Free Republic

Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke (D) was indicted on bribery charges on Friday following a monthslong state investigation into a campaign finance scandal. Luke was accused of accepting campaign finance contributions in 2022 while she was a state lawmaker in exchange for securing funding for COVID-19 testing sites. A Hawaii grand jury returned a 12-count indictment charging Luke with criminal conspiracy to commit bribery and falsifying candidate committee reports among other charges, according to the state’s Department of the Attorney General. The Hill has reached out to Luke’s office for comment. The charges stem from allegations that Luke accepted at...

Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state’s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still...

A Sacramento County prosecutor has a difficult job: a duty to administer justice and not simply be an advocate for the politics and political pressures that exist in Sacramento. If mistakes are made by the prosecution, if a case is presented in haste to a judge, the scientific laboratory of the criminal courtroom can reject it. That appears to have happened on Tuesday when a Sacramento Superior Court judge declared a mistrial in the K Street mass shooting case focusing on the two surviving suspects of the 2022 incident in the urban core of California’s capital that killed six people,...

No-bid contracts require justification to the Department of General Services and public posting Gavin Newsom has a $6.2 million diaper problem. His administration awarded a no-bid contract to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit with longstanding ties to the Newsom administration. One of its co-CEOs, Norah Weinstein, also serves on the board of the California Partners Project, the nonprofit co-founded by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Then Newsom told Californians the deal had gone through “a competitive bidding process.” It had not. California’s own contracting database labels the $6.2 million deal “NON-COMPETITIVELY BID.” Newsom’s administration now says the governor was referring to the...

At least since New York passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) back in 2019, it has been clear that trouble has been coming for New York’s electrical grid. The CLCPA effectively prohibits construction of new fossil fuel power plants, even natural gas plants; and the old ones are aging and are forbidden to be replaced or upgraded. Supposedly, lots of wind and solar generators were going to be added to the system. But those have been slow to come and, more importantly, can’t be counted on to generate anything when you need them. In addition, new construction...

A California county that faced a $91 million budget gap this year has approved a sweeping reparations plan for black residents that calls for major changes to housing, education, healthcare and criminal justice — while leaving the door open to cash payments. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on June 30 to accept the comprehensive plan following more than two years of research and community engagement. The plan largely centers on institutional and policy changes rather than immediately handing out direct payments, though officials have not ruled out eventually putting cash in the hands of eligible residents. The...

Multiple street takeovers occurred overnight across in and around Los Angeles, according to video obtained by KTLA. Not many details surrounding the takeovers were available from law enforcement officials. At least four were captured on camera at the following locations: Carson: Main Street and Albertoni StreetWilmington/Carson: Lomita Boulevard and Figueroa Street Broadway-Manchester/Florence: Manchester Avenue and San Pedro StreetManhattan Beach/El Segundo: Sepulveda Boulevard and Rosecrans AvenueAt Main and Albertoni, dozens of cars were seen near the intersection as motorists not participating in the takeover maneuvered around the situation. Further video shows fireworks exploding and a fire being set on the street...

“Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) boasted that Minnesota liberals “defeated ICE’s racist terror campaign” in a cringey video trying to hop on a new TikTok-like trend — but the embattled lefty was swiftly roasted for her efforts. Plopped into a seat, “The Squad” member adjusted her blazer and fidgeted with a microphone as if she were about to be interviewed in the 10-second clip she shared Wednesday on Facebook. Omar, 43, took a deep breath as dramatic instrumental music played in the background. “Me preparing for the documentary on how we defeated ICE’s racist terror campaign in Minnesota,” she wrote...

Things just keep getting worse for the Democratic Party, and at this rate, they may need a new metaphor because "keeps getting worse" barely covers it anymore. We already told you the polls are tightening heading into the midterms in November, which was bad enough on its own. Now it turns out the party's situation is so much worse than we already know, and the people running the show apparently don’t want you to know just how bad it really is n a bizarre move, the Democratic National Committee required its senior leadership to sign non-disclosure agreements before a private...

Vice President JD Vance spoke to podcaster Joe Rogan on Wednesday about how California has declined under Gov. Gavin Newsom to the point that it gave him flashbacks to visiting a "third-world country." Vance recalled driving through a rough neighborhood in Los Angeles on his way to an elite Christmas party and was struck by the contrast between the two settings. "And I realized when I was there, you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of going to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti," he said, as Rogan chuckled. "Like super security, crazy wealth and privilege and...

