides and gang-related shootings while dealing with a growing homeless population. With more than 290 people killed in the city this year, homicides also rose for the third year in a row. Still, the city remains far safer than a decade ago, when 480 people were killed and there were 46% more robberies than this year. According to statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department, robberies were up by 13%, aggravated assaults were up by 10% and rapes were down by...