Free Republic

It could be the end of the line for the "train to nowhere." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has released a scathing report exposing what he said is the unfeasibility of California's long-troubled high-speed rail project — and is threatening to pull the plug on a plan that already has the federal government on the hook for $6.9 billion while Californians are underwriting an additional $9 billion. Duffy said that the federal government is moving to terminate around $4 billion it has currently obligated to the project unless the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) can prove it is tenable. He blasted...

Progressive California Rep. Maxine Waters' campaign has agreed to pay a $68,000 fine after an investigation found it violated multiple election rules.The Federal Election Commission (FEC) said the longtime House lawmaker's 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, ran afoul of several campaign finance laws in a tranche of documents released Friday.The FEC accused Citizens for Waters of "failing to accurately report receipts and disbursements in calendar year 2020," "knowingly accepting excessive contributions" and "making prohibited cash disbursements," according to one document that appears to be a legally binding agreement that allows both parties to avoid going to court.

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ congressional campaign has been fined $68,000 for violating several federal campaign finance laws during her 2020 reelection bid. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) recently published investigation documents showing Waters’ 2020 campaign committee, Citizens for Waters, understated contributions and spending by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Waters campaign has agreed to pay the fine and “send its treasurer to a commission sponsored training program for political committees,” nonpartisan campaign finance research group OpenSecrets reported. Waters’ 2020 campaign accepted $19,000 worth of excessive contributions throughout 2019 and 2020, and made $7,000 worth of “prohibited cash disbursements”...

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass used Walter Lopes’ Pacific Palisades home as a prop to pat herself on the back for helping the neighborhood rebuild after the January wildfires. But The Post can reveal that Lopes’ house is the only structure standing for blocks and blocks in the charred, desolate neighborhood. And even he isn’t buying Bass’s narrative that rebuilding is going swiftly and smoothly. Lopes said he was only able to get started so quickly because he was rebuilding his house exactly as it was constructed just a few years ago — and he’s shelled out millions of...

A doctor in the south-central region of Los Angeles County is calling it quits after years of battling denizens of a rooftop homeless encampment that have continuously terrorized her and her employees, costing the general practitioner tens of thousands of dollars in the process. Dr. Tahani Soliman owns the building she runs her practice out of on the corner of Rugby and Zoe avenues in Huntington Park. A multi-level parking garage next door to her practice has reportedly been a hub for unhoused people, who are easily able to access her roof, camp out, steal electricity and scrap metal from...

Nothing captures the hate experienced during another term of President Donald Trump more starkly than the victimization of transgender people.

Low incentives and complicated state regulations, combined with high housing and business costs, have rendered California unable to keep Hollywood from moving production to other states and countries, according to an entertainment industry report released on May 27 by the Milken Institute, a California-based think tank.Hollywood’s in-state production has dropped in the past two years as other states and international destinations continue to increase industry incentives, according to the report’s authors, Kevin Klowden, executive director for the Milken Institute Finance, and Madeleine Waddoups, a graduate teaching assistant in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California–Los Angeles.The...

"For months, LA fire victims have been asking: where did the $100M from the FireAid concerts go? I followed the money — and it leads to a shadowy nonprofit called the Annenberg Foundation. Let’s just say the rabbit hole gets dark — fast." 5149jamesli X (3 min. video)

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass is catching heat for her claims that new homes are springing up across the Pacific Palisades just months after wildfires leveled the neighborhood. “Karen Bass is full of crap,” Pacific Palisades resident Sara Trepanier, a physician and single mom of four who lost her home to the devastating blaze in January, told The Post Tuesday. Trepanier’s candid words come just a day after Bass proclaimed on X that “homes are under construction throughout the Palisades,” lauding her efforts to “cut red tape” on building permits and “get families home.