They raised a stink. City Council members overwhelmingly voted Thursday to give themselves an 18% raise — a shamelessly self-serving move that comes after months of thwarted attempts to pass a fat pay hike. A veto-proof 42-6 vote approved the measure to inflate council salaries to $175,500, as well as hike Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pay to $305,800 a year, backdated to January — the start of new terms in office and the first day on the job for some lawmakers. The nay votes all came from Republicans and conservative Democrats, including Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens), who said he pushed for...

And just like that… lefty actress Cynthia Nixon will get to screen and recommend candidates to serve on the state’s highest court, The Post has learned. Nixon — who isn’t a lawyer but played one on the hit HBO show “Sex and the City” — was just appointed to serve on the Commission on Judicial Nomination by New York Chief Judge Rowan Wilson. The commission suggests and vets potential judges to the Court of Appeals. Nixon’s appointment runs through April 30, 2030. Most of the other dozen members of the panel are practicing lawyers or have law degrees. “The Commission’s...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has opened up a commanding lead over Republican Steve Hilton just weeks after the pair advanced from California’s primary, according to a new poll. The survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found Becerra leading Hilton by 25 percentage points, with 61% of likely voters backing the former health secretary compared to 36% for the ex-Fox News host turned Republican candidate. The results mark a dramatic shift from California’s June 2 blanket primary, when Becerra finished first with about 28.1% of the vote and Hilton followed closely behind with roughly 24.7% Support remained overwhelmingly...

Tim Walz offered a baffling response on Tuesday to the Trump administration deporting an illegal migrant convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl who was pardoned by the Minnesota governor last month. “Did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable,” Walz asked – days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed that he revoked the legal status of Tou Lue Vang, a 42-year-old from Laos. “Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day? And I want to be very clear, these are horrific crimes....

Californians are set to notice a major change the next time they stroll through a grocery store. State officials have ordered a sweeping overhaul of food packaging that will alter how millions shop. From July 1, food manufacturers and retailers across the Golden State will no longer be allowed to slap 'sell by' dates on most packaged foods sold to consumers, under a controversial new law aimed at tackling food waste and clearing up widespread confusion over expiration labels. The shake-up, which will be felt across supermarket shelves statewide, effectively strips out a long list of familiar date markings that...

The White House says it found these bizarre items at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History: — A sadomasochistic "crotch harness" — A "trans nonbinary" person's "chest binder" — Pages from a 6yo girl's diary in which she prays every night for male genitalia to grow

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed got a grilling from a lefty anchor Wednesday about whether he lied by describing himself as a physician despite lacking a current medical license. El-Sayed’s LinkedIn page describes him as a physician, and he claimed to be “a physician and epidemiologist” during an April debate. “You got attacked by your rivals for calling yourself a physician, not just a doctor, even though you don’t have a valid state medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician,” Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan pressed El-Sayed, questioning...

Before the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Lineage representatives lobbied City Hall over the rooftop solar array. The company says it was seeking a safer alternative to rapid shutdown devices. A year before a massive fire at a Boyle Heights cold storage building sent polluted smoke into surrounding communities, the operator of the facility came to Los Angeles City Hall with a request.Lineage asked about removing an emergency shutdown switch from the solar panels on the roof of the structure, according to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.A spokesperson for Lineage said that the company was inquiring about what...

Last year, we wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was done chasing criminals after we’d already handed them money. We said we were building something different — a prevention-first operation that would detect and stop fraud before the check cleared, not attempt to claw back lost funds years later. Skeptics had reason to doubt. Government agencies announce transformations all the time. The results usually don’t follow. So here are the numbers: In fiscal year 2025, Medicare savings from the prevention of fraud, waste and abuse hit $42 billion — an almost 60%...

An illegal alien child rapist from Laos who was set for deportation until Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the State Board of Pardons granted him clemency has been removed from the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News Digital. Rubio stepped in to terminate Tue Lue Vang's legal status in the U.S. and ensure that Walz's actions would not create roadblocks for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) removing him from the country. "Just weeks ago, a foreign child rapist was freed to once again endanger America's children after receiving a pardon from Minnesota Governor Tim...