Free Republic

Former Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), who recently retired from the House of Representatives after 27 years on the Hill, has announced she is running for the freshly vacated Mayor of Oakland, California position. This comes on the heels of Oakland’s most recent mayor, Sheng Thao, who voters recalled in November 2024, facing an indictment filed on January 17, 2025, on federal bribery and fraud charges. Lee strongly denounced Thao, albeit not by name, after the indictment’s announcement. The allegations contained in the criminal indictment are devastating. There should be no tolerance whatsoever for secret pay to play schemes that erode...

Why was the LA basin reprieved from the recent fires?

Renters who have taken in people displaced by the Los Angeles wildfires now have some eviction protections due to a new executive order. The new order, from Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, Jan. 17, prohibits landlords from evicting tenants who violate an occupancy provision of their lease because they are sheltering at least one person due to the ongoing emergency. “At a time when so many have been suddenly displaced, we need more housing and shelter than ever,” Newsom said in a statement. “Opening your place of residence to help shelter those in need is not only encouraged and generous,...

A once quietly prosperous city in California's bay area has been gripped by a crime wave. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program has named the city of Vallejo, just 30 miles outside San Francisco, as having one of the highest crime rates in the state. The problem has become so bad that frustrated residents have started a petition pleading with Governor Gavin Newsom to increase the police presence in the area. 'As a resident of Vallejo, I am deeply concerned about the safety of my community. Vallejo is currently experiencing an alarming increase in crime rates,' Paula Conley, 55, wrote...

When Stephen Miller met with Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago late last year, the 39-year-old Trump adviser was in a position of power that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Back then, Mr. Miller was a mere Senate staffer railing about the evils of immigration. Now he was holding forth on U.S. policy with the billionaire chief executive of Meta, a man he had vilified for years as a globalist bent on destroying the nation. The scale had flipped. Mr. Miller told Mr. Zuckerberg that he had an opportunity to help reform America, but it would be on President-elect Donald...

'We don't need a lesbian fire chief. We need someone competent.'

Experts have identified the brand-new threat that may further destroy the Golden State as Californians continue to lose their homes to hellish wildfires. At least 25 people have lost their lives and over 12,000 buildings have burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire - which has razed much of the Pacific Palisades, once a stunning coastal enclave home to the rich and famous. However, according to the US Geological Survey the worst is yet to come. As firefighters battle the flames and continue to diffuse them out, the federal agency claims landslides caused from burn scars left after the...

Apparently, California environmentalists wanted the dry brush and dead trees to accumulate.The Wall St. Journal just wrote,“for environmental conservation reasons, the state doesn’t typically remove brush”Original: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/how-l-a-bureaucracy-made-it-harder-to-clear-flammable-brush-683f953eArchive: https://archive.ph/GVK6JI disagree with this policy.But I don’t live in California.And I respect the right of California voters to adopt policies that I disagree with.I would be curious to hear a more detailed explanation from California environmentalists, voters, elected officials, policy makers, and other people about why they chose to adopt this policy.

rt 22 m 44 s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0xExQIy6k California leaders are speaking out about the LA Fires redevelopment plans, and we've got the latest updates. From rebuilding efforts to coastal building concerns, we're diving into the details of the proposed plans and what they could mean for the state's future. Stay informed about the latest developments in the LA Fires and what California leaders are saying about the tragedy going on right now. Get the inside scoop on the proposals, controversies, and more.

A man in a lunatic asylum shouted, “I am Napoleon.” Another man asked,, “How do you know?” The first patient said, “God told me!” Just then, a voice from another room shouted, “I did not!”The very real state of contemporary identity politics.Dr. Rick Levine, who likes to go by ‘Rachel’ and ‘Admiral’, and was made Assistant Health Secretary and an admiral by the Biden administration (which still couldn’t make him a woman) was deemed worthy of a high-profile exit interview at Politico since he will now leave office to pursue whatever it is men in admiral and female drag do.He...

He'll save the inedible bait fish, the weed that no one's ever heard of, elevate meritless executives, and kill the gas car. Those are the highest environmental aspirations of Gavin Newsom, the alleged visionary governor of California, whose distorted priorities have combined to create the conditions for LA Inferno 2025. As the smoke begins to clear, the cruel environy is dawning. Even now, the homeless LA gliteratti, who soon may be allowed to sift through the ashes of their homes in hopes of finding the gold coins that looters haven't dug up yet, wonder how they could have been so...

