Free Republic

Misery on the menu? California shoppers could soon be paying even more at the checkout line as a sweeping new state recycling measure threatens to send grocery prices soaring, with dairy manufacturers warning some businesses may be forced to shut down or flee the Golden State. Senate Bill 54 is now entering its first phase of implementation, with companies expected to receive their first bills as early as next month, reported SFGATE. The measure aims to reduce landfill waste by making manufacturers financially responsible for the packaging they sell after it is thrown away. It charges companies impact fees on...

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...

A Southern California company just received approval to test a space mirror that would reflect sunlight to dark parts of planet Earth. The Federal Communications Commission issued a license on Thursday to Reflect Orbital, an energy company based in Hawthorne. The license officially allows Reflect Orbital to launch its Earendil-1 satellite using frequencies in UHF, S-band and X-band for “telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) and data downlink to support deployment and testing of a solar reflector.” Reflect Orbital will only be allowed to deploy one satellite at a time for now, the license states. “Earendil-1 will use a deployable, highly...

In Mayor Karen Bass’s Los Angeles, the rule of law is separate and not equal when it comes to street food — with illegal immigrants and rogue vendors getting a free pass on violations while citizen restaurateurs and licensed food stands are subjected to fines, high costs, burdensome regulations, and even closures. In short, L.A. and the surrounding counties have two sets of rules. Other progressively-run cities like New York and Minneapolis also are catering to “vulnerable” and undocumented immigrant street vendors. But California is leading the way in sanctuary food practices. The Los Angeles County Health Department, citing immigration...

There’s a new agency in California that promises to “protect consumers, support honest businesses, and advance affordability for Californians.” If Vegas were to give odds, they would be heavily against any of those ever occurring. It’s called the California Business and Consumer Services Agency, and it’s a cabinet-level department headed by Rohit Chopra, who was sworn in on July 1. It already has a bureaucratic acronym: BCSA. Catchy, isn’t it? Chopra promises his office “will sharpen and accelerate work to promote economic growth and protect the public from abuses.” Let us translate that from California-government-speak. What it really means...

Eric Swalwell launched a campaign of threats and intimidation to stop the sordid details of his alleged rape and sexual assaults from being spread wide. Records obtained by The California Post show the disgraced politician used a team of high-powered lawyers to fire off legal threats to a rival campaign in an effort to suppress rape and sexual assault allegations — just weeks before his own campaign imploded over those same claims. Attorneys representing Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter on March 20 to Ryan Hughes — general counsel for progressive billionaire Tom Steyer’s campaign — accusing him of...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A Bay Area goat landscaping company says it could be forced out of business if changes are not made to a new state law that would significantly increase compensation costs for goat herders. Green Goat Landscapers in Gilroy, which uses about 1,000 goats to clear vegetation that can fuel wildfires, said the law could threaten the future of grazing operations that play a role in wildfire prevention across the state. "We really provide a needed service, and it benefits all of California. Goats go where people and machines can't go, and that really reduces that...

SACRAMENTO, CA — Following reports that activists were pushing the introduction of Black English in California preschools, Governor Gavin Newsom proudly proclaimed: "We finna teach da' homies Black English, yo!" The California governor confirmed that he has many black friends and, as such, wanted to make Black English a centerpiece to every child's educational experience. "Because we want every child to learn to communicate with our black brothers and sisters, ya dig?" he said. California Department of Education officials were initially hesitant to add Black English to the preschool curriculum, but completely caved once Newsom showed how fluent he was...

Californians will have to pay for two new taxes next year after Gov. Gavin Newsom approved the state budget in June in what the California Taxpayers Association described as “the largest tax increase in state history.” Newsom and Democratic lawmakers agreed on proposals that would raise health insurance premiums and slap a new charge on software downloads in an effort to make up federal revenue loss from an antagonistic Trump administration, Democrats said. Republicans blasted the new taxes. “Record spending does not equate to better quality of life, and anyone living in California for the last decade would likely agree....

The California DMV has warned about 11,000 drivers that “testing anomalies” could void their written exams.Those notified must retake the test within 30 days or risk losing their licenses. Thousands of Californians have received letters from the Department of Motor Vehicles informing them that irregularities were found in their written test results and that they will lose their licenses unless they retake the exam within 30 days. The letters have left many Californians scratching their heads as to what went wrong and scrambling to reschedule their tests to ensure they don’t lose the ability to drive. “It’s a major headache...