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass is catching heat for her claims that new homes are springing up across the Pacific Palisades just months after wildfires leveled the neighborhood. “Karen Bass is full of crap,” Pacific Palisades resident Sara Trepanier, a physician and single mom of four who lost her home to the devastating blaze in January, told The Post Tuesday. Trepanier’s candid words come just a day after Bass proclaimed on X that “homes are under construction throughout the Palisades,” lauding her efforts to “cut red tape” on building permits and “get families home.”

Parents across the political spectrum are up in arms after San Francisco's school district announced a new plan that will see pass marks lowered. Superintendent of Schools Maria Su unveiled the new 'Grading for Equity' plan last night that will scrap homework and weekly testing, and allow students to pass with scores as low as 41 - down from the current pass mark of 61. It comes after left-wing activists argued that homework and testing disproportionately affects students from poorer backgrounds and creates an uneven playing field. But even liberals pushed back against the new policy. Ro Khanna, a Democratic...

The New York Times published a hard-hitting report, Sunday, laying out the ways in which President Donald Trump has monetized his office. But the Gray Lady didn’t exactly let Democrats off the hook Sunday — as they also ran a devastating feature on the party’s efforts to win back young male voters. In the piece — written by national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher — some brutal details were reported about the Democratic party’s efforts to bring young men back into the fold. “Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters,...

Top Democratic operatives and donors have been hobnobbing in “luxury hotels” while trying to figure out why the party is shedding men and the working class — moves that have liberals have slammed as out of touch. In one instance, liberal super PAC Future Forward hosted a gathering in the Ritz-Carlton resort in wealthy Half Moon Bay, California, to apprise donors on what went wrong in 2024. Prominent figures such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) were reported in attendance. Some of the elite gatherings featured appetizers like short-rib tostones, mini lobster rolls, beef...

Officers had to form a skirmish line to clear a large mob that vandalized a Metro train, a police car and several businesses in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was fuming Thursday as Congress passed a repeal of California’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, which relied on a special waiver from the outgoing Biden administration in December. “Make America Smoggy Again,” he announced, sarcastically. The Senate voted 51-44 to repeal the waiver, after a bipartisan majority in the House had done the same, as Breitbart News reported earlier this month. The repeal relies on the Congressional Review Act, a Bill Clinton-era law that allows Congress to repeal regulations that are not presented to it for timely approval. Newsom says the waiver is exempt from review....

Leaders of California's Democratic Legislative Latino Caucus on Monday said everything should be considered in order to keep providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants, including a new tax on Californians.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for closing another prison as part of his newly revised budget proposal. If that happened, it would be the fifth state prison that was closed during the Newsom administration. The Criminal and Judicial Branch portion of the Democratic governor’s budget, presented on Wednesday and subject to legislative approval, called for $13.6 billion for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It also called for closing one of the state’s prisons by October 2026 to save an estimated $150 million. Newsom’s budget didn’t say which prison would be closed. In his budget, the governor noted...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the City of Turlock are continuing their funding fight over the Turlock-based homeless shelter, We Care. On Friday, Newsom wrote a letter to the city and expressed disappointment with their decision to reject allocating a single dollar. "It is imperative that the City reconsider its priorities and demonstrate the kind of collaborative, accountable, and solution-oriented leadership this crisis demands. Enough. Do your job," wrote Newsom. But Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak said she decided against approving the letter and dollar until the shelter took accountability. "This isn't about $1," Bublak said. "This is about ACCOUNTABILITY, and...

Daniel Alman from Squirrel Hill @DanielAlmanPGH #MotherJones says we know how to prevent #ForestFires from spreading, but the people who run #California have chosen to do the exact opposite. #ForestManagement #Wildfires #Environment #Environmentalism #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/12/a-century-of-fire-suppression-is-why-california-is-in-flames/

#MotherJones says we know how to prevent #ForestFires from spreading, but the people who run #California have chosen to do the exact opposite. #ForestManagement #Wildfires #Environment #Environmentalism #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming https://motherjones.com/environment/2017/12/a-century-of-fire-suppression-is-why-california-is-in-flames/