LOS ANGELES—Barry Josephson enjoyed a peaceful life in his hilltop home in the Pacific Palisades, save for one constant worry: the highly flammable brush that clogged the surrounding government-owned land. “We all take a risk living here,” the producer of films including “Enchanted” said. “But that land should be maintained.” There have been at least five fires in the area since Josephson moved there eight years ago. Most were fueled by brush, which consists of drought-resistant shrubs that burn easily and intensely. Impatient with government bureaucracy, including a $150 fee for permission to remove brush from state parkland, some of...

The most important thing to know about Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is that she is the first LGBTQ fire chief in the history of the Los Angeles Fire Department. It’s also the only thing worth knowing about the woman in charge while Los Angeles burned. Crowley’s status as the first LGBTQ fire chief appears at the top of her bio on the LAFD site. It’s what got her on the Kelly Clarkson show under the headline, “Meet LAFD’s First Female & LGBTQ+ Fire Chief” and made her one of the marshals of the Los Angeles Pride Parade (some...

The following is a press release issued by the Center for Biological Diversity: ....In response to a 2012 petition by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to protect the Clear Lake hitch — a large minnow found only in Northern California’s Clear Lake and its tributaries — as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

"Million Dollar Listing" star Josh Altman predicts the Pacific Palisades will never be same because he doesn't expect the majority of families will return. In a new interview with Fox News Digital, Altman explained how the Los Angeles fires have affected residents of the Southern California town and what the future looks like. He says his insurance agent told him that "90-plus percent of these people are heavily underinsured." Altman added, "I think 65-70% of the people do not go back to the Palisades or Malibu. I can just tell you from gauging all these calls that I'm getting where...

Since the wildfires (which, in my California childhood and girlhood, used to be called “forest fires”) broke out last week in Los Angeles, I have been living in a kind of anguish. It is not, of course, thankfully, the material agony faced by the millions of people now in a hellscape that used to be a paradise, or the unimaginable agony faced by the tens of thousands who have lost their homes and belongings. Mine is an intellectual misery, rather, as I watch something unfold that is clearly, to me at least, the latest Pearl Harbor in our history. It...

A group of Republican-led states filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging a ban announced by outgoing Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month on new offshore oil and gas development along most U.S. coastlines. The lawsuit seeks a reversal of Biden’s ban with declaratory and injunctive relief, according to a court filing that argued Biden did not have the authority to impose such a ban and that the power to do so rests with the U.S. Congress.

On January 15, 2025, three men entered two churches in Fairfax, Virginia, and began taking photos and videos of the properties. One of the men asked questions about the churches’ security systems, specifically whether their cameras could live-stream and if they were monitored continuously. When challenged by staff, the group left in a Lexus SUV. Their behavior, consistent with reconnaissance tactics often used to plan attacks, raised significant concerns among church leaders and law enforcement. This incident is not isolated. Just days earlier, a similar situation unfolded in Southern California, where individuals displayed nearly identical behavior, including taking photos and...

Every year, thousands of climbers test their skills on Mount Shasta, California’s fifth-highest peak and the second-highest volcano in the Cascade Range. In 2023, around 5,000 to 6,000 people attempted the roughly 14,180-foot climb to the summit, with about half reaching the top. In December, rangers from the U.S. Forest Service encountered an unexpected climber: a goose attempting to summit Mount Shasta. According to a Jan. 12 post on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest’s Facebook page, Forest Service rangers Nick Meyers and Eric Falconer of the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center were on routine patrol when they came upon “their first attempted...

State Farm will offer insurance renewals to Los Angeles residents it had planned to drop. In a major U-turn, the company said it would renew policies in the badly-hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood, alongside thousands more in Los Angeles county. However, the offer does not apply to policies that had already lapsed when the deadly fires started on January 7. In fact, California insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara urged coverage providers last week to suspend pending non renewals in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones. State Farm made the U-turn on Wednesday, a move first reported by The LA Times. Lara's office...