There is a word for demanding tens of thousands of dollars from a man before you’ll give him back what you took from him. That word is extortion. But in Los Angeles, when the thing taken is a house, the state calls it a landlord-tenant dispute and tells the victim to hire a lawyer. That single act of miscategorization, repeated thousands of times across California, has built an entire criminal industry, and the people who investigate it for a living are now begging the city to admit what everyone already knows. Former LAPD Lt. Moses Castillo and veteran private investigator...

A Gavin Newsom-run commission has handed over a spectacular 136-acre California beach back to three Indigenous tribes. Blues Beach and the Mendocino County bluffs will be handed over to a tribal nonprofit group, Kai Poma, which represents the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. The historic June 26 move is the first time the California Department of Transportation has returned land back to the Indigenous people, The Los Angeles Times reported. 'This is beyond huge,' J Carlos Rivera, the Sherwood Valley tribal chairman, told The LA Times. 'It's enormous...

A year after a University of California, Berkeley professor was killed during a custody dispute in Greece, his family says they're fighting to try to get alleged squatters out of his East Bay home. The family of Przemyslaw Jeziorski said the alleged squatters have been living in the Berkeley home for months, but California's eviction process has made removing them far more complicated. Jeziorski was shot and killed in Greece last July in the middle of a custody battle. The boyfriend of Jeziorski's ex-wife later confessed to the shooting. Jeziorski's ex-wife, Nadia Michelidaki, died by suicide in a Greek prison...

The FBI had a mole inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political orbit before the agency’s corruption probe expanded into the governor and his wife, The Post has learned. Democrat insider Alexis Podesta, 45, secretly recorded conversations during the criminal probe into Newsom’s then-chief of staff, Dana Williamson, 53, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud and tax charges in May, according to Williamson’s attorney. The revelation she was wearing a wire as far back as June 2024 explains why a swath of Sacramento political insiders and lobbyists were stunned to receive FBI letters last fall informing them that their phone calls had...

A radical, Israel-hating California teacher claimed she married a Gaza resident online to help him gain American citizenship — and push her pro-Palestinian agenda. Laura Pinho, a dance teacher at Canoga Park Senior High School in California, announced her nuptials in a wild June 16 CODEPINK Zoom webinar called “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools.” When CODEPINK activist Marcy Winograd congratulated her on her marriage and asked her to share details about her life, Pinho, 51, launched into a pedantic monologue about how she only married Salem S.E. Abu Amra to advance “Palestinian rights and freedoms.” “I have power as an...

SACRAMENTO, CA — Governor Gavin Newsom opened up his laptop and fired up ChatGPT this morning to find out what his political positions will be this week. The day after proposing a billionaire tax while simultaneously working to defeat a billionaire tax, Newsom checked in with ChatGPT for further guidance on what to do next. "Okay, Chat. What do I believe today?," typed Newsom. "Let's maybe talk law enforcement. Is it good or bad right now? I could go either way, to be honest. What's the vibe out there on the streets about criminals? What's the scuttlebutt?" Newsom has bragged...

VIDEO AT LINK........... Last night, it became certain that a wealth tax would be placed on the November ballot in California. I’m voting no. And I’m going to spend the rest of this piece telling you why, and what we should be doing instead. When 10% of the people in this country own two-thirds of the wealth, when we have minted the first trillionaire in human history, and yet your wages have stagnated, and your healthcare costs have skyrocketed, something is fundamentally broken. Over the decades, the American economy has been engineered for the very top, a story as old...

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) introduced legislation on Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $25 per hour through phased increases. The bill, titled the Living Wage for All Act, includes a companion measure in the House led by Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Illinois). It aims to phase in the increase, starting with an initial jump to $12 per hour, reaching $25 over several years. Larger employers would face a shorter compliance timeline of about six years, while smaller businesses would receive up to 13 years. The proposal would also eliminate subminimum wages for tipped workers, youth employees,...

Californians can expect a wave of changes this summer, from classroom policies to grocery store shelves, as a slate of new laws takes effect.

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) responded to Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) proposal to raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour by saying that “I’m delighted that Sen. Murphy is talking about this and I think the voting record of a lot of us, the Democrats that had led on this before is we’re willing to do it, it was $15, plus inflation adjustments.” Co-host Joe Mathieu asked, “I want to ask you, quickly, with our small amount of time remaining here, Congressman, if you think raising the minimum wage would help. …...